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
I remark, again, we must seek God through church ordinances. "What,"
say you, "can't a man be saved without going to church?" I reply,
there are men, I suppose, in glory, who have never seen a church: but
the church is the ordained means by which we are to be brought to God;
and if truth affects us when we are alone, it affects us more mightily
when we are in the assembly--the feelings of others emphasizing our
own feelings. The great law of sympathy comes into play, and a truth
that would take hold only with the grasp of a sick man, beats mightily
against the soul with a thousand heart-throbs.
When you come into the religious circle, come only with one notion,
and only for one purpose--to find the way to Christ. When I see people
critical about sermons, and critical about tones of voice, and
critical about sermonic delivery, they make me think of a man in
prison. He is condemned to death, but an officer of the government
brings a pardon and puts it through the wicket of the prison, and
says: "Here is your pardon. Come and get it." "What! Do you expect me
to take that pardon offered with such a voice as you have, with such
an awkward manner as you have? I would rather die than so compromise
my rhetorical notions!" Ah, the man does not say that; he takes it! It
is his life. He does not care how it is handed to him. And if, this
morning, that pardon from the throne of God is offered to our souls,
should we not seize it, regardless of all criticism, feeling that it
is a matter of heaven or hell?
But I come now to the last part of my text. It tells us when we are to
seek the Lord. "While He may be found." When is that? Old age? You may
not see old age. To-morrow? You may not see to-morrow. To-night? You
may not see to-night. Now! O if I could only write on every heart in
three capital letters, that word N-O-W--Now!
Sin is an awful disease. I hear people say with a toss of the head and
with a trivial manner: "Oh, yes, I'm a sinner." Sin is an awful
disease. It is leprosy. It is dropsy. It is consumption. It is all
moral disorders in one. Now you know there is a crisis in a disease.
Perhaps you have had some illustration of it in your family. Sometimes
the physician has called, and he has looked at the patient and said:
"That case was simple enough; but the crisis has passed. If you had
called me yesterday, or this morning, I could have cured the patient.
It is too late now; the crisis has passed." Just so it is in the
spiritual treatment of the soul--there is a crisis. Before that, life!
After that, death! O my dear brother, as you love your soul do not let
the crisis pass unattended to!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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