Ezekiel 18:31 Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby you have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit… I. WE ARE NOT SETTLED IN OUR RELIGIOUS FAITH. We do not know whether the Bible is true or not. We do not know whether Christ is God or not. Are you, in the passage of the years, getting any nearer a decision? Why do you not go into this subject, and go through it? If your child be sick, and you do not know whether it is just a common cold or the diphtheria, you pursue the doctor until you find out. Now, I do not blame you for not becoming Christians, but I do blame you for taking neither the one side nor the other. Through all these years you have been in a fog. You know the steamship Atlantic went on the rocks in a fog; you know that the Arctic and the Vesta struck in a fog; you know that only a little while ago the steamship Schiller went down with nearly all on board in a fog; and it is amid the same kind of circumstances that some of you are going to shipwreck. Did Darwin, or Tyndall, or Herbert Spencer ever help a man to die? When the surges of death rise mountain high, would you rather be in this staunch frigate of the Gospel — a frigate of ten thousand tons — or in the leaky yawl of scepticism? II. Another reason why men do not come into the kingdom of Christ is BECAUSE THEY ARE OF THE OPINION THAT THE PRESENT IS OF MORE IMPORTANCE THAN THE FUTURE. I have noticed that everything depends upon the standpoint you take when you look at everything. We stand so deep down in the "now" that we cannot see into the great "hereafter." If we could stand between the two worlds, and look that way and this way, then we might make a more intelligent comparison as to the value of these two worlds — this and the next. In other words: the farthest on we can get in this life — yea, the very last point of our earthly existence — will be the best point in which to estimate the value of these two worlds. And so I call upon all the dying population of Christendom, I call upon all the thousands who are now departing this life and I ask them to give testimony in this matter. They say: "My head on this wet pillow, I look one way and I look the other way. I see Time: I see Eternity. How brief the one: how long the other. I never saw it so before. Hand-breadths against leagues. Seconds against cycles. I put my wasted and trembling hand — my left hand — on the world that I am leaving, and I put my wasted and trembling hand — my right hand — on the world that I am entering, and for the first time I see how small is the one and how vast is the other." III. Another reason why men do not accept the Lord Jesus Christ and become Christian, is BECAUSE THEY ARE OF THE OPINION THAT THE MATTERS OF THE SOUL ARE NOT URGENT, PRESSING, AND IMMINENT. They have their reception day. They say: "Let Business enter." Business enters, is interviewed, passes out. They say: "Let Pleasure enter." Pleasure enters, is interviewed, passes out. They say: "Let Worldly Knowledge enter." Worldly Knowledge enters, is interviewed, passes out. After thirty or forty years, they say: "Let Religion enter" And they look; but religion has got tired of waiting, and is gone. That queen of heaven, standing in the ante-chamber of the heart, ought to have been received first. Her first tap on the door ought to have brought the response, "Come in — come in." (T. De Witt Talmage.) Parallel Verses KJV: Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? |
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