SUNDAY READING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6213, 15 October 1881, Page 3

SUNDAY READING.

« THE ANGELS HASTENING LOT. 11V TIIK UEV. C. 11. aI'OKGEON. "The ang.;l3 hastened Lot."—Genesis xix., 15. Were those beings angels, or were they God Himself, veiling Himself in angelic form? There is no need for us to make the inquiry; for the lesson we have to learn is just the same, and it ia this—that whenever we are set for the salvation of others, we had better talce these two angels as our model. We cannot do better, if the work is to be well done, than to take them as our example. You see they went to the man's house and spoke to him personally. It is a good thing to bring the message home to every oue ; to look every one in the face, tell them, each one, his danger and the way to escape from it. The annuls stated the case very plainly ; they said, "Get thee up! escape for thy life ; look not behind thee, neither stay thou iu all the plain ! Escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed!" We must give instruction, aud not merely exhort men with- i out teaching them. There must be sound ! doctrine and a clear statment of truth ; —we : must imitate the angels in this. And then ! they began to urge Lot to gather together his family to make their escape at onee ; they persuaded and incited him, Surely if angels can weep, they must have wept over his slowness, but they began to persuade and exhort him, as though.God did beseech Lot and his family to by them. And then they finished up l>y using holy violence; for " they laid hold of his hand, and the hand of wife, and of his two daughters ; and they brought him forth, and set him " without the city;" they laid hold of them, as much aa to say, " You shall come." This reminds u< of our Savour's command to " compel them to come in ;" use sacred compulsion with them, don't leave it to their option ; endeavour, as far as lieth in thee, by the power of God to press them to conic. Take them by the hand. Ah, perhaps, it was just that last touch that did it. Jesus often touched those that He healed : and when He brings His people close up to sinners, so that they seem to touch them, their very hearts touching them, then it is that they are persuaded to escape for their lives.

There are two things I am going to say tonight, and the first is that the righteous need hastening ; and the other is that the ungodly want hastening. Let us have done with you good people lirst; for if the righteous are stirreri up, it will go well with the sinners, I know. The righteous want hastening. Are God's people ever sluggish ? If it were said that somewhere in space there were men who had been redeemed by the blood of the Son of God, and who had been made now creatures in Christ Jesus, we should at once see that they were beings like ourselves, but feel quite sure that they must be ever full of intense gratitude and burning zeal. And if we were informed that these beings were sometimes filled with gladness and joy, and yet that sometimes they are known to have a name to live and yet were dead, we should hold up our hands in utter amazement, and say. "How can it be?" And yet, dear friends, it is so, very painfully so ! This is the world, and here are some of the people who hove been redeemed out of it by the blessed blood of Christ. And there is no doubt about them ; but still they are without that swiftness in holy duty, that proper consecration, that we should naturally expect. We stand astounded that it is SO ; but we are most of all astounded that is ao with ourselves. What, are Christians slow in obeying the Lord's commands? Lot was told to go out of Sodom at once ; it was not his to ask why, though lie was told why. Oh, children of God, are you not sometimes very slow to do what Christ bids you to do, and tells you to do at once ? David had great respect unto the Lord's commandments, and he showed it iu this—"l made haste and delayed not to keep Thy commandments"; but some, who we trust are converted, know that this, that, and the other is commanded to them, but they postpone it, or in some way or other shelve it, and for years live iu what way they know to bo disobedience to the Lord's commands. "Whatsoever he eaith unto you, do it"; brother, sister, do it. at once! Yours it is not to question why ? nor to ask for reasons for doing it; but do it straightway— (that is the word)—do everything that the Lord hath commanded to you. It is the finest characteristic of a servant to do at ouco his master's bidding. O that I could hasten my brethren and myself to a quick obedience in the ways of the Lord. They need quickening next to separate themselves from the world. This was the case with Lot. He had given up the tent where he lived a separated life, to go and live with the men of the world. Oh, I fear it is one of the sins of this age—conformity to the world. The church degenerates. The rules and the customs of our forefathers, which were dictated by prudence, are cast aside as " Puritanic" and "too strict." It is a good fault to keep too far from temptation, a fault never committed ! in nowadays ; but many now are trying the experiment how far tbey can go with the world, trying to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. If God be God, serve Him

and nobody else; and if the devil be your god, serve him and give your whole self to him. Do give up of this trying to be as much of the world as you can. This will never do. How sadly our churches are suffering from it! The churches want stirring up. " Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing," if ye would be the sons and daughters of the Lord. : Another thing. Many want stirring up about the salvation of their families. The angel said to Lot, "Hast thou here any besides? son-in-law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou bast in the city, bring them out of this place." His daughters had husbands, and they stirred them up and hastened him to brin* them out. I trust Ido not address one professing Christian here who is altogether indifferent in this matter ; but I know I speak to some who is not so earnest as they should be. Now, Christian people, have you prayed for your children,—have you talked to them ? ■will you let your children perish? You cannot save their souls, I know ; but your Lord can ; and if you tell Him about them, and them about Him, you will go the straight way to work to bring them to safety. God grant you may do this at once if you should have been slow in the matter !

But Lot wanted stirring up about everything. The old gentleman was asleep; and God's people were the same ; for that state of slumber creeps over Christian people. Look at the earnestness of the world arouud, and look at the dulness of religious people in many thinjjs. What enterprise you see in the world, what sell-denial, what; risking of life itself, to accomplish something—the discovery of new regions, to drive into the secrets of Nature, to find out, the North Pole, or to penetrate to the centre of Africa ? Has enterprise gone into all the world and left us without any ? Surely, the bravest of the brave should they be who serve the most heroic of all masters ; the most self-donyiug, the most self-consecrating, the most courageous ought those to be on whom is the blood mark; for they have been redeemed unto God by the blood of His Son. I think we ought to live seven lives at once. Our hearts ought £o make many strokes in comparison with the hearts of worldlings; we ought to be at blood-heat, hot, right hot from the blood of Calvary ! God grant we may never sink below that blessed temperature ; for I believe many hearts want quickening. Why is it that they need this ? How do they get into this state ? I should reply that iu Lot's case it was by going into ill company and mixing with the world. That did it; it was all through that. His conscience got seared ; he forgot that he had no inheritance here, and he tried to be a citizen of the world; but it would not do with him. And it will not do with the Christian man. If your pursuits and your spirits become worldly, and you can be contented with the society of the enemies of Christ, you are suffering wofully ; and, depend upon it, as you are a living man, you are bringing lethargy over your spiritual life, and you too want hasteuing. Lot was getting very comfortable. He had, no doubt, got a handsome house and nice furniture. His daughters were well married, and their husbands were, no doubt, aldermen of the city, and Lot himself was also a most distinguished man and very respectable. Of all people in the world who ought to fear lest they should get cold in heart, it is the people who are getting in comfortable circumstances. I notice this ; that when men get on in business they go to live iu the suburbs, or in the country, and then the preacher does not find them at the prayer meeting. They are so overdone with the fatigues of business from half-past 11 to 3 every day that they arc quite overdone. And yet many people ■work longer hours. When people get very comfortable and easy one would have thought they would say, " Now, I have got time to give to the Lord's cause. Now I can give my Sunday to the Sabbath school, now I have not so much to do." But, instead of that, "Soul, take thine ease, eat, drink and be merry ;" " thou hast much goods laid up for many years, rest now, and be quiet. Do as little for the Lord as ever you possibly can." Ah, Christian people, your comforts will be your ruin ! your blessings will be your curses, unless your souls be stirred up to fight against this, and say, " The more the Lord gives me the more I will give Him ; and the more of case I get the more I will see to it that the Lord has a larger and larger share for His work." Many.Uhristian people want stirring up because they get comfortable. Others need it because they have so much to do iu the world. They Vise early in the morning and have little time for prayer. During the day the race of labour is allabsorbing, and there is little time for prayer again when the shutters arc put up. We must not work so hard that we have no time for God, else we shall be working our way into poverty and leanness of soul, however much we may be prospering in this world.

Others need it because they have nothing to do ; for, probably the worst thing that can happen to a man is to have too little to do. Have you ever noticed the people who never contribute " because they have so many calls?" But they never answer any, Yet the man vho has many calls, anil answers them, gets another and answers that. See to it ye that works very hard and ye that do not work at all, mind that it docs not make you sluggish, so that you need stirring up. One other thing is that Lot was getting old, so that he might have said, "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Tliere .ire temptations surrounding every part of our lives. The young man whose passions are strong may be led astray by them : in the middle aged man it is another kind of temptation ; and in old age a languor may overspread the soul. But it must not be so. You must still bring forth fruit in old age ; and we must not let the flesh, whether young or old, be an excuse for neglect in the work of the Lord. I am very much pleased with some of my old friends whose bodies are weak, but their souls are young and fresh, and their eyes flash with an interest as strong as ever. Such Christians are like an old hunter who, although his limbs arc still' and weak, yet when he hoars the horn and the hounds wants to bo away; and so they show a mighty strength of spirit scarcely to be found in the young and vigorous. We must try and stir these Lots up. How shall we do. it ? For a few moments we will try to do it by stirring them up to a sonse of a deep obligation. We owo everything— deliverance from hell, peace on earth, Jiope of Heaven—to that Precious One whom I seem to see before me now. He seems to have been just slain, white in His purity but red with the blood shed for me. Will you not serve Him, God's Beloved, come with His garments red from the wme-]->ress, where He poured out His blood for yon ? By the wounds, by the blood of Jesus, I will not beg of you, but arrest you in the Master's j name to live for Him, and serve Him in body, soul, and spirit for evermore ! Think of your privileges ! Lot was led out by angels ; oh, to have your hands touched by an angel's hand ! But you are led by a liand that was crucified for you ? Will you not feel afresh the everlasting love, and respond to the call of His wounded heart? Surely you must, ; you have this privilege of coming near to Him ; being of His flesh and His bones, 1 pray you be not indifferent to the touch of your own flesh and blood in the person of Christ! Every moment that a child does cot do what his father bids him he is disobedient. How many times is he disobedient in a quarter of an hour to that one command ? And he is disobedient for not doing it now ; and the next minute he disobeys again, and the next, and the next! What a multitude of sins of omission may be piled up in a single day when a sinner neglects the commands of Christ! And how many sins have you committed if you have delayed obedience for a week, a month, or twelvemonth ! Think of that—the neglect of duty is the commission of sin ! Kemember that, and thiuk of what you are missing by being too •low in the Master's service. How is it you are not like Enoch, who, having gone in the swift performance of his duty to God, was caught up, and "was not, for God took him." Enoch, indeed, was no sluggard. I believe the best cure of doubts and fears, spiritual despondency, melancholia, and tl;e like is to have always something to do for Christ. I have sometimes watched the boys go to the water to bathe. I have seen the urchins shiver there on the bank and so run a risk of catching cold. But the way is to jump right in, and then, in a few minutes, the whole body is in a glow. And that is the thing to do with true religion—go right into it head over heels. Give yourself up to it; be swallojved up in its mighty current. Let there be no shivering on the brink ; and you will find, if you go right in, that your whole soul will be warm with a mighty glow. Now I must change the subject altogether, and talk to the unconverted. I almost wish I could divide you down the middle, the unconverted on one side and the children of God on the other ! I wish I could have a look| at you alone ! Ungodly sinners want hastening. We have preached to them these 20 years, some of them, and yet they are where they are. Now, perhaps some persons in this

chapel to-night are getting old ; perhaps some of you recollect Rowland Hill and Mr. Slierman and Mr. Hall. It is a Ions; way to look back, and you have a long way to look back. You lean very heavily on that stick, but you have not leant on Christ yet. You need hastening for you have delayed very long ; and I think how it is that you have waited— 3'ou have no heart in the matter.

Repentance—you do not desire it; faith— you do not desire it; you see no beauty in I Him that you should desire Him ; aud therefore, I do not wonder you see no beauty in religion and don't want it. You want hastening, my friends. Thousands don't want these things ; they are like Lot's sons-in-law ; so, when we preach to them "of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come," weare as those who mock. Besides, the ungodly have many ties to hold them where they are. That young woman would be thoughtful but for that young man who? jeers she could not bear. That husband is the grave of his wife; for she might go to the house of God but for him. And that wife, too, hinders her husband, and so they let things go on. Ah, it is a sad thing when husband, wife, or frieud holds us when Christ bids us go ! And many are held- by their sorrows. Thousands of the poor are kept back because they are too unhappy. They have to look at every mouthful before they eat it, for they don't know where the next is to come from. No wonder they ask, "What shall I eat, and what shall I drink and wherewithal shall I be clothed ?" That may keep many from Christ, but it ought not. It ought to lead them to say, " I have so little here that I will seek a portion hereafter." Oh, friends, the pleasures of the mass of mankind hinder thousands from coming to Christ. The theatre, how it keeps its thousands entranced so that the Gospel has no charms for them ; they cannot yield themselves to it. Aud, my brothers and sisters, if we want to bring them we shall not do it while we are asleep, or, as Lot out of Sodom, they will never come. Don't you know that Satan's net, the one with which he catches more souls than any other is procrastination ?—" Not now ! there will be a more convenient season." He is like a famous general of whom we read, when breaches were made in the walls of a city which was garrisoned by his troops, he hung down sacks of wool upon the walls, so that when the blows came there was little or no result. And this is Satan's great wool-sack—procras-tination ; and so when the Gospel comes to a man its force is broken upon "to-morrow— when I have a more convenient season I will listen to you." I wish you would say to-uight either " yes" or " no ;" we should know then what you mean; and if you said "no" we should have some hope that you might change it to "yes." But yon want hastening; for Satan makes you believe there is plenty of time yet.

Then if sinners want hastening we must hasten them. The Spirit of God can do it. I charge you that every man and woman use in dealing with sinners, very stirring appeals. There is some preaching which I call articulate snoring. The man is asleep himself, and cannot wake other people. O that you and I who love the Lord might be aroused ourselves, and then go and rouse others with a stirring appeal. And if you want to hasten them you must be very patient and resolute. A minister once called at the house of a man who was dying, and was received with an oath. He called day after day, making iu all 20 times; and at the "20th time the door was slammed in his face. Did he give up then ? No ; what did he do but call again ; and, as God would have it, on the '21st occasion he gained admittance, spoke words which opened the door of the man's heart, and afterwards, by God's grace, saved a soul! Stick to them! Stick to them ! Don't let them die if there is any power in you to warn ! When the funeral bell tolls, be able to say "I am clear of his blood !"

They want hastening, and we must do this by our example. I think the church in this gives the cue to the world. The devil urges; and when God's people are very earnest, men got earnest by contagion. The bad are thus made earnest in evil, the good for good. Did we walk with God as Enoch walked, and as Jesus walked, we should be vessels meet and lit for the Master's use. And that does not long stand on the shelf; but He will take us down and use us to His glory. I pray He will do this for sluggish Lots to-night. And, once more, we can do it by prayer. There is wondrous power in prayer. You cannot save a soul, but you can tell God, and that soul will be saved by prayer. I never feel right except I feel a heavy weight press upon me, not on my back (for Christ took that), but upon my heart; and when you feel that, you are sure to pray with remarkable success. Now, lastly, what are the arguments which we should use to the unconverted why they should look to the Lord now? They are reasonable beings ; and the Lord saves them by His people bringing truth to bear upon their consciences. Well, then, unconverted sinner, I shall not say many words, but do yon know you are in immediate danger? You may die in this chapel, or you may die at home ; and if you were to die now, where would you be ? Y'ou know where you would be ; you would be driven for ever from the presence of God—shut out from Heaven, never to enter there. He who is on board a vessel has only a plank between him and the sea ; but you have not got that between you and hell. If the blood i:i your system were to go the wrong way, you would be where hope never comes ! Aud can you be easy if this is true ? If you are rersonable beings, and not altogether Jit to be shut up in Bedlam, do think about your state Don't you think you have been delaying a long time ? And your delay has made you no better. We have all laughed at the countryman who would not cross Chcapsidu till he saw no horses and vehicles coming along. Now is not this the case with you ? You still delay, and yet Ido not know thatyou will ever havea better occasion. Don't you know that the longer you delay the worse you get instead of better ': lam told that when boiler makers put a man inside to hold a hammer-head against the rivets whilst they are being hammered in, it is some time before ho can stand it; but I have been told that there are men so used to it that they can even go to sleep inside without being disturbed by the noise. And when you first heard your minister, how he used to waken you up. But you have got used to him now, and you know exactly the tone of his voice aud his manner of appealing to you : and you are unmoved ! Good Mr. Hill said that some people were like the blacksmith's dog, which would go to sleep with the sparks flying around him ; and you can go to sleep with the sparks of hell Hying around yon. And you must remember that if the Gospel is not a savour of life unto life, it becomes a savour of death unto death. I should like you to remember how very uncertain your life is. I would not like to take a life assurance for you all, that you would be all here again this day week if we had a meeting. Out of so many the probabilities are that some of you are nearer home than you think. Don't triEe then! Don't run risks ! Go and throw your sovereigns, if you like, into the Thames; or go and put on motley and merry-make with the clown, but don't trifle with your souls ! There are cheaper toys than Heaven and hell and your own soul ! Be in earnest then !

I am impressed with the thought that perhaps I am speaking prophetically to some here. It may be that if you knew it there is but a step between you and death. It may be that the word has gone forth, "Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die and not live." "Thus saith the Lord— Because I will do this, prepare to meet thy God." I don't know who the woman is for whom that is meant, nor the man ; but 1 would you would each think it may be for you, and go home and cry.to God for mercy. Nay, while sitting here, remember the Gospsl message—" He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned." "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved"—there it is. May the blessed Spirit lead you to accept it, aud believe now ; for if now you believe you are now justified from every sin and accepted before God this very moment: and then it would not matter whether you live or whether you die. The Lord grant you this portion, for His name's sake. Amen.

"NEVER DESPAIRING."

[Luko vi. 35. Revised Version.] " Never despairing"—though energy fail, Thoiv.-h health may be wanting and dulness prevail; Vet " bo of good courage" nnd trust in God's word, For the weakest may conyuer when "strong in the Lord." " Never despairing"—though tedious thy work, Though failures be frequent, and hindrances lurk ; Perseverance undaunted Jehovah will bless, Thou shalt climb on thy failures to greater success. • Never despairing"—but labouring on, Though resources be scanty, and helpers all gone ; The Lord is thy Helper, bid anxious thoughts fly, All thy need He will surely most fully supply. " Never despairing"—though labour seem vain. Though ovil and darkness scarce lightened remain ; " Despairing of no man," though hopes be deferred, For your labour shall not bo in vain in the Lord. "Never despairing" -- though Satan oppose, And bring up to quell the fresh fears and fresh fegs: The Lord is the strongest, Ho always is nigh, And will bruise Satan under thy feet by-and-by. "Never despairing" —whatever befall; Bo trustful and diligent, steadfast through all: ihe Lord always with thec, His joy thou shalt share, yery effort rewarded —then never despair.