The healing of souls; a series of revival sermons

Front matter

THE HEALIN< OF SOULS

T OUIS ALBERT BANKS

*4fct -•v

Contents

PAGE

I. Jesus the Sinners' Saviour. , 9

II. The Light that Condemns 21

II

And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. —John iii, 19.

We shall be judged according to our light. No man will be judged worthy of condemnation who has lived up to the light which God gave him. Condemnation comes when a man knows better than he does. God will be entirely just with us. If we are condemned at last it will be because, having seen the light and known the better way, we refused to enter that way and turned our faces toward the darkness. It is the terrible folly of sin that it often leads the sinner to refuse the light that would lead him to salvation. This is true of doubt. A man excuses himself for not becoming a Christian because he cannot believe certain great Christian truths ; but he will not act on the truth he does believe, which would lead him into all truth. Down at the bottom he does not wish to believe, because his belief would bring condemnation on himself. The man who honestly doubts, and who is really willing to find the truth, is never kept long away from the light of salvation. Take the case of Thomas, who was in that first group of friends of Jesus when he was on earth. When the other disciples came and told Thomas about the resurrection of Christ he did not believe it. He thought they had been deceived. Yet his heart was heavy and he really wished it were true. But he could not understand how it could be, and he declared that he would not believe unless he could put his own hands into the wounds of Jesus. Not long after that Thomas was with the disciples when Jesus appeared to them, and when, instead of reproaching Thomas, Jesus accepted his terms and said to him, "Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side : and be not faithless, but believing," all Thomas's doubts went to the winds. The very sight of Jesus was enough to convince Thomas. He did not go to the length which he had demanded, but instead he cried out with loving faith, "My Lord and my God !"

Now in Thomas you see an honest doubter who accepted the light when it came to him, and when he was convinced did not hold out for a moment, but immediately acknowledged his Lord. You have a very different case in those men who put Stephen to death. As Stephen urged home upon them the prophecies which made it clear that Christ was the true Messiah, and that they had put to death the Saviour of the world, Luke, who writes the account, says, "They were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth."

The men that murdered Stephen believed what he said. The light from heaven had shone upon their eyes, but the light condemned them, and they would not have it, they would not accept it. They could not have helped but admire the angel-like face of Stephen if it had not condemned them. In that trying moment Stephen looked upward and the heavenly world opened to his eyes. He saw God seated upon the throne, and he saw Jesus, his Saviour, at the right hand of the Majesty on high. He forgot all the rage that was around him, the cruel taunt and the stinging blow, and he cried out, in infinite joy, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God." And those men, looking on Stephen's face, believed it. They knew he was looking into heaven, for they saw light in his face brighter than any light of earth. But they could not yield to the fact that he saw Christ, the Crucified, he whom they themselves had crucified, in ascended glory, for that meant condemnation to them. And so they did what many men have been doing ever since — they "stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, and cast him out of the city." How infinitely wiser it would have been to have kept their ears open ; for the Christ who when hanging on the cross prayed for his murderers, "Father, forgive them," would not have refused his intercession and forgiveness to these wicked men now if, seeing the light, they had welcomed it and turned from their sins.

This, then, is our great message to-night: Follow the light which God gives you and it will lead you to heaven. It does not take a great deal of light to lead heavenward one who is willing to be led.

( There was a Bohemian gypsy girl who was very beautiful, and who, on account of her remarkable perfection of features, was employed by a great German artist to sit for him as a model. In his studio she saw an unfinished painting of the Crucifixion, and asked him who "that wicked man" was and what he had done to deserve such punishment. The artist smiled at her ignorance, and told her that the man nailed to the cross was not wicked, but good; indeed, the best man that had ever lived in the world. From that time, the girl's interest in the story of the cross never ceased. She never came into the studio that her first look and her last were not given to that picture of the crucifixion. She was utterly untaught, and it was by her questions — rather grudgingly answered by the painter, who had no real Christian sympathy — that she got her first knowledge of the Saviour of mankind. She felt the artist's lack of feeling, and wondered at it, and one day when this was more than usually apparent she said to him:

"I should think you would love him, if he died for you."

The remark fastened itself in the artist's mind. The death of Christ had appealed to him as a pictorial tragedy. The divine life of Jesus had never touched him. The ignorant Bohemian girl had presented the subject to him in another way, and it would not let him rest until he sought religious counsel, and before long became a servant and a sincere worshiper of the crucified Christ.

Under the inspiration of this new love for Christ he took up the picture which had attracted the girl's attention, and finished it. It was hung in the Dusseldorf gallery, with this inscription :

"I did this for thee; what hast thou done for Me?"

Some time afterward, going to the gallery, he found the Bohemian girl, who had been the cause of his own conversion, weeping in front of the painting. This time he could speak to her as a Christian.

"Master," she sobbed, "did he die for the poor Bohemians, too?"

"Yes, he died for all."

And that very hour the crucified Saviour gained another disciple in the Bohemian girl.

A few months later, dying in a gypsy camp not far from the city, the girl sent for the artist, and thanked him.

"I am going to him now," she said, joyfully. "I love him, and I know he loves me."

Years afterward a frivolous young nobleman looked on the same picture, and the study of it and the rebuking pathos of its inscription, "I did this for thee; what hast thou done for Me?" so moved and influenced him that he consecrated himself to the service of God. The young nobleman was Count Zinzendorf, the founder of the Moravian Church, and the man who wrote the hymn,

"Jesus, thy blood and righteousness My beauty are, my glorious dress; 'Midst naming worlds, in these arrayed, With joy shall I lift up my head."

He wrote also that other hymn,

"I thirst, thou wounded lamb of God, To wash me in thy cleansing blood; To dwell within thy wounds; then pain Is sweet, and life or death is gain."

How many more that picture won to Christ we can never know. But see from how small a flame all this glorious result was kindled! How much more light you have had than had that poor girl !

And yet you are still in the darkness, with no consciousness that your sins are forgiven, going the deeper into the darkness as the years go on. O my friends, if you will only take the light you have to-night, and do as well as you know, here and now, it will lead you to the light of perfect day.}

Dr. A. C. Dixon tells of a prosperous worldly man whose Christian wife had died praying for his conversion. He was lying awake in the darkness of his room, one night, when he heard a voice from a little bed at his side, "Papa, it's so dark, take my hand.' 5 He took the little hand extended in the dark, and held it gently until the frightened child dropped asleep. Then this strong business man looked up through the darkness, and said, "Father, it is so dark; take my hand as I have taken the hand of my dear child. Give me rest of soul for Jesus' sake." Peace entered his broken heart, and he rejoiced in full salvation. A little beam of light had come to him in his child's appeal to him in its weakness and fear. The sense of helpless weakness had led him to stretch the hand of his soul up to God, and Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead, was the hand by which God took hold and saved him in a moment. Lift your hand up into the darkness to-night, trusting God through Jesus Christ, and he will take hold upon you, and save you, for Christ is able "to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them."

But if you refuse this light which I bring to you, and turn from it, you must needs enter into the deeper darkness that can only mean sorrow and still greater sorrow as the years go on. It is a terrible thing to grow old without God and without the precious comforts of an unfailing hope and a certain assurance of a happy immortality.

A gentleman tells about meeting on the street a man who was nearing his fourscore years. His body had all the marks of age. His shoulders were stooped. He walked tremblingly with a cane. His voice was husky, his hair was white, his eye was dim, and his face had the furrows which time and trial had plowed upon it. And yet his face was joyous, and there was about the old man an atmosphere of gladness and hope. As he came up with him he was humming the tune of a buoyant hymn, and as he slowed up by his side the gentleman said, "Why should an old man be so merry?"

"All are not," said he.

"Well, why, then, should you be so merry?"

"Because I belong to the Lord."

"Are none others happy at your time of life ?"

"No, not one," said the old man, earnestly. "No man is happy at my age without God. The devil has no happy old men."

And I press that home upon you young people, and you middle-aged men and women. The devil has no happy old men or happy old women. It is not possible that a man or a woman should come to the end of life with no title to heaven, with no fellowship with God, with no certain hope in Jesus Christ, and have happiness and peace. O my friend, if the light of the Gospel which I preach to you to-night condemns you, I pray you do not turn from it on that account, but turn toward it that you may know the truth and that the truth may make you free. You may be saved here and now, if you will live up to the light you have. During the civil war an officer in the Union army, having received his death wound, was visited in the hospital tent by the chaplain, who inquired if he was prepared to meet his God. He smiled, and said: "Chaplain, I was once passing through the streets of New York on Sunday, and heard singing. I went in and saw a company of poor people. They were singing, 'There is a fountain filled with blood.' I was impressed profoundly, and it came to me as a personal message, and right then and there, while they sang, I gave my heart to God. Since then I have belonged to God, and have served him. Death has lost its terror for me." You may come to Christ just as readily if you will. Come to him now !

Ill

TREASURES THAT CANNOT BE STOLEN

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal : but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal : for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.— Matthew vi, 19-21.

A wise traveler never carries much money with him while on his journey. If he be a man of wealth and expects to engage in large operations in the country to which he is going, he will carry with him a draft that will be serviceable at his destination, or he will have treasure forwarded so that he may have it to draw upon when he arrives. To carry large sums of money on his person would only subject him to unnecessary care and anxiety, and also put him in constant danger of being robbed, and quite possibly of losing his life in order that he might be robbed. Our journey through this world to the eternity beyond is fairly described by that illustration. While we are passing through the world we constantly need sufficient of the goods of this world to pay our way on our journey, but the money and treasure which worldly men value here will be of no use whatever to us when we arrive at our final destination. It would be very unwise for us to invest all our time and strength in acquiring wealth which we cannot carry over the boundary line of death, and which if we could would be worthless. If a man were going to San Francisco or to London from New York he would hardly think it worth while to carry paving stones with him, or gateposts, as a matter of treasure. But in heaven the streets are paved with gold and the gates are studded with jewels. There could be no greater folly than for men and women, journeying so swiftly toward eternity where an endless life awaits, to squander all their time gathering treasures which can only serve to make a tombstone, which is often a monument of folly at the last.

Especially is this folly apparent when we are told by the Lord Jesus that it is possible for us to transfer spiritual treasures to the heavenly shores and to carry with us a draft on the Bank of Heaven, so that we shall not come to the shores of immortality bankrupt exiles, but may have a mansion fitted for us there. We may have treasures there that no moth can corrupt, that no thief can steal, and that can never be taken from us. One of the most beautiful things that Christ has told us is that it is possible for us to turn the gold of this world into heavenly treasure if it is gained and used in the spirit of love for him. The love that ministers in his name to the hungry and the naked and the sick becomes divine gold that shall be put to our account in the Bank of Heaven.

A young Swede who was a poor stable boy, a hostler in a Western livery stable, went up to Alaska a year or two ago, and prospered. He has just given a hundred thousand dollars to endow a Western college. When a home missionary asked him what he was going to do with his money, when it first began to come in in large amounts, the young fellow said, "I mean to do more for the world than the world ever did for me." That was a splendid answer, and spoken in the spirit of Christ, and the man who gives in that spirit transmutes his gold into heavenly coin.

Mrs. Farningham tells of a poor woman in England who was called to make a long journey to visit her sick son. She could ill afford the expense, and yet she could not stay away from her boy. She had money for a third-class ticket to where he lay ill, but how would she get home again? But a mother's heart will take risks, and she went to the station, and as she went up to the ticket office she saw a gentleman who seemed to be watching the people as they passed up for their tickets. A porter stood behind him carrying the man's bag. The gentleman looked at her with a searching but kindly glance, and then dropped in next behind her. He, too, bought a third-class ticket. The porter looked on with disapproval. He thought it a mean thing for so fine a gentleman to travel third-class. He stepped up to the gentleman. "First-class, sir?"

"No, third."

The woman was nervously walking up and down the platform, looking at the carriages. The gentleman opened one. "Are you going on?" he inquired, kindly. "There is room here."

"Thank you, sir."

He got in after her, and was soon taken up with his newspaper. At first the poor woman was so delighted at being really on the way to her son that all other thoughts were banished, but presently the harassing question intruded itself again. She won^ dered how she was to return, and her face grew pale and disturbed.

The gentleman, who had noticed the anxiety in her face at the ticket office and had suspected her poverty, began a conversation with his fellowpassenger :

"Are you going far?"

His manner was gentle and sympathetic, and before long he was in possession of the facts. They were both silent afterward until his destination was nearly reached. Then he slipped a piece of gold into her hand. "It is a habit of mine to travel third-class, and give the difference between the cost of the 3 first and the third to anyone in the carriage to whom a little help seems acceptable," he said.

"What a beautiful thing to do," said the woman, looking at the money in great amazement. "Do you mean this is for me, sir? Why, it is the cost of my return ticket. I did not mean to beg when I told you about my boy and my savings. You know I am doing it for love's sake, and — "

"Yes, I am doing it for love's sake, too. Good-bye. I hope you will find your son better."

Who doubts that that piece of gold was transmuted into heavenly wealth ? It was given for love of Christ, and no gifts in his name, given for love's sake, fail of recognition.

A lady in Scotland, whose husband had left her a competence, had two profligate sons who wasted her substance with riotous living. When she saw that her property was being squandered she determined to make an offering to the Lord. She took twenty pounds and gave it to the London Missionary Society. Her sons were very angry at this, and told her she might as well cast her money into the sea. "I will cast it into the sea," she replied, "and it shall be my bread upon the waters."

The sons, having spent all they could get, enlisted in a regiment and were sent to India. Their positions were far apart, but God so ordered that both were stationed near good missionaries. The elder one was led to repent of sin and embraced Christ. He shortly afterward died.

Meanwhile the widowed mother was praying for her boys. One evening, as she was taking down her family Bible to read, the door softly opened, and the younger son appeared to greet the aged mother. He told her that he had turned to God and Christ had blotted out all his sins. Then he narrated his past history in connection with the influence the faithful missionaries had had on his life; while his mother, with tears of overflowing gratitude, exclaimed: "O, my twenty pounds! My twenty pounds ! I have cast my bread upon the waters, and now I have found it after many days."

From the treasures which we store up in heaven we get a most precious income while we are traveling through this world. One of the noblest treasures that anyone can ever have in this world is a sincere and faithful friend, a friend that can always be depended upon for sympathy and comfort and congenial and loving fellowship. There are a thousand things that may interfere with earthly friendships, but there is a friendship which you may make, and you may begin it this very night, which nothing save coldness or indifference on your part can ever interfere with, and a friendship which will give you more joy and comfort of soul than any other friendship you could make on earth.

Mrs. Browning once asked Charles Kingsley to tell her the secret of his marvelous character and life. "What is the secret of your life? Tell me," she said, most earnestly, "because I wish my life to be beautiful like yours." And the noble Kingsley answered her in five words. They were, "I have had a friend." Ah, yes, he had a friend ! He had made friends with Jesus, and whenever he was tired or overburdened he sunned himself in conversation with his Friend. When he was overborne by the world's sorrow which he was trying to lighten, and when he was tempted to lose his faith in men and lose the hope of making them better, he went to his Friend, and his faith and hope grew strong again. Christ is willing to be just such a friend to you. Ah, we shall need him ! We need him always ; but there come to every one of us times of sickness and pain and disappointment when Jesus is the only friend who can come to our relief. How glorious then to have a tender and loving friendship with him.

One of the noblest men this country has ever seen was Major Whittle. A little while before he died, during a sleepless night, when he could not sleep for the pain, but while Jesus kept his heart bright and joyous with sweet fellowship, he wrote a little poem suggested to him by the chimes of the bedroom clock that announced the going of the hours to him. Lying on his sick bed, he wrote :

"Swift with melodious feet,

The midnight hours pass by; As with each chiming bell so sweet

I think, 'My Lord draws nigh.'

"I see heaven's open door,

I hear God's gracious voice; I see the blood-washed round the throne,

And with them I rejoice.

"It may be that these sounds

Are the golden bells so sweet, Which tell me of the near approach

Of the heavenly High Priest's feet.

"But the Lord remains the same,

Faithful he must abide; And on his word my soul I'll rest,

For he is by my side.

"Some midnight, sleepless saints,

Made quick by pain to hear, Shall join the glad and welcome cry,

'The Bridegroom draweth near!'

"Then shall I see his face,

His beauteous image bear; I'll know his love and wondrous grace,

And in his glory share.

"So sing my soul in praise,

As bells chime o'er and o'er, The coming of the Lord draws near,

When time shall be no more."

If we have this friendship with Jesus Christ, God promises that we shall be fellow-heirs with Jesus, and all the treasures of the heavenly world will come to us. We get everything through Jesus. Give your heart to Christ in sincere love, thus winning his forgiving love in return, and all the treasures of a glorious immortality are yours.

A quaint childless old man died leaving much wealth, and although careful search was made no will could be found. After a while the house furniture was put up for sale. An old woman was present at the auction who had once been nurse to the old man's only son, till the angels called him away. She had loved the boy dearly, and when a painted portrait of the little fellow was put up for sale quite a curious sensation came into her throat.

"Who bids ?" cried out the auctioneer.

"0, 1 wish I could !" sighed the poor woman, "but I have only a shilling, and it will never go for that."

It was a very poor sort of a picture, and no one even bid a penny.

"Please, sir," the poor woman ventured to say, "I will give a shilling for it, but I could not give more, as that is all I have."

"A shilling is bid," cried out the man ; "anything further?"

No one said anything, and so the picture was knocked down to the shilling bidder.

When she got the picture home she took it out of the frame to clean it, and there was the old man's missing will, and it read something like this : "Whoever buys my son's portrait shall have all I possess ; for perhaps some one will buy it who loved my son." Thus the poor old woman became rich, and all through the love she bore the old man's son.

God's heart is the heart of a father also, and Jesus said, "If any man serve me, him will my Father honor."

Make friendship with Jesus to-night, and you shall have treasures better than any the world can give, and treasures from which death cannot rob you; treasures which will safely pass the judgment seat ; treasures that shall enrich your soul, and fill heaven with joy and welcome for you throughout eternity.

IV

For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickeduess, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness : all these evil things come from within, and defile the man.— Mark vii, 21-23.

We cannot but recall those other words of Jesus in which he declares that a good life comes from a good heart, and a bad life comes from a bad heart ; that the heart is like a fountain : if it be bitter, then the waters that fill the stream cannot be sweet; if the spring be poisoned, then the life will be deadly. And in our text Jesus distinctly declares that the heart which is poisoned and perverted by sin is the immediate and direct source of all these vile sins which are mentioned here in our text. The solemn message which I have to bring you this evening is no matter of speculation or theory of my own. I bring you the solemn statement of Jesus Christ, that the center of sin is in the heart itself. Unless the heart be purified there can be no assurance of a good life, but a certainty that the life will finally be evil.

The world has always been trying to reach respectable and honorable living by a short cut. A man finds that certain sins are disgracing him and shaming him, and he undertakes to lop off those sins. He does not take into consideration that the cause for these sins is in the love for sin in his own heart, and that the only real cure is to have his heart cleansed of that love for sin.

Human nature is just the same now as it was in the days of Paul. Paul found it impossible to do right while there was in his heart a love for sin. He says that he found the good that he wanted to do — that is, the good that appealed to his judgment and his reason and his higher nature — he did not do; and the evil thing which his judgment told him was wicked and disgraceful, and which he determined not to do, he still found himself doing. He discovered that the secret was that the fountain of his heart was poisoned by sin. He was like a man who had chained about his neck a dead body, and he could not do as he would. The only way that salvation could come to him was by setting him free from that body of death, by purifying the heart that loved evil things, and then his judgment and his reason were brought into harmony with his affections and desires, and all were under the dominion of Christ. So completely was this so that Paul was able to say, "I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."

I doubt not I am speaking to some who have determined to do better. You have been looking back over jour life, and you are not satisfied with it, and you have come to the conclusion that you will break with some habits, and you will hold yourself more completely in line with better things. Yet you will fail unless the heart is changed. The fountain in your breast must be cleansed or it will overcome all your determination. Christ makes nothing more plain to us than this, that the fountain of sin is in our hearts. It is a poison of the blood, a curse that smites the will, that paralyzes our power to do right. But, thank God, while sin is in us, it is not yet of us ; it does not belong to us ; it is not our true self ; and it is the mission of Christ to cleanse and purify our hearts of it.