Message to Every Lost Sinner

Message of the. A London city missionary whose success among fallen women had been remarkable, after a visit to the country, was returning through Yorkshire.

He stopped at the inn, and after tea the matron went to a drawer and taking out the daguerrotype of a beautiful girl, handed it to the missionary, saying, “It is my daughter, gone, lost, and yet—O sir, take with you this last memento of the one we loved so well, and if ever in your great city ye see her face, go to her and tell her that her old home still waits for her, and her mother’s heart still yearns for her.” This is the message which is sent by Christ to every lost sinner.

GospEt, Nature of the. The Gospel is the fulfillment of all hopes, the perfection of all philosophy, the interpretation of all revelations, the key to all the seeming contradictions of the physical and moral world. —Prof. Max Miller. Grace, Prayer for.

A poor man in England before eating asked a blessing in these words, which were found written on a slip of paper, “Lord, give me grace to feel my need of grace: and give me grace to ask for grace: and give me grace to receive grace: and O Lord, when grace is given, give me grace to use it. Amen.” Grace, Preservation of. How shall a wooden vessel be kept water-tight, so that the precious supply of the household may not ooze through its joints into the ground?

Keep it always full of water. It is by a similar method that grace may be preserved in the heart of a Christian. Keep the vessel full, and it will not leak. —Anon. GratitTupE, Flow of.

“The currents of grace run in circles as well as those of nature. The electric current does not go along the wire unless it comes back through the earth to complete the circle. A picture of it is seen in a well-known apparatus for ventilation. Two tubes joined together, stretch from the interior of a building through the roof into the air.

The air flows up through one lobe of the tube out of the building, and down through the other lobe into the building. When the process is set agoing it continues.

But if you stop the ascending current, you thereby also make the descend. ing current to cease; and if you stop the descending current, the ascending one is arrested too.” So, when the soul is united to God, it receives blessings and completes the circuit by constant returns of gratitude and thanksgiving.

GROWTH IN GRACE. We have the likenesses of our boys taken on every birthday, and twelve of the annual portraits are now framed in one picture, so that we see them at a glance from their babyhood to their youth. Suppose such photographic memorials of our own spiritual life had been taken and preserved, would there be a regular advance, as in these boys, or should we still have been exhibited in the perambulator? Have not some grown awhile, and then suddenly dwarfed?

84 SERMON ILLUSTRATIONS Have not others gone back to babyhood? Here is a wide field for reflection. —Sel. GROWTH IN GrRacE. The venders of flowers in the streets of London are wont to comment them to customers by crying, “All a blowing and a growing.”

It would be no small praise to Christians, if we could say as much for them, but, alas! of too many professors the cry would truthfully be, “All a stunting and a withering.” GRUMBLERS. A heavy wagon was being dragged along a country lane by a team of oxen. The axle-trees groaned and creaked terribly, when the oxen turning round, thus addressed the wheels: —‘‘Halloa, there! why do you make so much noise? we bear all the labor, and we, not you, ought to cry out!”

Those complain first in our churches who have the least to do. The gift of grumbling is largely dispensed among those who have no other talents, or who keep what they have wrapped up in a napkin. Guitt, Slavery of. The slave who digs in the mine or labors at the oar, can rejoice at the prospect of laying down his burden together with his life; but to the slave of guilt there arises no hope from death.

On the contrary, he is obliged to look forward with constant terror to this most certain of all events, as the conclusion of all his hopes, and the commencement of his greatest miseries. —Blair. Guitt, Torment of. Think not that guilt requires the burning torches of the furies to agitate and torment it. Frauds, crimes, remembrances of the past, terrors of the future—these are the domestic furies that are ever present to the mind of the impious. —Cicero.

Guitt, Transfer of. For a long time before the conSERMON ILLUSTRATIONS 85 version of Rev.

C. Simeon, he had been in the deepest distress, envying even the dogs that passed under his window. In Passion-week he met with the expression in “Bishop Wilson on the Lord’s Supper,” “that the Jews knew what they did when they transferred their sins to the head of their offering.”

“The thought rushed into my mind,” says he, “What! may I transfer all my guilt to another? Has God provided an offering for me, that I may lay my sins on his head? Then, God willing, I will not bear them one moment longer.

Accordingly, I sought to lay my sins upon the sacred head of Jesus, and on the Wednesday began to have a hope of mercy; on the Thursday that hope increased, and on Friday and Saturday it became more strong; and on the Sunday morning (Easter Day) I awoke early, with these words upon my heart and lips: ‘Jesus Christ is risen to-day! Hallelujah! Hallelujah” From that hour he had peace. Guitt, Unhappiness of.

Guilt though it may attain temporal splendor, can never confer real happiness. The evident consequences of our crimes long survive their commission, and, like the ghosts of the murdered, forever haunt the steps of the malefactor. The paths of virtue, though seldom those of worldly greatness, are always those of pleasantness and peace. —Sir Walter Scott. Happiness, Trying to Work out.

There are those that would hammer out their own happiness, like the spider climbing up by the thread of her own weaving. Of all the parts and abilities that be in you, you may well say as the young man did of his hatchet, “Alas, master! it was but borrowed.” (II Kings 6:6.) —Brooks.

Happiness, Where is. If the Scriptures are a delusion, where will we seek our happiness? In wealth? It is a splendid incumbrance.

In honor? It is a glittering bubble. In the pleasures of the world? They are like the brine of the ocean to a thirsty palate, will irritate rather than satisfy.

In gay entertaining company? This is only a temporary opiate, not a lasting cure. But in the precious promises of the Gospel, and its renewing energy on our hearts; in the discoveries of God’s love to poor sinners; in the displays of God’s infinitely rich grace; and in the hope of his everlasting glory; in these grand species, for preparing and dispensing which revelation has the patent—true health, ease, and felicity are to be found. —Hervey.

Harpness or Heart, Biblical. A heart of stone. Ezek. 11:19.

A face harder than a rock, Jer. 5:3. Stiff of forehead and hard of heart, Ezek. 3:7.

Hard as an adamant stone, probably a diamond. Torpid and benumbed. Rom. 11:7, 8 (quoting Isa.

29:10), according to the view of Hammond and others is taken from the figure of one benumbed, through the stupefying draught given to condemned criminals before execution. Seared, cauterized, or branded, “as with a hot iron,” I Tim. 4:2, made callous; a terrible mark of the apostasy of “the latter times.” “Past feeling, because of the blindness (marg., hardness) of their heart,” Eph.

4:18, 19. Isa. 6:9, 10—It is a noteworthy fact that this solemn passage is quoted most frequently in the New Testament, of any Old Testament text. ExaMPLes.

Pharaoh—the Old Testament type of incorrigible hardness of heart, defiant alike of mercy and of judgment. It is remarkable that Pharaoh “seems to have been more emboldened to sin, by those miracles of mercy which removed the plagues than by those of judgment which inflicted them.”—<(Nicholls.) The Canaanites in the time of Joshua were a striking exSERMON ILLUSTRATIONS 87 ample of those who have had many warnings, and yet refuse all thought of submission. They had wisdom and their own content, that they bear their happiness or unhappiness within their own breast; and that all outward things have a right and a wrong handle.

He that takes them by the right handle finds them good; he that takes them by the wrong indiscreetly, finds them evil. Take a knife by the haft, it will serve you; take it by the edge, it will cut you. There is no good thing but is mingled with evil; there is no evil but some good enters into the composition.

The same truth holds in all persons, actions, and events. Out of the worst, a well composed mind, endowed with the grace of God, may extract good, with no other chemistry than piety, wisdom and serenity. It lieth in us as we incline our minds to be pleased or displeased with most things in the world. Hearers, Forgetful.

Some hearers have bad memories. Their memories are like leaky vessels: all the precious wine of holy doctrine that is poured in runs out presently. Ministers cannot by study find a truth so fast as others lose it. If a truth delivered doth not stay in the memory, we can never be nourished up in the word of truth.

If thieves steal away people’s money, they tell every one, and make their complaints that they have been robbed; but there is a worse thief they are not aware of. How many sermons hath the devil stolen from them! How many truths have they been robbed of, which might have been so many deathbed cordials! —T. Watson.

Hearers Only. It pleaseth men to hear of speculative doctrines, and to be entertained with a luscious preaching of the gospel, made up all of promises, and these wholly unconditional. It gratifies them to hear what is done without them, rather than what is done within them, and the necessity of sincere and entire obedience to our Saviour’s precepts urged upon them. —Dr. Worthington.

Hearers, Various. 1. The inattentive hearer, that taketh very little heed to what he heareth. 2.

The inconsiderate hearer, that never ponders what he hears, nor compares one thing with another. 3. The injudicious hearer, that never makes any judgment, whether it be true or false. 4.

The unappreciative hearer, who hears all his days, but is never the wiser. 5. The stupid, unaffected hearer, that is as a rock and a stone under the word. 6.

There are your prejudiced, disaffected hearers, who hear with dislike, especially those things which relate to practice. 7. Your fanatical, voluptuous hearers, that hear only to please their fancy or imaginations. They come on purpose to try if they can hear a pretty sentence, any fine jingle, any flashes of wit.

8. Your notional hearers, that are of somewhat a higher form and sect than the others. They always come to learn some kind of novelty. 9.

Those talkative persons, who only come to hear, that they may furnish themselves with notions for the sake of discourse. 10. The censorious and critical hearers, who come on purpose not as doers of the law, but as judges.

11. Malicious hearers, that come on purpose to seek an advantage against those they come to hear, particularly against what they preach. Thus you see the characters of those who are “Hearers only,” which are various and manifold. —Howe. Heart, Hardness of.

Lightfoot says: —“I have heard it more than once and again, from the sheriffs who took all the gunpowder plotters, and brought them up to London, that every night when they came to their lodging by the way, they had their music and dancing a good part of the night. One would think it strange that men in their case should be so merry.” More marvellous still is it that those between whom and death there is but a step, should sport away their time as if they should live on for ages.

Though the place of torment is within a short march of all unregenerate men, yet see how they make mirth, grinning and jesting between the jaws of hell! Heart, Carnal or Spiritual. In the heart of a carnal man all things lie in a confused order, heaven below, and earth at top; earth seems to him to be vast and infinite, but heaven a little inconsiderable spot.

But in the heart of a child of God everything keeps its natural posture. There earth sinks, as being the dregs of his thoughts and cares, but heaven shines above, very bright and glorious; earth seems to him to be but a little spot, as indeed it is, which is seldom seen or noted by him, but heaven is an infinite boundless sea of mercy, which he is still looking into and admiring. —Hopkins.

Heart, Closet of the. Let me step into your heart, sir, and peep upon its furniture. My hands are pretty honest; you may trust me; and nothing will be found, I fear, to tempt a man to be a thief. Well, to be sure, what a filthy closet is here!

Never swept, for certain, since you were christened. And what a fat idol stands sulking in the corner! A sweet heart-sin, I warrant it. How it simpers, and seems as pleasant as a right eye!

Can you find a will to part with it, or strength to pluck it out? And supposing you are a match for this self-denial, can you so command your heart as to hate the sin you do forsake? This is certainly required. Truth is called for in the inward parts.

God will have sin not only cast aside, but cast away with abhorrence. So he speaks, “Ye that love the Lord hate evil.” —John Berridge. 90 SERMON ILLUSTRATIONS Heart, Color of the. If a bowl of dye be crimson, whatever you draw out of it will be red; if a coat be black, each thread you pull from it will be black.

So, if our hearts are sinful, whatever issues from them will be more or less sinful. —Bolton. Heart, Discipline of the. As smiths, better to work their iron, put it back frequently into the furnace, to be softened by the fire; and gardeners, to preserve a fine row of cedars and myrtles, frequently cut off the superfluous leaves and blossoms; so to preserve a soul in the fervor of virtue, it must often replace itself in the furnace of the exercises, and there, enlightened by God on its defects, divest itself of them and amend.