992
THE KING’S BUSINESS
“Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean,” he cried. “I will,” says the Great Physician, and in an instant the leprosy is gone. The world has hospitals for incurable diseases; but there were no incurable diseases with Him. Now, see Him in the little home at Bethany, binding up the wounded hearts of Martha and Mary, and tell me what you think of Him as a comforter. He is a- husband to the widow and a father to the fatherless. The weary may find a rest ing-place upon that breast, and the friend less may reckon Him their friend. He never varies, He never fails, He never dies. His sympathy is ever fresh. His love is ever free. Oh, widow and orphans, oh, sorrow and mourning, will you not thank God for Christ the Comforter ? IMPORTANT TESTIMONY But these are not the points I wish to take up. Let us go to those who knew Christ, and ask what they thought of Him. If you want to find out what a man is now adays, you inquire about him from those who know him best. I do not wish to be partial; we will go to His enemies, and to His friends. We will ask them, What think ye of Christ? We will ask His friends and His enemies. If we only went to those who liked Him, you would say: “Oh, he is so blind; he thinks so much of the man that he can’t see His faults. You can’t get anything out of him unless it be in His favor; it is a one-sided affair altogether.” So we shall go in the first place to His enemies, to those who hated Him, perse cuted Him, cursed and slew Him. I shall put you in the jury-box, and call upon them to tell us what they think of Him. First among the witnesses, let us call upon the Pharisees. We know how they hated Him. Let us put a few questions to them. “Come, Pharisees, tell us what you have against the Son of God, What do you think of Christ?” Hear what they say! “This man receiveth sinners.” What an argument to bring against Him! Why,
through the thirty-three years He was here upon earth. I should ask you what you think of His coming into this world and being bom in a manger when it might have been a palace; why He left the gran deur and the glory of heaven, and the royal retinue of angels; why He passed by pal aces and crowns and dominion and came down here alone. I should like to ask you what you think of Him as a teacher. He spake as never man spake. I should like to take Him up as a preacher. I should like to bring you to that mountain-side, that we might listen to the words as they fall from His gentle lips. Talk about the preachers of the present day! I would rather a thousand •times be five minutes at the feet of Christ than to listen a lifetime to all the wise men in the world. He used just to hang truth upon anything. Yonder is a sower, a fox, a bird, and He just gathers the truth around them, so that you cannot see a fox, a sower, or a bird, without thinking what Jesus said. Yonder is a lily of the valley; you cannot see it without thinking of His words, “They toil not, neither do they spin.” THE BIRDS PREACH He makes the little sparrow chirping in the air preach to us. How fresh those wonderful sermons are, how' they live today! How we love to tell them to our children, how the children love to hear! “Tell me a story about Jesus,” how often we hear it; how the little ones love His sermons! No story-book in the world will ever interest them like the stories that He told. And yet how profound He was; how He puzzled the wise men; how the scribes ,and the Pharisees would never fathom Him! Oh, do you not think He was a wonderful preacher? I should like to ask you what you think of Him as a physician.. A man would soon have a reputation as a doctor if he could cure as Christ did. No case was ever brought to Him but what He was a match for. He had but to speak the word and disease fled before Him. Here coipes a man covered with leprosy.
Made with FlippingBook Annual report