Arrows from two quivers : sermons

Front matter

UNITED STATES OF AMEEIf!A.

Arrows From Two Quivers.

SERMONS.

Contents

I^ Page The Loom of Life 13 n.

nL

Satan's Sieve - o 35

II. The Visitor From Edom

" Who is it that cometh from Edoin, Avith dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that tread eth in the wine-fat? I have trodden the wine-press alone ; and of the people there was none with me. (Isaiah Ixiii. 1, 2, and first clause of third verse.)

rr^HE dramatic power of this passage is unsur- -L passed. The prophet, while standing in silent meditation, suddenly beholds a wonderful personage. Startled by the unexpected vision, he inquires: " Who is it that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength ? " He is answered by the Being who has attracted his attention and called forth the inquiry: "I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save."

In the analysis of this passage I hope to show that its scope and design are to exhibit Christ as the reprepresentative of the human race. Throughout the Scriptures we are presented with two great representatives of the human race — Adam and Christ. Says St. Paul: "Therefore, as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's [Adam's] disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made right-

24 Arrotvs from Two Quivers,

eous." Sin abounded through Adam, grace has much more abounded through Jesus Christ. Through Adam sin reigned unto death; through Christ grace reigned unto eternal life. Again it is said: "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." As by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. As he is represented to us in the Bible we behold Adam standing amidst the graves of his children, palsied by age and corrupted by sin; a shade of deepest melancholy is over his face, and words of irrepressible sorrow fall from his lips. O, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of sin and death? My sin blighted Eden and brought death and all our woe. Jesus, girt with omnipotence and filled with mercy, responds with a voice loud enough to wake the dead and powerful enough to annihilate death itself: "I am the resurrection and the life."

1. In the text, Jesus, as our greatest and last representative, appears as coming from Edom with dyed garments from Bozrah. He is the representative of both Jew and Gentile. Descended from Abraham, he came also from Euth. Of the descendants of Shem, he could represent the poor outcast and degraded sons of Ham and the more elevated and civilized and intelligent sons of Japheth. The three great races may each claim him as theirs. No one people, nor tribe, nor language can appropriate him; but all may claim him as the universal Saviour. Jacob and Esau, Sarah and Kuth, Greek and Indian, the European and African, may all alike claim him as their Saviour, honor him as their representative, and crown him as their King.

2. Again, he is represented in dyed garments, clothed in the humble garb of a servant, and at the same time wearing regal apparel. What a paradox! Clothed as a servant and shining in royal apparel. The first interrogatory shows him to us as the representative of races, the second as the representative of classes. He is a King and a servant. He is as strong as the lion of Judah's tribe, and gentle as the most delicate woman. He is the Saviour of all. The king on his throne may hide himself in his pavilion and take refuge beneath his shadow; the ignoble slave may trust him as the fountain of light and life and liberty. Wealth may look up to him and rejoice; poverty may trust in him and become rich. Toil may gaze upon him and be eased of its burdens; while nobility itself may ascend to a loftier elevation by casting all worldly glory at his feet. Youth, amid the perplexities of the career upon which with inexperienced feet it is about to enter, may look up to him and exclaim:

Guide me, thou great Jeliovah, Pilgrim through this barren land.

Old age may exclaim:

I am weak, but thou art mighty; Hold me with thy powerful hand.

Haggard want, with a smile upon the face and joy in

the s.unken eye, can cry out with holy confidence:

Bread of heaven, Feevd me till I want no more.

The living can say:

Whence the healing waters flow,

Let the fiery, cloudy pillar Lead me all my journey through.

Strong Deliverer, Be thou still my strength and shield.

And the dying from the brink of Jordan may sing:

Now I tread the verge of Jordan,

Bid my anxious fears subside ; Death of death, and helPs destruction,

Land me safe on Canaan's side.

And all people of every land and nation and tongue and kindred may join in one grand chorus:

Songs of praises, songs of praises, We will ever give to Thee.

Proceeding with our analysis, we next behold him as the great representative Teacher of mankind. He speaks in righteousness. Not a subject in all the wide range of human responsibility or human destiny but is discussed by him with a simplicity, a beauty, and a power which belong to no other teacher. Avoiding all technical terms, shunning all metaphysical discussions, ignoring all the schools of philosophy, caring nothing for the oracular utterances of the academy or the porch, he never touched a subject that he did not make lucid, he never presented a truth that was not luminous, and he never spoke but in righteousness. His illustrations, taken from every-day life, astonish by their appositeness and their variety, and actually distance expectation and defy imitation. The utterance of one of his parables would have given immortality to any other teacher. The prayer which he taught his disciples, though uttered by the pious for eighteen centuries, though lisped by infancy and trembling on the lips of age, though transferred to canvas and transformed to verse, though chanted by the choir, and though almost spoken in the tremulous and deep tones of the organ, has never yet been exhausted of its marrow and its fatness. So it is with all his inimitable utterances. They astonish us by their variety, attract us by their simplicity, affect us by their tenderness, move us by their spirituality, and warm us by their love. Age cannot impair their freshness, and no repetition can lessen their power. They embrace every theme of death, life, and immortality which ought to engage the attention, enlist the feelings or control the conduct of rational and immortal beings. They inculcate every virtue and arrest all forms of vice in its very beginning — in the thoughts and feelings. He spake as never man spake, and always in righteousness. He never made a mistake in word or doctrine, in precept or in practice. He spoke in parables and in proverbs, in the boldest denunciations and in the sweetest promises, to all classes and conditions, in the city and in the wilderness, to listening thousands and to a lone woman; and to this day, after all the caviling of infidelity, he stands the great, unrivaled, original Teacher, who never committed a blunder, was never entrapped by his enemies, was ever consistent with himself, and always spoke in righteousness. To this day his teachings shine with ever-increasing brightness, and defy the heart to exhaust their love, and no intellect has ever probed their depth. And yet, wonderful paradox, they are so simple that a child may embrace them, and so transparent that the failing eye of old age may look through them. So potent are these inimitable teachings that in their presence ignorance becomes intelligence, corruption becomes pure, sorrow looks up and smiles, and guilt puts on the robe of innocence.

3. But we pass on to a still fuller analysis of this magnificent description. He w^ho declares himself to be the great Teacher speaking in righteousness next proclaims himself as mighty to save.

His power to save is seen:

1. In that he satisfied the demands of stern and inflexible justice — demands which neither man nor angels could meet.

Said Justice : " Man, I would know thy weight ;

If weight thou hast, I spare ; if not, I slay."

Man leaped the scale, it mounted at his word.

Said Justice : " Less than nothing. Where's my sword ? "

But Virtue was there, and her small weight did try.

The scale unsunk, still kicked the beam on high.

But Mercy, the fairest dove that ever flew,

From Calvary brought a twig of crimson hue.

The scale, it sunk on the other side,

Man smiled, and Justice said, " I am satisfied."

He alone could turn away the wrath of God, avert the storm of divine vengeance, meet the claims of a violated law, hush the thunders of Sinai, and he alone could solve the problem, ''How can God be just and justify the ungodly?" When the cloud of vengeance spread its murky folds over the world, he drew from its bosom the fiery bolt and received it in his own heart. He then irradiated its darkness with the light of hope and spanned it with the bow of promise. In the emphatic language of the Bible, " He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities." He tasted death for every man. He w^as our substitute. He took our place, assumed our poverty, and received our punishment. He bore our

The Visitor from Edoin. 29

sins and suffered the untold agonies of the garden and the cross, until justice sheathed its sword, and with features relaxed and voice of tender sympathy exclaimed, "I am satisfied." Then truth cried aloud, "Mighty to save!" and ten thousand echoing voices from earth and sky, from angels and men, " Mighty to save!"

2. His power to save is seen in the next place in the transforming and conservative influence of his divine religion upon nations. It has converted England from a nation of barbarians, poisoned with Druidism and reveling in human blood, to the most enlightened and progressive nation on the globe. The light of civilization shed over England by him who is mighty to save has made the "fast-anchored isle " the wonder and the glory of the nineteenth century. Her laws and literature, her morals and civilization, her benevolence and humanity are all the results of her open Bibles and her Protestant Christianity. And "woe be the day " when proud and potent England, yielding to the false teachings of Mill and Huxley, shall depart from the light of Christianity. Christianity breathed upon the mountains of Switzerland, the snows of Eussia, the vine-clad hills of France, the olive-groves of Spain, and upon the laws and government of Prussia, as also upon the academies and universities of Germany, and that breath, so pure and vital, has been the sole salvation of Europe from vandal barbarism and widespread and hopeless degradation. It is the moral power of the gospel, its power to save, that has given to America all its glory, and the lack of it has produced all its shame. Had religion been kept pure, had the Church never formed any adulterons connections with the State, had the simplicity of the primitive Church not been substitnted by gorgeous and imposing ceremonies that almost destroyed its vital power, Eden in its pristine glory would nothave surpassed the present condition of the world. But notwithstanding all this, his power to save has kept some who have not defiled their garments, has saved the human race from entire and universal destruction, has kept aglow the spirit of earnest piety in the hearts of his believing children, and has given an impulse to progress which will continue with accelerated speed until the banner of the cross shall float in triumph from the crumbling walls of the temple of idolatry, and the songs of salvation shall make the earth vocal with praise.

3. He is mighty to save, as is seen in his power to bring all instrumentalities into his service. He can make all nature speak in one harmonious voice, and invite the world to the service of him to whom all nature owes its origin. The heavens declare his glory, the firmament showeth his handiwork. The sun rolling in gorgeous splendor, the moon revolving in queenly dignity, the planets like fiery cruisers rushing with inconceivable velocity, law, and order, and fulfilling their various rounds with an exactitude of time which does not vary a minute in a thousand years, the fixed stars lighting up the celestial vault like so many brilliant camp-fires at night, all the agents of almighty power, and the witnesses, silently, yet eloquently, attest the divine perfections. He can bring all the beauties of heaven, all the grandeur and glory of earth to attest his power and exhibit his skill. The fire and hail, the snow and vapor fulfill his word. Storm and calm, light and darkness, life and death, men and angels, peace and war, ignorance and learning, goodness and wrath may all be made to praise him. He can and does employ all agencies and instrumentalities throughout his vast dominions to enlist man in his service and bring the world to the Saviour.

4. His power to save is seen in the individual salvation of all that come to him. He casts out none that apply. He has power on earth to forgive sin. His salvation washes away all pollution, removes all guilt, and brings in upon the soul a new creation. The vilest sinner is made to rejoice in sins forgiven and a heart renewed. Old things pass away, and all things become new. The man whom Jesus saves sees with new eyes and hears with new ears. He rejoices with joy unspeakable and full of glory. His soul aspires. His faith claims the promises and clings to the cross. His affections gush in sweet sympathy with all that is pure and good, and with loving energy embrace the Saviour. Duty is felt in all the force of moral obligation, and is discharged with a conscience void of offense toward God and man. The current of feeling flows in a new channel, and while the power of the will is increased the happy convert no longer exclaims: "O, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of sin and death? " The fear of death is removed, and the terror of contemplating the last judgment gives place to serene hope or exultant joy. The grave loses its gloom because the light of redemption illumines it, and he who is mighty to save has conquered the power of death and proclaimed himself the resurrection and the life.

5. His power to save is seen in that he saves from eternal death. He is the Saviour from all the pains and agonies of the second death. He saves from the fires which ever burn and from the storm that ever rages. He saves the soul from being lost. A lost soul! Who can conceive its fearful, hopeless, endless doom? Cast into outer darkness — a darkness w^liich can never be relieved, never mitigated. It is the darkness of a starless night, upon whose sky no sun is ever to rise. It is the darkness which no light will ever dispel and no hope can ever enter. It is outer darkness — away out and out amid the scenes of horror and of dread, from which the soul instinctively shrinks. It is the wreck of all that is delightful in society, joyous in hope, sweet in friendship, holy in tender sympathies, glowing in imagination, or lofty in action. It is darkness visible; it is darkness palpable; it is darkness eternal. No ray of light can ever penetrate, can ever reach, the outer verge of that horrible darkness which, like the successive waves of an angry sea, shall come over the lost spirit which has rejected the offer of mercy from him who is mighty to save. From such a fate he alone can save us, and from that doom his mighty and far-reaching mercy alone can rescue us.

6. But he saves in heaven. His salvation exalts to the throne of God. It conquers sin, paralyzes death, dismantles the grave, and bears the soul redeemed and disenthralled to the cloudless light of eternal day. There is no night there. No clouds gather in murky folds to shut out the true light which shines and shall shine forever in heaven. Before that light the sun himself grows pale and then disappears forever. The unearthly, eternal glory of the Holy Trinity pours forth such a radiance over all celestial plains that all the sons and daughters of redeeming love feel no need of the light of the sun, but bask forever amid scenes brighter than prophet or bard ever conceived. For it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive of the sublime grandeur of his holy inheritance. But once more the prophet asks: " Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine-fat? " He answers: "I have trod the wine-press alone."

Alone? Yes; all alone he trod the wine-press of his Father's wrath. It is doubtful with me if there is a more expressive term, as applied to the Saviour's sufferings, than this word "alone." He had none to help him. Accursed by scribes and Pharisees, condemned by Pilate, betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter, forsaken by his disciples, he was alone on the cross— alone to avert the wrath of God and save a lost world. I have thought of loneliness as I have been in a great city and felt myself alone amidst thousands of human beings, all strange to me. I have seen the poor culprit alone in his cell, shut out from all human society by bars and bolts and frowning walls. I have seen the daughter, the spoiled and petted child of w^ealth and fashion, driven from the home of her father and mother, and forbidden ever again to enter the family circle or to utter the sacred name which she had dishonored. But all this, and more, is not to be compared to the loneliness of the suffering Son of God. Then I have seen the widow, whose husband had been slain in battle, alone in her weeds of mourning, without father or mother, and 8 feeling that she was alone in the world. But, my brethren, no loneliness is to be compared to that which Christ endured when he said: "My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?" Then he drank the bitter cup of spiritual death, and felt that even his Father had allowed him to pass under the rod of the divine law, with no hand to uphold him and no words to cheer him.

Now, if this view of Christ does not lead you to him, I know not what can. Argument will be powerless, and appeals will be of no avail. Promises will not encourage, and anathemas will not alarm. Allow me, then, to beseech you to come and join company with the hosts of the redeemed who will crowd around the Sa^^iour and crown him Lord of all.

E.

III. Satan's Sieve.*

"And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he might sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not : and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." (Luke xxii. 31, 32.)

PETER was a fisherman, for the reason that there were no railroads in his day. Had there been, I am sure he would have been a railroad man. He was the right material — an out-and-out nature, honest, earnest, open-handed, unselfish; and his mother-inlaw lived in the home with him. He was strong, fearless, impetuous, hardy, rough-handed, not often scared, and took risks as they came, and wasn't careful of consequences. Withal, there is something so noble and generous in his nature that we all love him. He had a penchant for speech-making. He made more speeches than all the eleven. He always spoke from his heart, and spoke as he felt. The Master had to rebuke him occasionally, yet he loved him so that he made his resting-place in Peter's home.

The railroad life is a fast life. A man dashes into danger, and does his thinking about it afterward. Peter's very nature was like this. He was a minute man. Provoked, his sword was out and cutting and slashing into the very heart of danger without tliink-

"^ Preached to the Railroad Department of the Young Men's Christian Association, at Atlanta, Ga., June 22, 1889.

ing. He had all the elements of the railroad man — soul, body, and spirit.

1. This text sets the gate ajar. Here we get a glimpse of that unknown realm wherein is perpetual conflict — the spirit domain, which is a theater of antagonisms. We can see only the natural, but Christ surveys both realms, natural and supernatural. He sees Satan's movements and knows his aims. While the powers of darkness are so malignant, and their plans too subtle for our cognition, it is a grand thought that our leader surveys the field and notes each movement of the subtle forces. His omniscience is as a divine field-glass that sweeps the entire infernal realm and detects every movement for the destruction of his followers.

His ivords ivere a surprise, '' Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you." What astonishment! "What had Satan to do with him? He had not seen Satan, but Satan had plotted his ruin. While Peter had not thought of danger, Christ had seen his peril; and that peril was so great that he had gone into a conflict of prayer for him.

Life has literal dangers on every hand. Death, in a thousand forms, lurks in the points and turns of every life. But those dangers multiply about some lives. I talk now with a class of men wh(5 carry their lives in their hands. You part from dear ones at the doorway in the morning without assurance of greeting them when the run is made. Certain you are to pass dangers before you return. They may next see you as you are lifted lifeless from the wreck. But exposure to danger begets indifference to it, and this indifference does but increase the danger. Many the

Satan's Sieve. 37 man who has lost his life by his very familiarity with danger. I saw a daring man adjust a rod on a churchspire. It was a dizzy height. The streets were lined with spectators as he lingered for an hour at that spiretip, with certain death beneath should he fall. It was an hour of excitement with that little town. There is where the railroad man spends life — up over the great abyss of eternity, with only a point between him and death. His passing from coach to coach is over thundering death; climbing to the car-top, he is clambering over destruction; running the upper deck of the long freight train, he leaps the death-stream 'twixt each car. Add to this broken rails, unsound trestles, mistaken schedules, misread orders, and the railroad life is a sport with death. Besides, half the perils are never known. How many are the accidents barely escaped — hair-breadth passes of which you know not! You know the danger by the actual occurrence of the tragedy; how many come within a particle and yet are passed! Could you look back and see the unseen dangers, the soul would sicken at the sight.

But flesh and blood perils are not the most numerous. There are more soul-wrecks than train-wrecks, and they are far more dreadful. A railroad wreck is a thing of a day: a few mangled forms, -a wife widowed, a family orphaned, an engine crushed, an engineer put on a crutch or on a wooden leg for life^ transportation stopped for six hours, a sensation for the morning paper, and there it ends. The debris is soon removed, damage repaired, dead buried, tears dried, and old Time wets his finger at his lips and silently rubs out the scene. But a soul-wreck can never be remedied: There is no alleviation. God liimself cannot repair the ruin or remove the debris. The blood cannot be washed out. Like the stain on the hand of Lady Macbeth, all the tides of eternity cannot wash out the stain of a self-murdered soul.

Our unseen dangers are most numerous. As sleeping passengers, we pass most dangers when we know it not. Peter had been in peril. He and the others had been in a big quarrel as to "who should be greatest." Christ perhaps was in prayer for them while they were in the quarrel about honors which were never to be. Most of our disharmonies arise from what we fancy or expect, but which never transpires. When we are fullest of worldly ways and ambitions, then are we in most danger from unseen powers of darkness. Had that quarrel been recorded, it would have made racy reading. Peter, I am sure, put his claim to promotion with emphasis, and. had it been necessary would have made that emphasis more emphatic with his fist. And yet he learns afterward that at the moment he was urging his claim to of&ce a hand — invisible, black, malignant — was fixing its clutch in his throat, and but for the Master's care and prayers would have wrought his ruin. How often, when ambition is highest and the blood hottest, the hand of the destroyer is nighest! Success has its unseen perils. Are you rising in power as never before? making money as never before? having success as never before? Kemember, it was just when Peter thought he was about to become chief cabinet oSicer that the devil was planning his destruction.

2. The confiict. Christ and Satan are in conflict

Satan's Sieve, 39 over the soul of Peter. There are unseen battles fought over us when we know it not; and were Christ not engaged for us, we could not stand. He does not break the power of the enemy and thus deliver us. That would be saving us as babes are saved. He intends that we shall be saved as men — men who have the royal right of choice, men who stand for the right, heroes and conquerors with and for Christ.

" Satan hath desired to have you, that he might sift you as wheat." It had not occurred to Peter that the devil had special yearning after hinv We would ti:emble, many times, if we knew the Satanic desires for our ruin. Satan wanted his way with Peter that he might sift him — might shake him thoroughly, as he did Job, and see if he could shake him through the sieve with the cockle and the dirt. It was fearful, and would have been hopeless but for the counteracting power of the Saviour's prayer. There is a mighty countervailing influence in prayer. The godless recognize this. The bronzed old pilot, when his vessel was caught in the fog near the pass between the rocks, and the fog suddenly lifted just enough and long enough for him to guide his boat through the pass, said solemnly: "Somebody on this boat has been praying." It is a grand thing to have a mother, a wife, even a little child pray for you; But what is it to have him pray for you whose wounds and blood are eloquent with that power that veiled the sun and rent the rocks?

Railroad men have special sifting. Some say: "The railroads belong to the devil ; and a man cannot be a railroad man and a Christian." They say: "They have no Sunday, no church, no association helpful to godliness." The devil very naturally sets his claim to the railroads. He knows the power they wield. He knows they are mighty instrumentalities for the advance of civilization. Hence he will take charge if he be allowed. If he told the Master that all the kingdoms of the earth were his, we need not wonder if he should claim the railroads. He will run them in his interests if possible. Where you pierce new territory with your lines, he will be on hand with his enterprises; where you build a station, he will plant a saloon and build a brothel; ^here you put a Bible in a coach-rack, he will put in a score of infidel books and yellow-backed filth; where you win one young man to Christ, he will try to persuade half a dozen to give up the religion of their childhood and enter upon fast and dissolute life. But press the battle on this line, as workers in the Young Men's Christian Association, and remember you have a solid ground of hope in these words: "I have prayed for thee." The divine solicitude and the prayer of Christ underlie your organization and the effort of every one trying to save men.

3. The hiirclen of the prayer, " That thy faith fail not." There is a heroism in faith that laughs at impossibilities. It lets in a measure of the supernatural upon us in the trying junctures of life; it makes men do what they cannot explain in their cooler moments. Yonder Hebrew has slain his fellow, and is flying to the city of refuge. The avenger upon his track is gaining and pressing him hard. Every nerve and muscle are strained, and his strength is failing. The avenger is nearer, and escape seems impossible; yet his confidence holds, and he believes he