The Overcoming Life, and Other SermonsMoody, Dwight Lyman
Religion
The Overcoming Life, and Other Sermons
Moody, Dwight Lyman
Evangelistic sermons; Evangelistic work; Sermons, American
Then there was a class called agnostics, and there are a good many of
their grandchildren, alive to-day. Then there was another class who
said they believed there was a God; they couldn't make themselves
believe that the world happened by chance; but God was too merciful to
punish sin. He was so full of compassion and love that He couldn't
punish sin. The drunkard, the harlot, the gambler, the murderer, the
thief and the libertine would all share alike with the saints at the
end. Supposing the governor of your state was so tender-hearted that
he could not bear to have a man suffer, could not bear to see a man
put in jail, and he should go and set all the prisoners free. How long
would he be governor? You would have him out of office before the sun
set. These very men that talk about God's mercy, would be the first to
raise a cry against a governor who would not have a man put in prison
when he had done wrong.
Then another class took the ground that God could not destroy the
world anyway. They might have a great flood which would rise up to the
meadowlands and lowlands, but all it would be necessary to do would be
to go up on the hills and mountains. That would be a hundred times
better than Noah's ark. Or if it should come to that, they could build
rafts, which would be a good deal better than that ark. They had never
seen such an ugly looking thing. It was about five hundred feet long,
and about eighty feet wide, and fifty feet high. It had three stories,
and only one small window.
And then, I suppose there was a large class who took the ground that
Noah must be wrong because he was in such a minority. That is a great
argument now, you know. Noah was greatly in the minority. But he went
on working.
If they had saloons then, and I don't doubt but that they had, for we
read that there was "violence in the land," and wherever you have
alcohol you have violence. We read also that Noah planted a vineyard
and fell into the sin of intemperance. He was a righteous man, and if
he did that, what must the others have done? Well, if they had
saloons, no doubt they sang ribald songs about Noah and his ark, and
if they had theaters they likely acted it out, and mothers took their
children to see it.
And if they had the press in those days, every now and then there
would appear a skit about "Noah and his folly." Reporters would come
and interview him, and if they had an Associated Press, every few days
a dispatch would be sent out telling how the work on the ark was
progressing.
And perhaps they had excursions, and offered as an inducement that
people could go through the ark. And if Noah happened to be around
they would nudge each other and say:
"That's Noah. Don't you think there is a strange look in his eye?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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