America, Don't Be Ashamed of Jesus!
"I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes" (Romans 1:16).
A few months ago Charles Darwin, often called "the Father of Evolution," died, he was visited by Lady Hope. In a signed statement this titled English woman tells how she found the scientist, who had flatly denied Scripture, propped up in his bed, reading the very Book he had attacked, the Bible. Calmly, yet forcefully he spoke on the guidance offered by the sacred Volume. He bemoaned the fact that people had accepted his theories regarding man's origin as assured truth. Then he suddenly asked Lady Hope: "I have a summer house in the garden which holds almost thirty people...Tomorrow afternoon I should like the servants on the place, some tenants, and a few neighbors to gather there. Will you speak to them?" "What shall I speak about?" Lady Hope inquired. Clearly, emphatically he replied, "Jesus Christ and His salvation," adding in a lower tone, "Is not that the best theme?" Thus, with death approaching, did Charles Darwin, evolutionist and denier of the Bible, acclaim the Lord Jesus.
This same eleventh hour seeking refuge in Christ occurs every day along the far-flung battle lines of the Second World War. Why is it that a sailor from a torpedoed ship, rescued after floating eighteen days off Australia, cries out, "You can't be an atheist on a rubber raft!" Why was it that when the Japanese bombardment began, soldiers on Corregidor, even those otherwise irreligious, fell on their knees before God? Why, during a recent blackout, did New York hotel guests telephone the desk for Bibles? Must we not conclude that, as danger and death approach, men usually banish their boasting ridicule of religion and humble themselves before their Maker?
How tragic, then, that even the disasters of war have not thus shocked all our people into a sense of utter dependence on Christ! Masses are crowding bars, night clubs, and places of sinful amusement, while across the Pacific American soldiers daily lay down their lives. Millions, with fatter pay envelopes than they have ever received before, are drinking, gambling, and carousing, while the sea daily takes its toll in the flower of American youth. We dare not permit pleasure to go on as usual. In this critical hour we need serious thought and especially a humble, prayerful return to the Lord. Therefore, though unbelievers reject Christ, skeptics question His Gospel, paganized thinkers ridicule His promises, atheists deride His holy name, proud sinners spurn His mercy, the cry must be:
Glory in His gospel! Confess Him courageously! That loyalty to the Saviour marked the mightiest of all apostles, Paul, who exclaimed (Romans, chapter one, verse sixteen), "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth" - heroic words which I give you not only as the text but also as the motto for a Christ-centered life.
1. WE HAVE REASON TO GLORIFY HIS GOSPEL
It took magnificent courage for Paul to write the first Christians in the ghettos and slums of Rome, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ!" and it required marvelous strength of faith for the apostles and those early disciples, surrounded by the pomp and display of imperial Rome, to stand up for Jesus and confess publicly that they were followers of a lowly Nazarene, who in distant, despised Galilee had died on the Cross as a criminal. The declaration "I am a Christian" often meant the death sentence, even as Paul paid his loyalty with his life.
How much easier it is for us to champion the crucified Saviour! Thank God, we live in a country, founded by believers, that still grants full religious liberty! Thank God, we can read the records of nineteen centuries during the Gospel has mightily changed men's hearts, just as it has lifted nations from the depths of vice and degradation, transformed cannibals into humble believers, and, in short, enriched the world with its highest, noblest blessings.
Despite all this the very word, gospel" is misunderstood, misapplied, and misinterpreted. A Minnesota architect maintains that, though most people in our country repeatedly use the word "gospel," they actually do not have a personal understanding of its meaning. Glibly men mention "the gospel of communism," "the gospel of hatred," "the gospel of internationalism," and a hundred other "gospels." Pointedly Paul warned, "Though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed!" Yet false gospels have crept into churches; political gospels, social gospels, ethical gospels all as far from our Lord's saving Gospel as blackest night is from brightest noon. Why do we not stop such misuse? Why do we not restrict this precious word "gospel" to its original, true, and sacred sense? In the same way, we believe, many hear the names "Jesus" and "Christ," the words "redemption," "atonement," "salvation," and fail to grasp their full, deep, true, wealth of comfort.
~William Maier~
(continued with # 2)
Saturday, January 26, 2019
Payday Someday # 1
[R. G. Lee was the longtime pastor of the Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, TN. He pastored at Bellevue from 1927 - 1960. During his pastorate there, over 24,000 people joined the church, over 7,600 of these for baptism. Lee is best known for his sermon, "Payday Someday" which he preached over 1000 times. He was born in South Carolina and educated at Furman University in Greenville, SC. His style was literary but not deep biblically. He "painted pictures" with words and his preaching was eloquent and imaginative.]
Payday Someday # 1
"Arise, go down to meet Ahab, king of Israel, which is in Samaria: behold he is in the vineyard of Naboth, whither he is gone down to possess it. And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, "Thus saith the Lord, hast thou killed, and also taken possession? And thou shalt speak unto him saying, "Thus saith the Lord, in the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick the blood even thine..And of Jezebel also spake the Lord saying, The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreal" (1 Kings 21:18, 19:23).
I introduce you to Naboth. Naboth was a devout Israelite who lived in the town of Jezreal. Naboth was a good man. He abhorred that which is evil. He clave to that which is good. He would not dilute the stringency of his personal piety for any profit in money. He would not change his heavenly principles for loose expediencies. And this good man who loved God, his family and his nation, had a little vineyard which was close by the summer palace of Ahab, the king - a palace unique in its splendor as the first palace inlaid with ivory. This little vineyard had come to Naboth as a cherished inheritance from his forefathers - and all of it was dear to his heart.
I introduce you to Ahab, the vile human toad who squatted upon the throne of his nation - the worst of Israel's kings. King Ahab had command of a nation's wealth and a nation's army, but he had no command of his lusts and appetites. Ahab wore rich robes, but he had a sinning and wicked and troubled heart beneath them. He ate the finest food the world could supply - and this food was served to him in dishes supplied by servants obedient to his every beck and nod - but he had a starved soul. He lived in palaces sumptuous within and without, yet he lived nearly all of his life under the thumb of a wicked woman - a tool in her hands. Ahab pilloried himself in the contempt of all God-fearing men as a mean and selfish rascal who was the curse of his country. The Bible introduces him to us in words more appropriate than these when it says:
"But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife strirred up. And he did very abominably in following idols, according to all things as did the Amorites, whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel ... And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings that were before him" (1 Kings 21:25:26, 16:33).
I introduce you to Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal of Tyre (1 Kings 16:31), and wife of Ahab, the king of Israel - a king's daughter and a king's wife, the evil genius at once of her dynasty and of her country. Infinitely more daring and reckless was she in her wickedness than was her wicked husband. Masterful, indomitable, implacable, a devout worshiper of Baal, she hated anyone and everyone who spoke against or refused to worship her pagan god. As blunt in her wickedness and as brazen in her lewdness was she as Cleopatra, fair sorceress of the Nile. She had all the subtle and successful scheming of Lady Macbeth, all the adulterous desire and treachery of Potiphar's wife, all the boldness of Mary Queen of Scots, all the cruelty and whimsical impericousness of Katherine of Russia, all the devilish infamy of a Madame Pompadour, and, doubtless all the fascination of personality of a Josephine of France. Most of that which is bad in all evil women found the expression though this painted viper of Israel. She had that rich endowment of nature which a good woman ought always to dedicate to the service of her day and generation. But, alas! This idolatrous daughter of an idolatrous king of an idolatrous people engaging with her maidens in worship unto Ashtoeth - the personification of the most forbidding obscenity, uncleanness,and sensuality - became the evil genius who wrought wreck, brought blight and devised death. She was the beautiful and malicious adder coiled upon the throne of the nation.
~R. G. Lee~
(continued with # 2)
Payday Someday # 1
"Arise, go down to meet Ahab, king of Israel, which is in Samaria: behold he is in the vineyard of Naboth, whither he is gone down to possess it. And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, "Thus saith the Lord, hast thou killed, and also taken possession? And thou shalt speak unto him saying, "Thus saith the Lord, in the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick the blood even thine..And of Jezebel also spake the Lord saying, The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreal" (1 Kings 21:18, 19:23).
I introduce you to Naboth. Naboth was a devout Israelite who lived in the town of Jezreal. Naboth was a good man. He abhorred that which is evil. He clave to that which is good. He would not dilute the stringency of his personal piety for any profit in money. He would not change his heavenly principles for loose expediencies. And this good man who loved God, his family and his nation, had a little vineyard which was close by the summer palace of Ahab, the king - a palace unique in its splendor as the first palace inlaid with ivory. This little vineyard had come to Naboth as a cherished inheritance from his forefathers - and all of it was dear to his heart.
I introduce you to Ahab, the vile human toad who squatted upon the throne of his nation - the worst of Israel's kings. King Ahab had command of a nation's wealth and a nation's army, but he had no command of his lusts and appetites. Ahab wore rich robes, but he had a sinning and wicked and troubled heart beneath them. He ate the finest food the world could supply - and this food was served to him in dishes supplied by servants obedient to his every beck and nod - but he had a starved soul. He lived in palaces sumptuous within and without, yet he lived nearly all of his life under the thumb of a wicked woman - a tool in her hands. Ahab pilloried himself in the contempt of all God-fearing men as a mean and selfish rascal who was the curse of his country. The Bible introduces him to us in words more appropriate than these when it says:
"But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife strirred up. And he did very abominably in following idols, according to all things as did the Amorites, whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel ... And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings that were before him" (1 Kings 21:25:26, 16:33).
I introduce you to Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal of Tyre (1 Kings 16:31), and wife of Ahab, the king of Israel - a king's daughter and a king's wife, the evil genius at once of her dynasty and of her country. Infinitely more daring and reckless was she in her wickedness than was her wicked husband. Masterful, indomitable, implacable, a devout worshiper of Baal, she hated anyone and everyone who spoke against or refused to worship her pagan god. As blunt in her wickedness and as brazen in her lewdness was she as Cleopatra, fair sorceress of the Nile. She had all the subtle and successful scheming of Lady Macbeth, all the adulterous desire and treachery of Potiphar's wife, all the boldness of Mary Queen of Scots, all the cruelty and whimsical impericousness of Katherine of Russia, all the devilish infamy of a Madame Pompadour, and, doubtless all the fascination of personality of a Josephine of France. Most of that which is bad in all evil women found the expression though this painted viper of Israel. She had that rich endowment of nature which a good woman ought always to dedicate to the service of her day and generation. But, alas! This idolatrous daughter of an idolatrous king of an idolatrous people engaging with her maidens in worship unto Ashtoeth - the personification of the most forbidding obscenity, uncleanness,and sensuality - became the evil genius who wrought wreck, brought blight and devised death. She was the beautiful and malicious adder coiled upon the throne of the nation.
~R. G. Lee~
(continued with # 2)
Saturday, January 19, 2019
The Attraction of the Cross # 5
The Attraction of the Cross # 5
Missionaries, you noble hearted men, whom I feel myself unworthy to address, and whom we all regard, or ought to regard, not as the servants of our institution, but its respected and beloved agents in foreign countries; receive my congratulations upon the high honor to which you are called. Yours it is to follow in the train of the Redeemer's path and earth's best friends, next to apostles, evangelists, and martyrs. Learn from the subject of this discourse your exalted and unalterable duty. Your peculiar and almost exclusive business is to make manifest the savor of the knowledge of Christ in every place. "You are debtors both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, to the wise and to the unwise, so much as in you is, to be ready to preach the gospel of Christ." You go far hence to the heathen to make known the unsearchable riches of Christ. However you may sometimes, for relaxation, engage in the studies of natural history or local pursuits; this is your business - to preach the gospel. Seek to have your own minds filled with the glory, and your own hearts attracted by the influence of the Cross, until you burn with inextinguishable ardor to plant the holy standard on the loftiest ramparts of superstition. Take as your example the inspired missionary to the Gentiles, and determine in his spirit to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with might, for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, where you are going. Be faithful unto death. Never forsake your cause. When you are found among the slain, let your face be toward the foe, and no scar be seen upon your back; then will we tell the world that,
"When you fell, you fell like stars,
Streaming splendor through the sky."
Upon the congregation, the discourse which they have heard demands just and extensive claims. Behold the Lamb of God for yourselves, my hearers, with penitence, with prayer, and faith. Could you direct the eyes and hopes of millions to the Saviour, this would avail nothing for your salvation, in the absence of a personal application on your own behalf. Having first given yourselves to the Lord, then use every scriptural means for making Him known to the heathen. Be importunate in prayer that His kingdom may come, His "will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Believing prayer is the animating soul of the missionary cause. It is this which distinguishes it from every worldly combination, and elevates it far above the level of mere earthly institutions. Let this cease, and it sinks down from its own exalted rank, to take the place and share the fortune of all other human associations. Any increase of eloquence, funds, or patronage, which the cause of missions might acquire, when the spirit of prayer is departed, is only like the rigidity which the human body sometimes gains when the vital principle is extinct, or at best but as the swelling which precedes death.
"My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations;" and of which the top stone shall at length be brought forth, amidst the shouts of exulting spectators, crying, "Grace, grace unto it!" Stupendous and glorious edifice! its transept shall extend from the northern to the southern pole. Its choir shall rest upon the emp8ire of China, and its western window look out upon the waters of the great South Sea; while all the nations of the earth, attracted by the Cross which shines upon its dome, shall assemble within its mighty circumference, and amidst the sacred memorials of missionary institutions, and the monumental inscriptions of illustrious men occupying every niche, and hanging from every pillar, shall celebrate the jubilee of the world, and unite in the sublime anthem, "Hallelujah; salvation, and glory, and honor, and power unto the Lord our God! The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever! Worthy is the Lamb who was slain!"
While the ten thousand times ten thousand angels around the throne shall respond to the shouts of the redeemed on earth, "Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing!" And still the chorus shall swell, and still the strain shall wax louder and louder, "until every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, shall cry, Blessing, honor, glory, and power, be unto Him who sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, forever and ever! Amen! Amen!
~John Angell James~
(The End~
Missionaries, you noble hearted men, whom I feel myself unworthy to address, and whom we all regard, or ought to regard, not as the servants of our institution, but its respected and beloved agents in foreign countries; receive my congratulations upon the high honor to which you are called. Yours it is to follow in the train of the Redeemer's path and earth's best friends, next to apostles, evangelists, and martyrs. Learn from the subject of this discourse your exalted and unalterable duty. Your peculiar and almost exclusive business is to make manifest the savor of the knowledge of Christ in every place. "You are debtors both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, to the wise and to the unwise, so much as in you is, to be ready to preach the gospel of Christ." You go far hence to the heathen to make known the unsearchable riches of Christ. However you may sometimes, for relaxation, engage in the studies of natural history or local pursuits; this is your business - to preach the gospel. Seek to have your own minds filled with the glory, and your own hearts attracted by the influence of the Cross, until you burn with inextinguishable ardor to plant the holy standard on the loftiest ramparts of superstition. Take as your example the inspired missionary to the Gentiles, and determine in his spirit to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with might, for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, where you are going. Be faithful unto death. Never forsake your cause. When you are found among the slain, let your face be toward the foe, and no scar be seen upon your back; then will we tell the world that,
"When you fell, you fell like stars,
Streaming splendor through the sky."
Upon the congregation, the discourse which they have heard demands just and extensive claims. Behold the Lamb of God for yourselves, my hearers, with penitence, with prayer, and faith. Could you direct the eyes and hopes of millions to the Saviour, this would avail nothing for your salvation, in the absence of a personal application on your own behalf. Having first given yourselves to the Lord, then use every scriptural means for making Him known to the heathen. Be importunate in prayer that His kingdom may come, His "will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Believing prayer is the animating soul of the missionary cause. It is this which distinguishes it from every worldly combination, and elevates it far above the level of mere earthly institutions. Let this cease, and it sinks down from its own exalted rank, to take the place and share the fortune of all other human associations. Any increase of eloquence, funds, or patronage, which the cause of missions might acquire, when the spirit of prayer is departed, is only like the rigidity which the human body sometimes gains when the vital principle is extinct, or at best but as the swelling which precedes death.
"My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations;" and of which the top stone shall at length be brought forth, amidst the shouts of exulting spectators, crying, "Grace, grace unto it!" Stupendous and glorious edifice! its transept shall extend from the northern to the southern pole. Its choir shall rest upon the emp8ire of China, and its western window look out upon the waters of the great South Sea; while all the nations of the earth, attracted by the Cross which shines upon its dome, shall assemble within its mighty circumference, and amidst the sacred memorials of missionary institutions, and the monumental inscriptions of illustrious men occupying every niche, and hanging from every pillar, shall celebrate the jubilee of the world, and unite in the sublime anthem, "Hallelujah; salvation, and glory, and honor, and power unto the Lord our God! The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever! Worthy is the Lamb who was slain!"
While the ten thousand times ten thousand angels around the throne shall respond to the shouts of the redeemed on earth, "Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing!" And still the chorus shall swell, and still the strain shall wax louder and louder, "until every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, shall cry, Blessing, honor, glory, and power, be unto Him who sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, forever and ever! Amen! Amen!
~John Angell James~
(The End~
The Attraction of the Cross # 4
The Attraction of the Cross # 4
Conceive then, my hearers, the effect of this wonder of wonders upon the minds of the poor pagans, who, after having been conversant all their lives with nothing but the despicable ignorance of a barbarous state, hear for the first time of the death of the Son of God. "This this," said our missionary, Ebner, speaking of the wild Bushmen, "tis this that excites their admiration, melts them into tears, and breaks their hearts." If then, you would arrest the savage of the desert; if you would detain him from the chase; if you would rivet him to the spot, and hold him in the power of a spell that is altogether new to him - do not begin with cold abstractions of moral duties or theological truths; but tell him of Christ crucified, and you shall see his once vacant countenance enlivened by the feelings of a new and deep interest, and the teardrop glistening in the eye unused to weep; and shall witness the evil spirit departing out of the man, as he drops one by one from his hand, the murderous weapons with which he lately would have sought your life.
As an exhibition of unparalleded love, the Cross melts and captivates the heart. The Cross has been beautifully denominated the noon-tide of everlasting love, the meridian splendor of eternal mercy. The sacred writers never seem to labor so much for expression a when setting forth this mystery. "Herein, is love" - as if, until God gave His Son, men had never seen anything that deserved the name of love. John calls it the "manifestation of love" - as if nothing more now remained to be known of love in any age or any world. And Paul speaks of the Cross as the commendation of love, as if nothing more could now ever be said upon the subject. Jesus Christ, in describing this act of divine mercy, uses this remarkable emphasis, "God so loved the world," importing that this is a demonstration of love which will send rapturous surprise to the remotest world that Omnipotence has formed.
In short, all we can say of this love which was demonstrated at the Cross, is that it is ineffable; and that all we know of it, that it passes knowledge. Now, my brethren, there is a mighty power in love. He that knows all the mechanism of the human mind, has told us, that "the cords of love are the bands of a man." That heart, which wraps itself up in the covering of a stubborn and reckless despair against the attacks of severity, like the flower which closes its petals at the approach of the angry blast - will put forth all the better parts of its nature to the smiles of love, like the tendrils of the sea anemone, when it feels the first wave of the returning tide upon its native rock.
Think then of the attraction of the Cross - when the love which it exhibits is seen and felt by a mind under the influence of the Spirit of God. What was it,k my hearers, that melted your hard and frozen hearts into penitence, and gratitude, and love? What was it that drew you away from your sins? What was it that brought you as willing captives to the feet of Jesus? It was the love of God beseeching you upon the summit of Calvary, and with open arms bidding you welcome to the heart of Deity! Everything else united to repel you; the terrors of justice petrified you with horror, and despair was binding you more closely than ever to your sins - until divine mercy appeared and told you there was hope for the guilty - in the Cross of Christ!
One of the prevailing features of all idolatry is cruelty; and for this plain reason. When man lost the knowledge of God, he cast his deities in the mold of his own imagination, and animated them with the dispositions of his own heart. Go, Christian missionary, to the dark places of the earth, which are full of habitations of cruelty, and to those who have never associated any other idea with Deity than inexorable terror - proclaim that God is love; and by all the soft allurements of heavenly grace, draw them away from the hideous frowning objects of their homage - to the Father of Mercies.
As a system of meditation, it allays the fears of a guilty conscience, and draws the soul into confidence in God. History informs us that the greater part of the religion of all idolatrous nations, both ancient and modern, has consisted of denigrating rites of expiation - a plain proof, in my opinion, that no nation ever considered penitence and obedience to be sufficient to satisfy the demands of an offended deity. So far as the testimony of history and experience goes, the idea of "retributive justice", as an attribute of the Divine Being - seems far more easily deducible by a sinner, from the light of nature, than that of "free mercy". What, I ask, is the meaning of all those bloody sacrifices, and rites, and penances, which have been multiplied without number in the ritual of idolatry? They are the efforts of a guilty but blinded conscience, groping, in the hour of its extremity, after some atonement on which to roll the burden of its sins, and seeking some satisfaction to the justice it has offended, by which its fears may be allayed. How shall man be just with God?" Here, then, is the attraction of the Cross - it removes every obstacle out of the way of the sinner's approach to God; it puts an authorized and perfect satisfaction to God's justice in his hand, with which he may venture to the very throne, and gives him that boldness which arises from a perception that God has not more effectually provided for the sinner's salvation, than He has for the glory of His own attributes, government, and laws. In short, that God is both "just, and the justifier of him that believes in Jesus."
The doctrine of the Cross is the only certain method of improving the moral condition of the world. And what is it which, at this moment, is kindling the intellect, softening the manners, sanctifying the hearts and purifying the lives of the numerous sons of Ham? It is the faithful saying, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."
~John Angell James~
(continued with # 5)
Conceive then, my hearers, the effect of this wonder of wonders upon the minds of the poor pagans, who, after having been conversant all their lives with nothing but the despicable ignorance of a barbarous state, hear for the first time of the death of the Son of God. "This this," said our missionary, Ebner, speaking of the wild Bushmen, "tis this that excites their admiration, melts them into tears, and breaks their hearts." If then, you would arrest the savage of the desert; if you would detain him from the chase; if you would rivet him to the spot, and hold him in the power of a spell that is altogether new to him - do not begin with cold abstractions of moral duties or theological truths; but tell him of Christ crucified, and you shall see his once vacant countenance enlivened by the feelings of a new and deep interest, and the teardrop glistening in the eye unused to weep; and shall witness the evil spirit departing out of the man, as he drops one by one from his hand, the murderous weapons with which he lately would have sought your life.
As an exhibition of unparalleded love, the Cross melts and captivates the heart. The Cross has been beautifully denominated the noon-tide of everlasting love, the meridian splendor of eternal mercy. The sacred writers never seem to labor so much for expression a when setting forth this mystery. "Herein, is love" - as if, until God gave His Son, men had never seen anything that deserved the name of love. John calls it the "manifestation of love" - as if nothing more now remained to be known of love in any age or any world. And Paul speaks of the Cross as the commendation of love, as if nothing more could now ever be said upon the subject. Jesus Christ, in describing this act of divine mercy, uses this remarkable emphasis, "God so loved the world," importing that this is a demonstration of love which will send rapturous surprise to the remotest world that Omnipotence has formed.
In short, all we can say of this love which was demonstrated at the Cross, is that it is ineffable; and that all we know of it, that it passes knowledge. Now, my brethren, there is a mighty power in love. He that knows all the mechanism of the human mind, has told us, that "the cords of love are the bands of a man." That heart, which wraps itself up in the covering of a stubborn and reckless despair against the attacks of severity, like the flower which closes its petals at the approach of the angry blast - will put forth all the better parts of its nature to the smiles of love, like the tendrils of the sea anemone, when it feels the first wave of the returning tide upon its native rock.
Think then of the attraction of the Cross - when the love which it exhibits is seen and felt by a mind under the influence of the Spirit of God. What was it,k my hearers, that melted your hard and frozen hearts into penitence, and gratitude, and love? What was it that drew you away from your sins? What was it that brought you as willing captives to the feet of Jesus? It was the love of God beseeching you upon the summit of Calvary, and with open arms bidding you welcome to the heart of Deity! Everything else united to repel you; the terrors of justice petrified you with horror, and despair was binding you more closely than ever to your sins - until divine mercy appeared and told you there was hope for the guilty - in the Cross of Christ!
One of the prevailing features of all idolatry is cruelty; and for this plain reason. When man lost the knowledge of God, he cast his deities in the mold of his own imagination, and animated them with the dispositions of his own heart. Go, Christian missionary, to the dark places of the earth, which are full of habitations of cruelty, and to those who have never associated any other idea with Deity than inexorable terror - proclaim that God is love; and by all the soft allurements of heavenly grace, draw them away from the hideous frowning objects of their homage - to the Father of Mercies.
As a system of meditation, it allays the fears of a guilty conscience, and draws the soul into confidence in God. History informs us that the greater part of the religion of all idolatrous nations, both ancient and modern, has consisted of denigrating rites of expiation - a plain proof, in my opinion, that no nation ever considered penitence and obedience to be sufficient to satisfy the demands of an offended deity. So far as the testimony of history and experience goes, the idea of "retributive justice", as an attribute of the Divine Being - seems far more easily deducible by a sinner, from the light of nature, than that of "free mercy". What, I ask, is the meaning of all those bloody sacrifices, and rites, and penances, which have been multiplied without number in the ritual of idolatry? They are the efforts of a guilty but blinded conscience, groping, in the hour of its extremity, after some atonement on which to roll the burden of its sins, and seeking some satisfaction to the justice it has offended, by which its fears may be allayed. How shall man be just with God?" Here, then, is the attraction of the Cross - it removes every obstacle out of the way of the sinner's approach to God; it puts an authorized and perfect satisfaction to God's justice in his hand, with which he may venture to the very throne, and gives him that boldness which arises from a perception that God has not more effectually provided for the sinner's salvation, than He has for the glory of His own attributes, government, and laws. In short, that God is both "just, and the justifier of him that believes in Jesus."
The doctrine of the Cross is the only certain method of improving the moral condition of the world. And what is it which, at this moment, is kindling the intellect, softening the manners, sanctifying the hearts and purifying the lives of the numerous sons of Ham? It is the faithful saying, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."
~John Angell James~
(continued with # 5)
Saturday, January 12, 2019
The Attraction of the Cross # 3
The Attraction of the Cross # 3
The divinity of Christ's person, as constituting the value of His atoning sacrifice, appears to me to be an essential part of this system of truth. While the hope of a guilty world can rest nowhere else than on an atonement, that in its turn, can be supported by nothing short of the Rock of Ages - and hence it is that these two are so often exhibited in the Word of God in close connection with each other. It was He "who was in the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God, that humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross." It was He "who was before all things, and by whom all things are held together, who made peace through the blood of the Cross." It was He "who was the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of His person, and who upholds all things by the word of His power, that by Himself purged our sins." It should not be overlooked,k how closely connected with the divinity of Christ, and how dependent upon it, is the success of the cause of missions. This cause with all which it involves, is supported by the power of Jesus. "The pleasure of the Lord is in His hand." "The government is upon His shoulders." "The Father has made him to be head over all things to His church." "All power in heaven and earth is given to Him." Do we, then, depend for success upon the energies of a mere creature? Is it an arm of flesh alone that we must look to for support and conquest? Then, indeed, may we sound the "signal of retreat" to our missionaries, dissolve our society, and abandon the field of conflict to satan. But we have not so learned Christ; we believe Him to be the omnipotent and the omniscient God. In Him we trust, and shall not be ashamed.
Essential to the doctrine of the Cross is the gratuitous manner in which its blessings are bestowed. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life." "It is by faith that it might be by grace." Leave out the justification of the soul by faith alone, and you send to the heathen but a lying resemblance of the Cross. And to complete the scriptural view of this sublime compendium of truth, it is necessary we should include its moral tendency and design as respects the heart and conduct of those by whom it is received. "I am crucified," said the Apostle, "with Christ," earnestly desiring, "that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings; being made conformable unto His death."
It is not one of these, but all of them combined, which form the doctrine of the Cross. Take any of them away and the arch is destroyed, all the rest sink together to the dust, a mass of splendid ruins, a heap of crumbling fragments. Without the atonement, the fact of the crucifixion appears to me, a dark unintelligible inexplicable spot upon the page of revelation, connecting nothing, supporting nothing, explaining nothing. The atonement without the deity of Christ, lacks both the impress and the value to secure for it confidence; and acceptance of the atonement and the deity of Christ, without the justification of the soul by faith, leaves the system without any link which can connect it with the experience of the sinner; while all together would be of no avail in his salvation, unless they secured his sanctification.
2. I shall now illustrate the various POWERS OF ATTRACTION which the doctrine of the Cross exerts. The stupendous fact of the Cross, arrests and fixes the attention. The human mind, especially in its cruder states, where there is such a preponderance of "imagination" over "reason", is much more easily and powerfully wrought upon by a narration of facts than a statement of principles. And the whole fabric of Christianity, both as to doctrine and duties, is founded upon a fact; and that fact, drawn out into details more touching and tender than can be found in any real history or in any romance. The life and the death of the "man of sorrows," unites to all the sobriety and power of truth - the fascination of fiction. The veiled splendor of His deity, occasionally bursting through its thin disguise, and irradiating the gloom of His poverty; the extremity of His sufferings, and the heart-affecting meekness with which He bore them; the perfection of His virtues, together with the unrelenting cruelty of His enemies; the mysterious combination of glory and humility in His person and life; the garden of Gethsemane; the scenes of Pilate's hall, and the mount of Calvary - give a magic power to the story of the Cross!
But when we thus know that this was the incarnation and crucifixion of the Son of God for a world of sinners - we arrive at the pinnacle of all that is marvelous, and interesting, and sublime! History in its most extraordinary narrations, and imagination in its loftiest flights, are both left infinitely behind. When with devout contemplation we have been engaged in surveying this stupendous fact, we feel, in turning away to other objects, just as the man does who has been gazing upon the unclouded sun, so dazzled with excess or light, as to perceive no other object, whatever its magnitude or splendor. We no longer wonder at the researches of the prophets, nor feel any surprise that the angels should leave every fountain of celestial knowledge to look upon the Cross.
~John Angell James~
(continued with # 4)
The divinity of Christ's person, as constituting the value of His atoning sacrifice, appears to me to be an essential part of this system of truth. While the hope of a guilty world can rest nowhere else than on an atonement, that in its turn, can be supported by nothing short of the Rock of Ages - and hence it is that these two are so often exhibited in the Word of God in close connection with each other. It was He "who was in the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God, that humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross." It was He "who was before all things, and by whom all things are held together, who made peace through the blood of the Cross." It was He "who was the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of His person, and who upholds all things by the word of His power, that by Himself purged our sins." It should not be overlooked,k how closely connected with the divinity of Christ, and how dependent upon it, is the success of the cause of missions. This cause with all which it involves, is supported by the power of Jesus. "The pleasure of the Lord is in His hand." "The government is upon His shoulders." "The Father has made him to be head over all things to His church." "All power in heaven and earth is given to Him." Do we, then, depend for success upon the energies of a mere creature? Is it an arm of flesh alone that we must look to for support and conquest? Then, indeed, may we sound the "signal of retreat" to our missionaries, dissolve our society, and abandon the field of conflict to satan. But we have not so learned Christ; we believe Him to be the omnipotent and the omniscient God. In Him we trust, and shall not be ashamed.
Essential to the doctrine of the Cross is the gratuitous manner in which its blessings are bestowed. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life." "It is by faith that it might be by grace." Leave out the justification of the soul by faith alone, and you send to the heathen but a lying resemblance of the Cross. And to complete the scriptural view of this sublime compendium of truth, it is necessary we should include its moral tendency and design as respects the heart and conduct of those by whom it is received. "I am crucified," said the Apostle, "with Christ," earnestly desiring, "that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings; being made conformable unto His death."
It is not one of these, but all of them combined, which form the doctrine of the Cross. Take any of them away and the arch is destroyed, all the rest sink together to the dust, a mass of splendid ruins, a heap of crumbling fragments. Without the atonement, the fact of the crucifixion appears to me, a dark unintelligible inexplicable spot upon the page of revelation, connecting nothing, supporting nothing, explaining nothing. The atonement without the deity of Christ, lacks both the impress and the value to secure for it confidence; and acceptance of the atonement and the deity of Christ, without the justification of the soul by faith, leaves the system without any link which can connect it with the experience of the sinner; while all together would be of no avail in his salvation, unless they secured his sanctification.
2. I shall now illustrate the various POWERS OF ATTRACTION which the doctrine of the Cross exerts. The stupendous fact of the Cross, arrests and fixes the attention. The human mind, especially in its cruder states, where there is such a preponderance of "imagination" over "reason", is much more easily and powerfully wrought upon by a narration of facts than a statement of principles. And the whole fabric of Christianity, both as to doctrine and duties, is founded upon a fact; and that fact, drawn out into details more touching and tender than can be found in any real history or in any romance. The life and the death of the "man of sorrows," unites to all the sobriety and power of truth - the fascination of fiction. The veiled splendor of His deity, occasionally bursting through its thin disguise, and irradiating the gloom of His poverty; the extremity of His sufferings, and the heart-affecting meekness with which He bore them; the perfection of His virtues, together with the unrelenting cruelty of His enemies; the mysterious combination of glory and humility in His person and life; the garden of Gethsemane; the scenes of Pilate's hall, and the mount of Calvary - give a magic power to the story of the Cross!
But when we thus know that this was the incarnation and crucifixion of the Son of God for a world of sinners - we arrive at the pinnacle of all that is marvelous, and interesting, and sublime! History in its most extraordinary narrations, and imagination in its loftiest flights, are both left infinitely behind. When with devout contemplation we have been engaged in surveying this stupendous fact, we feel, in turning away to other objects, just as the man does who has been gazing upon the unclouded sun, so dazzled with excess or light, as to perceive no other object, whatever its magnitude or splendor. We no longer wonder at the researches of the prophets, nor feel any surprise that the angels should leave every fountain of celestial knowledge to look upon the Cross.
~John Angell James~
(continued with # 4)
The Attraction of the Cross # 2
The Attraction of the Cross # 2
But we being of one mind with Paul, and looking upon the souls of mankind in the light which his inspired writings have thrown upon their destiny, have imbibed his temper, and feel our spirits grieved within us, over the multitudes that are given to idolatry. We cannot help thinking that men without Christ are in the very depths of misery, though they may stand in other respects upon the summit of civilization, literature, and science; and for such an opinion we can plead the authority of the apostle, who, as we have seen, bewailed a city of philosophers with more intense and piercing grief than any of us ever did a horde of idolatrous savages.
Here, then, is the object of our zeal - to bring to Christ those who are afar off. "To turn men from dumb idols to serve the living and the true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven." To induce them, by the power of persuasion, in humble dependence upon the blessing of God, to renounce all their systems of error for the revelation of Christ as our divine Prophet; to abandon their rites, sacrifices, and penances, for his one oblation as our great High Priest; and to forsake their wicked customs and immoral habits, for obedience to His laws as King in Zion. In fact, to accomplish in the happy experience of the heathen, the descriptions which the pen of prophecy has given of the Messiah and His Kingdom; to achieve the victory announced in the mystic terms of the first promise, and bruise the head of the serpent; to circulate the blessing of Abraham's seed through all the families of the earth. In seeking to save the souls of the heathen by bringing them to Christ, we raise ourselves into the dignity of a partnership with the Son of God in these mighty designs of His; we enter into the fellowship of that Cross which is destined to occupy eternity with the development of its wonders, and to fill the universe with the brightness of its glory.
II. Let us now consider the grand INSTRUMENT of Missionary exertions. This is the doctrine of the CROSS, "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw men unto me."
It was evidently our Lord's intention to represent the conversion of the nations not merely as a circumstance that would follow His death in the mere order of time, but as a consequence connected with it in the order of cause and effect.
This day do we see something resembling the splendid fable told of Constantine's conversion. You armies of Christ, marshaled around this pulpit, and confederated in the mighty enterprise of wresting the empire of the world from the prince of darkness, behold the Cross suspended in the firmament of revelation, radiant with its own brightness, and inscribed with the auspicious motto, "By this conquer!" Yes, this is the emblem which must wave alone in our banner, "and to it shall the Gentiles seek." I preach another and a true crusade to the heathen world; far different from the convulsive mania which, in the midnight of superstition, disturbed the slumbers of the globe, and like a volcano, precipitated all Europe in a state of merger upon the valleys of Judea. Our object is not to recover the holy sepulcher from the possession of heretics, but to make known the death of Him who descended to it to wrest the keys of empire from the king of terrors. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, as the sword, the spear, and the battle axe - but spiritual, as the doctrines of the gospel exhibited in the sermons of our missionaries. The line of our march will not be marked by ensanguined fields, and the reign of desolation - but by the comforts of civilization and the blessings of Christianity. We shall not be followed in our career by the groans of dying warriors, and the shrieks of bereaved widows - but by the songs of redeemed sinners, and the shouts of enraptured angels. Our laurels will be stained with no blood - but that of the Lamb of God, and be dropped with no tears but those of penitence and joy. Our spoils will consist not of bits of the true Cross, or shreds of the Virgin's robe - but rejected idols and the regenerated souls of those who once adored them.
1. It will be important under this head of discourse, first, to state what is essentially included in the doctrine of the Cross. It includes, of necessity, the MANNER of Christ's death. The sacred historian having conducted us to Calvary, and pointed to its summit, exclaims with pregnant simplicity, "and there they crucified Him." Crucifixion was not only the most agonizing, but the most ignominious death. By the Jewish law it was pronounced accursed, and by the jurisprudence of Rome it was employed as the broom of destruction, by which the vilest of slaves and criminals might be swept from the face of the earth. And did You, who are the brightness of Your Father's glory, humble yourself to the death of the Cross? Yes, You did, but by that Cross you shall conquer the world!
The design of Christ's death, as an atonement for sin, is essentially included in this doctrine. It appears to me to be one of the mysteries in the world of mind, that the doctrine of the atonement should be disputed by any who profess assent to the testimony of Scriptural revelation. Have they ever read with attention thee language of Paul? "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an atoning sacrifice by His blood, to be received by faith." This was to show God's righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins. It was to show His righteousness at the present time, so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." (Romans 3:23-26).
How is it possible to avoid seeing the great truth for which we are now contending in this most convincing passage, where, in the compass of two verses, it is thrice affirmed that the end of Christ's death was a declaration of justice? For in what other way than as an atonement His blood can be a manifestation of justice, it must confound even the ingenious spirit of error to inform us. The atonement is not, so much a doctrine of Scripture, as the very Scripture itself, and if it be removed, leaves all that remains as incoherent and unmeaning as the leaves which the Sybil dispersed to the wind.
~John Angell James~
(continued with # 3)
But we being of one mind with Paul, and looking upon the souls of mankind in the light which his inspired writings have thrown upon their destiny, have imbibed his temper, and feel our spirits grieved within us, over the multitudes that are given to idolatry. We cannot help thinking that men without Christ are in the very depths of misery, though they may stand in other respects upon the summit of civilization, literature, and science; and for such an opinion we can plead the authority of the apostle, who, as we have seen, bewailed a city of philosophers with more intense and piercing grief than any of us ever did a horde of idolatrous savages.
Here, then, is the object of our zeal - to bring to Christ those who are afar off. "To turn men from dumb idols to serve the living and the true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven." To induce them, by the power of persuasion, in humble dependence upon the blessing of God, to renounce all their systems of error for the revelation of Christ as our divine Prophet; to abandon their rites, sacrifices, and penances, for his one oblation as our great High Priest; and to forsake their wicked customs and immoral habits, for obedience to His laws as King in Zion. In fact, to accomplish in the happy experience of the heathen, the descriptions which the pen of prophecy has given of the Messiah and His Kingdom; to achieve the victory announced in the mystic terms of the first promise, and bruise the head of the serpent; to circulate the blessing of Abraham's seed through all the families of the earth. In seeking to save the souls of the heathen by bringing them to Christ, we raise ourselves into the dignity of a partnership with the Son of God in these mighty designs of His; we enter into the fellowship of that Cross which is destined to occupy eternity with the development of its wonders, and to fill the universe with the brightness of its glory.
II. Let us now consider the grand INSTRUMENT of Missionary exertions. This is the doctrine of the CROSS, "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw men unto me."
It was evidently our Lord's intention to represent the conversion of the nations not merely as a circumstance that would follow His death in the mere order of time, but as a consequence connected with it in the order of cause and effect.
This day do we see something resembling the splendid fable told of Constantine's conversion. You armies of Christ, marshaled around this pulpit, and confederated in the mighty enterprise of wresting the empire of the world from the prince of darkness, behold the Cross suspended in the firmament of revelation, radiant with its own brightness, and inscribed with the auspicious motto, "By this conquer!" Yes, this is the emblem which must wave alone in our banner, "and to it shall the Gentiles seek." I preach another and a true crusade to the heathen world; far different from the convulsive mania which, in the midnight of superstition, disturbed the slumbers of the globe, and like a volcano, precipitated all Europe in a state of merger upon the valleys of Judea. Our object is not to recover the holy sepulcher from the possession of heretics, but to make known the death of Him who descended to it to wrest the keys of empire from the king of terrors. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, as the sword, the spear, and the battle axe - but spiritual, as the doctrines of the gospel exhibited in the sermons of our missionaries. The line of our march will not be marked by ensanguined fields, and the reign of desolation - but by the comforts of civilization and the blessings of Christianity. We shall not be followed in our career by the groans of dying warriors, and the shrieks of bereaved widows - but by the songs of redeemed sinners, and the shouts of enraptured angels. Our laurels will be stained with no blood - but that of the Lamb of God, and be dropped with no tears but those of penitence and joy. Our spoils will consist not of bits of the true Cross, or shreds of the Virgin's robe - but rejected idols and the regenerated souls of those who once adored them.
1. It will be important under this head of discourse, first, to state what is essentially included in the doctrine of the Cross. It includes, of necessity, the MANNER of Christ's death. The sacred historian having conducted us to Calvary, and pointed to its summit, exclaims with pregnant simplicity, "and there they crucified Him." Crucifixion was not only the most agonizing, but the most ignominious death. By the Jewish law it was pronounced accursed, and by the jurisprudence of Rome it was employed as the broom of destruction, by which the vilest of slaves and criminals might be swept from the face of the earth. And did You, who are the brightness of Your Father's glory, humble yourself to the death of the Cross? Yes, You did, but by that Cross you shall conquer the world!
The design of Christ's death, as an atonement for sin, is essentially included in this doctrine. It appears to me to be one of the mysteries in the world of mind, that the doctrine of the atonement should be disputed by any who profess assent to the testimony of Scriptural revelation. Have they ever read with attention thee language of Paul? "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an atoning sacrifice by His blood, to be received by faith." This was to show God's righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins. It was to show His righteousness at the present time, so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." (Romans 3:23-26).
How is it possible to avoid seeing the great truth for which we are now contending in this most convincing passage, where, in the compass of two verses, it is thrice affirmed that the end of Christ's death was a declaration of justice? For in what other way than as an atonement His blood can be a manifestation of justice, it must confound even the ingenious spirit of error to inform us. The atonement is not, so much a doctrine of Scripture, as the very Scripture itself, and if it be removed, leaves all that remains as incoherent and unmeaning as the leaves which the Sybil dispersed to the wind.
~John Angell James~
(continued with # 3)
He Drank It Up - Every Drop!
He Drank It Up - Every Drop!
"Who can comprehend the power of Your wrath?" (Psalm 90:11).
Jesus Christ comprehends it, for He underwent it! His whole life was made up of suffering. From His birth to His death, from His cradle to the Cross, from the womb to the tomb, - He was a man of sorrows!
Behold His bodily sufferings - the crown of thorns on His head, the smiting of His cheeks, the spitting on His face, the scourging of His body, the Cross on His back, the vinegar in His mouth, the nails in His hands and feet, His crucifixion and death on the Cross - might well astonish us!
Behold that head, before which angels cast down themselves and worshiped - crowned with thorns!
Behold those eyes, which were purer than the sun - put out by the darkness of death!
Behold the ears which heard nothing but hallelujahs
- hearing the blasphemies of the multitude!
Behold that lovely face - spit on by such beastly wretches!
Behold that mouth and tongue, which spoke as never any man spoke - accused of blasphemy!
Behold those hands, which freely swayed the scepter of heaven - nailed to the Cross!
Behold those feet, like unto fine brass - nailed to the Cross for man's sins!
Who can behold Christ thus suffering - and not be struck with astonishment!
1 Peter 3:18. "Christ has suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous." This is the wonderment of angels, the happiness of fallen man, and the torment of devils - that Christ has suffered. The doleful tragedy of His sufferings is unutterable!
The sufferings of Jesus Christ were very great and heinous. What agony, what torment was our Saviour racked with? "He was despised and rejected - a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief!" Isaiah 53:3 He was a man of sorrows - as if He were a man made up of sorrows! He knew more sorrows than any man, yes, than all men ever did! We never read that Jesus laughed at all, when He was in the world. His whole life was filled up with sufferings.
How deep were His wounds!
How weighty His burden!
How full of trembling His cup, when He lay under the mountains of the guilt of all the elect!
How bitter were His tears!
How painful His bloody sweat!
How dreadful His death!
Lamentations 1:12 is very applicable to Christ - "Look and see! Is there any pain like Mine, which was dealt out to Me, which the Lord made Me suffer on the day of His burning anger?" What sufferings can you think of, which Christ did not suffer? Christ suffered in His birth, and He suffered in His life, and He suffered in His body, for He was diversely tormented. He suffered in His soul, for His soul was exceedingly sorrowful. He suffered in His estate, they parted His clothing, and He had nowhere to rest His head. He suffered in His reputation, for He was called a Samaritan, a devilish sorcerer, a drunkard, an enemy to Caesar. He suffered from heaven, when He cried out, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?" He suffered from the earth, being hungry. He suffered from hell, satan assaulting and encouraging Him with his most black and horrid temptations. He began His life lowly and basely, and was sharply persecuted. He continued His life poorly and distressedly, and was cruelly hated. He ended His life woefully and miserably, and was most grievously tormented with whips, thorns, nails; and, above all, with the terrors of His Father's wrath and horror of hellish agonies! Who can compute how many vitals of God's inexpressible, insupportable wrath, which Christ drank? Yet, He drank it up - every drop, leaving nothing behind for His redeemed people - but large droughts of love and salvation!
The death of Christ on the Cross was a bitter death, a sorrowful death, a bloody death. The bitter thoughts of His sufferings put Him into a most dreadful agony: "Being in an agony, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was as great drops of blood falling to the ground!" (Luke 22:44).
Nothing could fasten Christ to the Cross - but the golden link of His free love! Oh, what a wonder of love is this - that Jesus Christ, who is the author of life, the fountain of life, the Lord of life - that He should so freely, so readily, so cheerfully lay down His life for us!
~Thomas Brooks~
"Who can comprehend the power of Your wrath?" (Psalm 90:11).
Jesus Christ comprehends it, for He underwent it! His whole life was made up of suffering. From His birth to His death, from His cradle to the Cross, from the womb to the tomb, - He was a man of sorrows!
Behold His bodily sufferings - the crown of thorns on His head, the smiting of His cheeks, the spitting on His face, the scourging of His body, the Cross on His back, the vinegar in His mouth, the nails in His hands and feet, His crucifixion and death on the Cross - might well astonish us!
Behold that head, before which angels cast down themselves and worshiped - crowned with thorns!
Behold those eyes, which were purer than the sun - put out by the darkness of death!
Behold the ears which heard nothing but hallelujahs
- hearing the blasphemies of the multitude!
Behold that lovely face - spit on by such beastly wretches!
Behold that mouth and tongue, which spoke as never any man spoke - accused of blasphemy!
Behold those hands, which freely swayed the scepter of heaven - nailed to the Cross!
Behold those feet, like unto fine brass - nailed to the Cross for man's sins!
Who can behold Christ thus suffering - and not be struck with astonishment!
1 Peter 3:18. "Christ has suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous." This is the wonderment of angels, the happiness of fallen man, and the torment of devils - that Christ has suffered. The doleful tragedy of His sufferings is unutterable!
The sufferings of Jesus Christ were very great and heinous. What agony, what torment was our Saviour racked with? "He was despised and rejected - a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief!" Isaiah 53:3 He was a man of sorrows - as if He were a man made up of sorrows! He knew more sorrows than any man, yes, than all men ever did! We never read that Jesus laughed at all, when He was in the world. His whole life was filled up with sufferings.
How deep were His wounds!
How weighty His burden!
How full of trembling His cup, when He lay under the mountains of the guilt of all the elect!
How bitter were His tears!
How painful His bloody sweat!
How dreadful His death!
Lamentations 1:12 is very applicable to Christ - "Look and see! Is there any pain like Mine, which was dealt out to Me, which the Lord made Me suffer on the day of His burning anger?" What sufferings can you think of, which Christ did not suffer? Christ suffered in His birth, and He suffered in His life, and He suffered in His body, for He was diversely tormented. He suffered in His soul, for His soul was exceedingly sorrowful. He suffered in His estate, they parted His clothing, and He had nowhere to rest His head. He suffered in His reputation, for He was called a Samaritan, a devilish sorcerer, a drunkard, an enemy to Caesar. He suffered from heaven, when He cried out, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?" He suffered from the earth, being hungry. He suffered from hell, satan assaulting and encouraging Him with his most black and horrid temptations. He began His life lowly and basely, and was sharply persecuted. He continued His life poorly and distressedly, and was cruelly hated. He ended His life woefully and miserably, and was most grievously tormented with whips, thorns, nails; and, above all, with the terrors of His Father's wrath and horror of hellish agonies! Who can compute how many vitals of God's inexpressible, insupportable wrath, which Christ drank? Yet, He drank it up - every drop, leaving nothing behind for His redeemed people - but large droughts of love and salvation!
The death of Christ on the Cross was a bitter death, a sorrowful death, a bloody death. The bitter thoughts of His sufferings put Him into a most dreadful agony: "Being in an agony, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was as great drops of blood falling to the ground!" (Luke 22:44).
Nothing could fasten Christ to the Cross - but the golden link of His free love! Oh, what a wonder of love is this - that Jesus Christ, who is the author of life, the fountain of life, the Lord of life - that He should so freely, so readily, so cheerfully lay down His life for us!
~Thomas Brooks~
Saturday, January 5, 2019
The Attraction of the Cross # 1
The Attraction of the Cross # 1
[a sermon preached before the London Missionary Society. The impression produced by the delivery of this sermon first attracted public attention to the author. Of all his printed sermons, it remains the one most well known]
"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me - this he said signifying what kind of death he would die" (John 12:32, 33).
"We preach Christ crucified" (1 Corinthians 1:23).
"For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and power" (1 Corinthians 2:2-4).
If the perfection of wisdom consists in seeking the noblest ends by the fittest means, then does the cause of missions appear before the world, invested with the glory, and preferring the claims, of the wisest scheme for man's activity which has ever been devised. Of the benevolence and sublimity of our object, there can exist no doubt; and the only question which can arise about the rationality of our scheme, must relate to the adequacy of our means. We are not infrequently told that all attempts to convert pagan nations to Christianity, not supported by the aid of miracles, must prove entirely ineffectual, or be followed with very inconsiderable success. That miracles were necessary at the introduction of Christianity, as the witnesses of its heavenly origin and descent, is obvious; they formed the visible signatures of the divine hand to the testimony of the Son of God and His apostles; but to argue for their repetition through succeeding ages, in every country which the gospel approaches for the first time, is to contend that a deed, however well arrested, cannot be admitted as valid unless the witnesses who originally signed it live forever to verify their signature. This objection, however, is best answered by an appeal to facts. However difficult it may be to ascertain with precision the exact time when the testimony of miracles ceased, nothing is more certain than that these witnesses had finished their evidence long before the conversion of the northern and western parts of Europe; and the demand of supernatural interposition, as necessary to the propagation of Christianity, is urged with an ill grace by a Protestant, when it is remembered that there is not a single Protestant country which did not receive the gospel unaccompanied with signs and wonders; and with still greater inconsistency is it made by an Englishman, when it is considered that this happy country, the glory of Christendom, the joy of the whole earth, and the evangelist of the world, was recovered from the thralldom of Saxon idolatry without one miraculous operation.
What, then, are the means with which we set out on this high ,and holy enterprise of converting the world? I answer, the doctrine of the Cross - for say Christ, "If I be lifted up," or "when I am lifted up, I will draw all men unto me."
In these words our Lord announces the nature of His approaching death - He was about to be lifted up, or crucified; He predicts the consequences with which His crucifixion would be followed; all men would be gathered to Him; He specifies the means, and the manner of their conversion - they would be drawn, or attracted by an exhibition of His death. In other words, the text presents us with the great object of missionary zeal, the grand instrument of missionary exertion, and the final consummation of missionary success.
It will be instantly perceived that I have not sought after novelty of subject, and it will soon be discovered that I have not attained ingenuity or profundity of discussion. The state of my mind and feelings since I received the application of the directors, would alone have precluded these. Their request for my service on this occasion found me at the tomb of all that was dearest to me on earth, a situation not very favorable for penetrating into the depth of any other subject than my own irreparable loss. One thing which induced me to comply with their solicitation, was a hope that my mind would be drawn away in some degree from the heart-withering recollection of departed bliss - nor has that hope been altogether disappointed; for the subject of my sermon has often presented such visions of spiritual glory as have made the tear forget to fall, and hushed the sorrows of a bursting heart, and taught the preacher that while the missionary cause goes as the messenger of mercy to pagan realms abroad, it is one of the best comforters in the house of mourning at home.
1. The text presents us with the great OBJECT of missionary zeal, "To bring men to Christ." There are at the present moment more than six hundred million people in the appalling situation of the men whom the apostle describes as "without Christ in the world;" and the question is, with what feelings and what purposes as Christian should survey this vast and wretched portion of the family of man. To ascertain this, you have only to contemplate the scene which at your last anniversary was brought before you with such force of reason, pathos, and eloquence. Behold Paul at Athens. Think of the matchless splendor which blazed upon his view, as he rolled his eye round the enchanting panorama which encircled the hill of Mars. Around him, as he stood upon the summit of the rock, beneath the canopy of heaven, was spread a glorious prospect of mountains, islands, sea, and sky.
Absorbed in the holy attraction of his mind, he saw no charms, felt no fascinations, but on the contrary was pierced with the most poignant distress - and what was the cause? Because he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. What must have been his indignant grief at the dishonor done by idolatry to God? What must have been his amazement at the weakness and folly of the human mind? What must have been his compassion for human wretchedness, when such stately monuments had not the smallest possible effect in turning away his view from the guilt which raised them and the misery which endured amidst them.
~John Angell James~
(continued with # 2)
[a sermon preached before the London Missionary Society. The impression produced by the delivery of this sermon first attracted public attention to the author. Of all his printed sermons, it remains the one most well known]
"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me - this he said signifying what kind of death he would die" (John 12:32, 33).
"We preach Christ crucified" (1 Corinthians 1:23).
"For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and power" (1 Corinthians 2:2-4).
If the perfection of wisdom consists in seeking the noblest ends by the fittest means, then does the cause of missions appear before the world, invested with the glory, and preferring the claims, of the wisest scheme for man's activity which has ever been devised. Of the benevolence and sublimity of our object, there can exist no doubt; and the only question which can arise about the rationality of our scheme, must relate to the adequacy of our means. We are not infrequently told that all attempts to convert pagan nations to Christianity, not supported by the aid of miracles, must prove entirely ineffectual, or be followed with very inconsiderable success. That miracles were necessary at the introduction of Christianity, as the witnesses of its heavenly origin and descent, is obvious; they formed the visible signatures of the divine hand to the testimony of the Son of God and His apostles; but to argue for their repetition through succeeding ages, in every country which the gospel approaches for the first time, is to contend that a deed, however well arrested, cannot be admitted as valid unless the witnesses who originally signed it live forever to verify their signature. This objection, however, is best answered by an appeal to facts. However difficult it may be to ascertain with precision the exact time when the testimony of miracles ceased, nothing is more certain than that these witnesses had finished their evidence long before the conversion of the northern and western parts of Europe; and the demand of supernatural interposition, as necessary to the propagation of Christianity, is urged with an ill grace by a Protestant, when it is remembered that there is not a single Protestant country which did not receive the gospel unaccompanied with signs and wonders; and with still greater inconsistency is it made by an Englishman, when it is considered that this happy country, the glory of Christendom, the joy of the whole earth, and the evangelist of the world, was recovered from the thralldom of Saxon idolatry without one miraculous operation.
What, then, are the means with which we set out on this high ,and holy enterprise of converting the world? I answer, the doctrine of the Cross - for say Christ, "If I be lifted up," or "when I am lifted up, I will draw all men unto me."
In these words our Lord announces the nature of His approaching death - He was about to be lifted up, or crucified; He predicts the consequences with which His crucifixion would be followed; all men would be gathered to Him; He specifies the means, and the manner of their conversion - they would be drawn, or attracted by an exhibition of His death. In other words, the text presents us with the great object of missionary zeal, the grand instrument of missionary exertion, and the final consummation of missionary success.
It will be instantly perceived that I have not sought after novelty of subject, and it will soon be discovered that I have not attained ingenuity or profundity of discussion. The state of my mind and feelings since I received the application of the directors, would alone have precluded these. Their request for my service on this occasion found me at the tomb of all that was dearest to me on earth, a situation not very favorable for penetrating into the depth of any other subject than my own irreparable loss. One thing which induced me to comply with their solicitation, was a hope that my mind would be drawn away in some degree from the heart-withering recollection of departed bliss - nor has that hope been altogether disappointed; for the subject of my sermon has often presented such visions of spiritual glory as have made the tear forget to fall, and hushed the sorrows of a bursting heart, and taught the preacher that while the missionary cause goes as the messenger of mercy to pagan realms abroad, it is one of the best comforters in the house of mourning at home.
1. The text presents us with the great OBJECT of missionary zeal, "To bring men to Christ." There are at the present moment more than six hundred million people in the appalling situation of the men whom the apostle describes as "without Christ in the world;" and the question is, with what feelings and what purposes as Christian should survey this vast and wretched portion of the family of man. To ascertain this, you have only to contemplate the scene which at your last anniversary was brought before you with such force of reason, pathos, and eloquence. Behold Paul at Athens. Think of the matchless splendor which blazed upon his view, as he rolled his eye round the enchanting panorama which encircled the hill of Mars. Around him, as he stood upon the summit of the rock, beneath the canopy of heaven, was spread a glorious prospect of mountains, islands, sea, and sky.
Absorbed in the holy attraction of his mind, he saw no charms, felt no fascinations, but on the contrary was pierced with the most poignant distress - and what was the cause? Because he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. What must have been his indignant grief at the dishonor done by idolatry to God? What must have been his amazement at the weakness and folly of the human mind? What must have been his compassion for human wretchedness, when such stately monuments had not the smallest possible effect in turning away his view from the guilt which raised them and the misery which endured amidst them.
~John Angell James~
(continued with # 2)
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