Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary: Collated from his Diary by Benjamin FunkKline, John
Religion
Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary: Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk
Kline, John
Kline, John, 1797-1864
I am now prepared to tell you, and I trust you are prepared to hear
some of the particulars in which Christ Jesus was like unto Moses. You
know the text says: "A Prophet like unto me." This is the language of
Moses. The Lord God had just before told him this. We will now turn
to some of the points in the comparison of Moses with Christ. Moses
told the people to believe what he told them and obey the commands he
gave them. He taught them that if they would obey the commands and
ordinances which God gave and established through him they would
receive the favor of the Lord, and that as a reward for their
obedience he would bless them exceedingly. But if they would turn away
from him, he would turn away from them, and multiply their troubles
greatly. Christ Jesus does the same. Just at the close of the most
wonderful sermon the world has ever heard preached, a sermon in which
all the moral and spiritual relations of men to each other and to God,
together with the duties growing out of these relations, are set forth
the Lord says: "Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth
them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a
rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew,
and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a
rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them
not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon
the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds
blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of
it."
Friends, let me say to you that each and every one of you is building
a house for himself on one or the other of these foundations. Your
life, your every-day life, from beginning to end, is the house you are
building. If your life, from love to the Lord, is based upon the solid
rock of his Revealed Truth, it will stand the temptations and trials
symbolized by the floods and winds; but if not, it will never be able
to stand, and great will be its fall. Some may think that because God
is long-suffering, and does not punish sin in this world so manifestly
as he sometimes did in former times, he is becoming more merciful and
takes less account of sin than formerly. But this is a very great
mistake. God has always been quite as merciful as he could be
consistently with his justice and holiness; and the warning given
in Hebrews 2:2 should be heeded. This is the warning: "If every
transgression and disobedience" under Moses, "received a just
recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great
salvation?" Notice this also from the same book: "He that despised
Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how
much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who
hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of
the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath
done despite unto the Spirit of grace?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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