New Tabernacle SermonsTalmage, T. De Witt (Thomas De Witt)
Religion
New Tabernacle Sermons
Talmage, T. De Witt (Thomas De Witt)
Presbyterian Church -- Sermons; Sermons, American
One of the swiftest transatlantic voyages made last summer by the
"Etruria" was because she had a stormy wind abaft, chasing her from
New York to Liverpool. But to those going in the opposite direction
the storm was a buffeting and a hinderance. It is a bad thing to have
a storm ahead, pushing us back; but if we be God's children and
aiming toward heaven, the storms of life will only chase us the sooner
into the harbor. I am so glad to believe that the monsoons, and
typhoons, and mistrals, and siroccos of the land and sea are not
unchained maniacs let loose upon the earth, but are under divine
supervision! I am so glad that the God of the Seven Stars is also the
God of Orion! It was out of Dante's suffering came the sublime "Divina
Commedia," and out of John Milton's blindness came "Paradise Lost,"
and out of miserable infidel attack came the "Bridgewater Treatise" in
favor of Christianity, and out of David's exile came the songs of
consolation, and out of the sufferings of Christ came the possibility
of the world's redemption, and out of your bereavement, your
persecution, your poverties, your misfortunes, may yet come an eternal
heaven.
Oh, what a mercy it is that in the text and all up and down the Bible
God induces us to look out toward other worlds! Bible astronomy in
Genesis, in Joshua, in Job, in the Psalms, in the prophets, major and
minor, in St. John's Apocalypse, practically saying, "Worlds! worlds!
worlds! Get ready for them!" We have a nice little world here that we
stick to, as though losing that we lose all. We are afraid of falling
off this little raft of a world. We are afraid that some meteoric
iconoclast will some night smash it, and we want everything to revolve
around it, and are disappointed when we find that it revolves around
the sun instead of the sun revolving around it. What a fuss we make
about this little bit of a world, its existence only a short time
between two spasms, the paroxysm by which it was hurled from chaos
into order, and the paroxysm of its demolition.
And I am glad that so many texts call us to look off to other worlds,
many of them larger and grander and more resplendent. "Look there,"
says Job, "at Mazaroth and Arcturus and his sons!" "Look there," says
St. John, "at the moon under Christ's feet!" "Look there," says
Joshua, "at the sun standing still above Gibeon!" "Look there," says
Moses, "at the sparkling firmament!" "Look there," says Amos, the
herdsman, "at the Seven Stars and Orion!" Don't let us be so sad about
those who shove off from this world under Christly pilotage. Don't let
us be so agitated about our own going off this little barge or sloop
or canal-boat of a world to get on some "Great Eastern" of the
heavens. Don't let us persist in wanting to stay in this barn, this
shed, this outhouse of a world, when all the King's palaces already
occupied by many of our best friends are swinging wide open their
gates to let us in.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account