SUNDAY READING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 5944, 4 December 1880, Page 3

SUNDAY READING.

THE RESCUE. A SKKMOX P.V tilt. TAI.M.UIK. ■• lielievc on tlw l-'.r.l .k-sus Christ and thou shaft be siivud."-Acts xvi. Jl. •Fails are dark, dull, loathsome places even now : but they were worse in the apostolic times. I imagine, to-day, we are standing in the I'hilippinn dungeon. Do you not feel the chill? Do you not hear the groan of those incarcerated ones who for some years have not seen the sunlight, and the 'deep sigh of those who remember their father's house, and the happiness they once knew ? Listen again. It is enough from a consumptive, or the struggle of one in the nightmare of a great horror. You listen again, and hear a culprit, his chains rattling as he rolls over in his dreams, and you say : "God pitv the [prisoner." But there is another sound in that prison. It is a song of jov and gladness. What a place to sing in '. "The music comes winding through the corridors of the prison, and in all the dark wards the whisper is heard, " What's that? What's that?"

It is the song of Paul and Silas. They cannot sleep. They have been whipped* very badly whipped." The lon;,' gashes on their backs are blecdinu' vet. They lie flat on the cold ground. theiV feet fast in wooden sockets, and of course they cannot sleep. But they can sing. Jailer," what are you doing w'ith these people? Why have they been put in here ? Oh, they have been trying to make the world better. Is that all ? That is all. A pit for .Joseph. A lion's cave for Daniel. A blazing furnace for Sliadraeh. An anathema for Philip Melancthon. A dunge'm for Paul and Silas. But while we are standing in the gloom of the I'hilippian dungeon, and we hear the mingling voices of sob and groan and blasphemy and hallelujah, suddenly an earthquake ! The iron bars of the prison twist, the pillars crack off, the solid masonry begins to heave, and all the doors swin ■ open. The jailer, feeling himself responsible for these prisoners, and believing, in his μ-igan ignorance, suicide to be honourable—since Brutus killed himself, and Cato killed himself, and Cassius killed himself—puts his sword to his own heart, proposing with one strong keen thrust to put an end to his excitement and agitation. But Paul cries out "Stop ! stop ! Do thyself no harm. We are all here."

Then I see the jailer running through the dust and amid the ruin of the prison, and 1 see him throwing himself down at the feet of these prisoners, crying out, " What shall Ido ? What shall Ido ?'" Did Paul answer. "<!et out of this place before there is another earthquake ; put handcuffs and hobbles (Pii these other prisoners, lest they get away ?" No word of that kind. His compact, thrilliii'.-, tremendous answer, answer memorable all through earth and Heaven, was, " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved."

Well, we have all heard of the earthquakes in Lisbon, in Lima, in Aleppo, and in Caraccas ; but we live in a latitude where in all our memory there has not been one severe volcanic disturlmnee. And yet we have seen fiity earthquakes. Here is a man who has been building up a large fortune. His bill on the money market was felt in all the cities. He thinks he has got beyond all annoying rivalries in trade, and he says to himself, "Now I am free and safe from all possible perturbation." Hut in 1537, or in 1X57, or in 1873, a national panic strikes the foundations of the commercial world, and crash goes all that magnificent business establishment. Here is a man who has built up a very beautiful home. His daughters have just come from the seminary with diplomas of graduation. His sons have started in life, honest, temperate, and pure. When the evening lights are struck, there is a happy and unbroken family circle. But there has been an accident down at Long Branch. The young man ventured too far out in the surf. The telegraph hurled the terror up to the city. An earthquake struck under the foundations of that beautiful house.

The piano closed : the curtain dropped : the laughter hushed. Crash ! go all these domestic hopes and prospects and expectations. So, my friends, we have all felt the shaking down of some great trouble, and there was a time when we were as mud! excited as this man of the tex f , and we cried out as he did, " What shall Ido ? What shall I do ?" The same replv that the apostle made to him is appropriate to us, " Believe on the Lord .lesus Christ and tliou shalt be saved."

There are some documents of so little importance that you do not care to put any more than your last name under them, or even your initials : but there arc some documents of so yreat importance that you write out your full name. So the Saviour in some parts of the Bible is called " Lord," and in other parts of the Bible He is called ".Icsus." and in other parts of the Bible He is called

"Christ:" but that theiv might hi- no mistake about this passage, all three names come together "The Lord .k-sus Christ."

Now. who is this Being that you want me to trn.-t in and believe in'?"

When, then, 1 ask you who this is you want met., trust in. you "tell me lie was a very attractive person. Coii'.emporarv writers describe His who].- appearance as" being resplendent. There was no need fur Christ to tell the children to come t<. Him. "Suller little children to come unto me." was not spoken to the children ; it was spoken to the disciples. The children came readily enough without any invitation. No sooner diil .lesus appear, than the little ones jumped from their mothers' an avalanche of beauty and love into His lap. Christ did not ask .lohn to put his head down on His bosom; John could not help but put his head there. 1 siqipo.se a look at Christ was just to love Him. Oh. how attra-tiv his manner. Why, when they saw Christ coming along the street, they ran into their houses, ami" they wrapped up their invalids as quick as they could, anil brought them out that He might look at them. Oh, there was something s<. pleasant, so invitinu. so cheering in everything He did. in His very look. When these sick ones were brought out did he say. " Do not bring before these sores : do not trouble me with these leprosies?" No. no; there was a kind look, a gentle word, then: was a healiiiL' touch. They could not keep away from Him.

In addition to this softness of character there was a liery mom. iituiii.

How the kings of the earth turned pale. Here is a plain man with a few sailors at His back, coming oil' the sea of (ialilee. going up to the palace of the Ocsars, making that palace quake to the foundations, and uttering a word of nicrcv anil kindness which throbs through all the earth and through all the Heavens, and through all ages. Oh. lie was a loving Christ. i'.nt it was not elleminaey or insipidity of character : it was accompanied with majesty, infinite ami omnipotent. I.esi, the world should not realise His earnestness, this Christ mounts the Cross.

You say: "If Christ lias to die, why not let Him take sonic deadly potion, and lie on a couch in some bright ami beautiful home? If He must die. let Him expire amid all kindly attentions. No. the world must hear the hammers on the heads of the spikes. The world must listen to the death-rattle of the sufferer. The world must feel His warm blood dropping on its cheek, while it looks up into the face of His anguish. And so the cross must be lifted, ami a hole dug on the top of Calvary.

It must be dug three t'eet deep, and then the cross is laid on the ground, and then the sullerer is stretched upon it, and the nails are pounded through nerve and muscle, ami bone, through the right hand, through the left hand; and then' they shake His right hand to see if it is fast, and they hcaveup the wood, half-a-dozen shoulders under the weight, and they put the end of the cross to the'inouth of the hole, and they plunge it in, all the weight of lli.s body coming .town for the first time on the spikes : and while sonic hold the cross upright, others throw in the dirt and trample it down, and trample it hard.

Oil, plant that tree well and thoroughly, for it is to bear fruit such as no other tree ever bore. Why did Christ endure it ? He could have taken those rocks, and with them crushed His cruciliers. He could have reached up and grasped the sword of the Omnipotent (!od, and with one cut have tumbled them into perdition, lint no ; He was to die. He must die. His life for your life. In a Kuropean city a young man died on the seallbl.l for the crime of murder. Some time after the mother of this young man was dying, and the priest came in, ami she made confession to the priest that she was the murderer, and not her son ; in a moment of anger she had struck her husband a blow that slew him. The son came suddenly into the room, and was washing away the wounds and trying to resuscitate his father, when some one looked through the window and saw him, and supposed him to be the criminal.

That young ir.au died for his own mother. You gay, "It was wonderful that he never exposed her." But I tell you of :i grander thing. Christ, the Son of God, died for His mother, not for His father, but for His sworn enemies. Oh, such a Christ as that —

I so loving, so patient, so self-sacrificing—can I you not trust Him ?

I think there are many under the" mfluence of the Spirit of God who arc saying, " I will trust Him if you will onlv tell me Iiw:"

and the great question asked by tlirm-vinds in this assemblage i:s, "How? how?" Aral while I answer ymir >|iiust!uii I !••'>]•: i.i> and utter tilt; prayer w'.iich 11-v.vlan.; Hi. <o often utteied in tile midst of his sermons.

"Master, help:" How are you to trust in Christ? Just as you trust anyone. Von trust your partner in business with important thing?. If a commercial house gives you a note payable three months hence, you expect the payment of that note at the end of three months. You have perfect confidence in their word and in their ability.

Or again, you go home to-day. You expect there will be food on the table. You have confidence in that. Now, I ask you to have the same confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ. He .says, " You believe : 1 take away your sins; and they are all taken away."

"What?"' you say, "before I pray any more ? before I read my Bible any more ? before I cry over my sins any more ?" Yes, this moment. Believe with all your heart and you are saved. Why Christ is only waiting to get from you what you give to scores of people every day. ' • What is that ?'' Confidence. If these people whom yon trust day by day are more worthy than Christ, if they are more faithful than Christ, if they have done more than Christ ever did, theii give them the preference ; but if you really think that Christ is as trustworthy as they are, then deal with Him as fairlv.

"Oh," says some one, in a light way, " I believe that Christ was born in Bethlehem, ami I believe that He died on the cross.'" Do you believe it with your head or your heart? I will illustrate the ditterenee. You are in your own house. In the morning you open a newspaper, and you read how Captain Braveheart on the sea risked his life for the salvation of his passengers. You say, "What a grand fellow he" must have been. His family deserves well oi the country." You fold the newspaper and sit down at the table, and perhaps do not think of that incident again. That is historical faith. But now you are on the sea, and it is night, and you are asleep, and \on are awakened by the shriek of " Firs !"' You rush out on the deck. You hear, amid the wringing of the hands and the fainting, the cry : "Xo hope! no hope!" We are lost! we are lost ! The sail puts out its wing of fire, the ropes make a burning ladder in the night Heavens, the spirit of wrecks hisses in the wave, and on the hurricane-deck shakes out its banner of smoke and darkness. " Down with the life-boats !"' cries the captain. " Down with the life-boats !" People rush into them. The boats are about full. Koom only for one more man. You are standing on the deck beside the captain.

Who shall it be! You or the captain '! The captain says, "You." You jump, and are saved. He stands there, and dies. Now, you believe that Captain ISraveheart sacrificed himself for his passengers, you believe it with love, with tears, with hot and longcontinued exclamation ; with grief at his loss, and joy at your deliverance.

That :s saving faith. In other words, what you believe with all the heart, and believe in regard to yourself. On this hinge turns my sermon; aye, the salvation of your immortal soul. You often go across a bridge you know nothing about. You do not know who built the bridge, you do not know what material it is built of; but you come to it, and walk over it, and ask no questions.

And here is an arched bridge, blasted from the "Rock of Age." And built by the Architect of the whole Universe, spanning the whole gulf between sin and righteousness, anil all (!od asks you is to walk across it; and you start, and you come to it, and you stop, and you go a little way on and you stop, and you fall hack, and you experiment. You say, "flow do I know that bridge will hold me?" instead of marching on with linn step, asking no questions, but feeling that the strength of the eternal Cod is under you.

Oh, was there ever a prize proffered so cheap as pardon ami Heaven are oil'ered to yen? For bow much? A million dollars ? It is certainly worth more than that. But cheaper than that you can have it. Ten thousand dollars , / 'liess than that. Five thousand dollars? Less than that. One dollar? Less than that. One farthing? Less than that. "Without money and without price."

No ney to pay. No journey to take. No penance" to stiller. (July just one decisive action of the soul: "'Believe on the Lord .lesus Christ and tliou shalt be saved."

Shall I try to tell you what it is to be saved? I cannot tell" you. No man, no ange! can tell you. But 1 can hint at it. For my text brings me up to this point,

"Thoii shalt lie saved." It means a happy life here, and a peaceful death and a blissful eternity. It is a grand thing to go to sleep at niu-lit. ami t<• <_''et up in the moniim;, and to do business nll'day feeling that all is right between my heart and (lod. No accident, no sickness, no persecution, no peril, no sword can do me any permanent damage. I am a forgiven child of Cod, and He is bound tosve me through.

He has sworn He will see me through. The mountains may depart, the earth niay burn, the light of the stars mav be blown out by the blast of the judgment hurricane ; but life and death, things present and things to come, are mine. S'ea, further than that - it means a peaceful death. Mrs. Hemans, Mi's. Sigouruey, Dr. Vouuix, and almost all the poets have said handsome things about death. There is nothing beautiful about it. When we stand by tlie white and ri-id features of those whom we hive, and they -ive no answering pressure of the hand and no returning kiss of the lip, we do not want anybody poetising around about us.

Heath is loathsomeness, ami midnight, ami the wringing; of the heart until the tendrils snap and curl in the torture, unless Christ shall be with us. 1 confess to you an infinite fear, a consuming horror of death, unless Christ shall be with me. I would rather down into a cave of wild beasts or a jungle of reptiles than into the grave, unless Christ goes with me. Will you tell me that lam to be carried out from my bright home and put away in the darkness : 1 cannot bear darkness! At the lirst coming of the evenins,' I must have the gas lighted, and the farther on in life 1 get the 'more 1 like to have my friends round about me.

And am ! to be put oil' for thousands of years in a dark place, with no one to speak l<l V When the holidays come, and the gifts are distributed, shall" 1 add no joy to the

"Merry Christinas," or to the "Happy New Year , .'" All. do not point down to the hole in the ground, the grave, ami call it a beautiful place : unless there lie some supernatural illumination, 1 shudder back from it. .My whole nature revolts at it.

Hut now this glorious lain]) is lifted above the grave, and all the darkness is gone, ami the way is clear. 1 look into it now without a single shudder. Now my anxiety is not about death : my anxiety is that 1 may live aright, for I know that if my life is consistent when 1 come to the last "hour, and this voice is silent, and these eyes are closed, and these hands with which I beg for your eternal salvation to-day, arc folded over the still heart, that then I shall only begin to live.

What power is there in 'anything to chill me in the last hour if Christ wraps around me the skirt of His own garment? What darkness can fall upon my eyelids then, amid the heavenly daybreak ? O Death, 1 will nut fear thee then." Mack to thy cavern of darkness, thou robber of all the earth. Fly thou despoiler of families. With ihis battle-axe 1 hew thee in twain from helmet to sandal, the voice »F Christ, sounding all over the earth and through the heavens : "0 Death, i will be thy plague. 0 Crave, T will be thy destruction."

To be saved is to wake up in the presence of Christ. You know when .lesus was upon earth how happy He made every house He went into, and when He brings us up to His house in heaven, how greit shall be our glee. His voice has more music in it than is to be heard in all the oratorios of eternity. Talk not about bunks dashed with ellloivsuence. .leans is the chief bloom of heaven. We shall

:;ee t'ne very face that beamed sympathy in IVthauv. and take the very hand that dropped its blood from the short beam of the cross. Oil, 1 want to stand in eternity with Him. Toward that harbour I steer. Toward that ,"oal 1 run. 1 shall be satislied when I awake in His likeness.

Ok, broken-hearted men and women, how sweet it will be in that good land to pour all of Your hardships and bereavements and losses into the loving ear of Christ, and then have Him explain why it was best tor you to be sick, and why it was best for you to be widowed, and why it was best for you to bo persecuted, and 'why it was best for you to be tried, and have Him point an elevation proportionate to your disquietude here, saying, " You sullered with .Me on earth, come up now and be glorified with Me in heaven." Some one went into a house where there had been a good deal of trouble, and said to the woman there, " You stem to be lonely." "Yes," she said, "1 am lonely." "How many in the family?" "Only myself." , "Have you had any children?" "I had

seven children." "Where are they?" "Gone." "All gone?" "All." "All clead?" "All." Then she breathed a long sigh into the loneliiKss, and said, " Oh, sir. I have been a good imther to the grave." And so there are heart* here that are utterly broken down by the bereavements c>f life. I point you to-day to th-e eternal balm lof Heaven. Are there any liere that I am ' missing this morning ? Oh, you poor wait-ing-maid ! -your heart's sorrow poured in no human ear, lonely and sad ! I:«w glad you will lie when Christ shall disband all your soiTfws. and crown you <|iu-cu unto Uod and the Lamb for ever ! Oh, aged mm and women, fed by Hi* love anil warmed by His grace for threescore years and ten I wilt not yourdecrepitude change for! lie leap of a heart when yofl come to louk face to face ujnm Him I whom having not .seen you love? Oli. that will be the Cood Shepherd, not out its the night and watching to keep oil" tinwolves," but with the laiiiK rot-lining on the sunlit hill. That will be the captain of our salvation, not amid the rottr and crash and boom of battle, but amid His disbanded troops keeping victorious festivity. That will be the bridegroom of the Church coming from afar, the bride leaning upon His arm while He looks down into her U'xv, and savs.

"Behold, thou art fair, my love ! Behold, thon art fair I" O come to Him. now: He will accept you graciously, and love you freely.