King's Business - 1916-04

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THE KING’ S BUSINESS

tion, that salvation was o f God’s devising. Think o f it, for we need to have that refreshed in our minds. It was altogether a matter o f revelation. Nothing was left to man but bare obedience o f mind and hand and foot. Mark that, I do not say that God spoke irrationally; I do not say that God simply came and overmastered them with despotic tyrannical power, but I do say that God came forth out o f His secret place that memorable night, and Him­ self devised the plan o f salvation. I know that while I speak, every syllable is con­ temptuously scorned by some minds. God Himself devised the plan; I will talk bet­ ter language when the nineteenth century gives it to me, and it has not done it yet. God Himself devised such a plan that no soul needed to be lost if that soul simply believed and obeyed. It was all o f God, it was all o f grace. It is so still. W e so much talk and talk and talk, and write and write, and discuss this Gospel that, heaven help u s! we almost begin to think that we devised it ourselves and brought it here. W e have forgotten that it came, and comes essentially in word and power, straight from God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. That is a salvation worth preaching. Your tinkered-up human schemes^—well, I will preach them when I have got through with this, but not till then. That is the only salvation. It was all o f G od; it was. all of grace. I say, I like salvation. Time was when I did not care much about it. Time was when my main stumbling-block, and the main stumbling-block o f some Christless souls here—and you scarcely think it, my dear brother—is, that we try to add some­ thing to it, or we try to take something from it. Beware o f that. Let it stand in all its Divine simplicity. Believe, and you too will say that it is not against reason. It is not what you think it to be. Take it in. Act upon it, and you will say with the Christian poet, and with all o f us, although we are not poets— “ How charming is divine philosophy

Not harsh and crabid as dull fools sup­ pose, But musical as in Apollo’s lute, And a perpetual feast o f nectared sweets, Where no crude surfeit reigns.” Is there any man who will stand up and say that he is tired o f the Gospel, whoever tasted the immediate sweetness o f all its power on heart and mind. It was all of God, altogether, from first to last, so' that all the praise and all the glory, and all the gratitude were to be given, not to Moses, or to the elders, or to themselves, but where it was ajl due. I wish to say further, that on this night o f this Divinely appointed sal­ vation, when it was received and obeyed, there were one or two things which would surely strike the recipients and those who were obedient to this heavenly revelation. SUBSTITUTION FOR SIN “Draw out a lamb,” says Moses, speaking for God, “ draw out a lamb and kill it, and take its blood and sprinkle it on the lintel and two side posts.” There is . in this old story»a point which has not died away with the actual circumstances which called it forth, but lives and abides forever. Every Israelitish father who killed the lamb not simply with a knife and with his hand, but whose mind and heart were working behind the knife, must surely have had this thought borne upon him—“ If I am not to die, something is to die.” Substitu­ tion. Oh, let-me ring it out! “For me, for me,” was bound to ring in his ears wifh every gurgling o f that lapping blood. That again is the heart o f the heart o f salva­ tion, for you and for me. There is a Saviour as innocent as that white, gentle, spot­ less lamb. See the father as he fakes the lamb in his hand, listen to its helpless bleating, and just think o f all the ideals o f meekness and yielding innocence that flashed upon the mind; and again, I say, if you think o f the Israelitish father killing it, not simply with his knife and with his hand, but with his mind and heart and imagination work­ ing behind those outward instruments, surely there flashed upon his soul, “Life for life. I f I am to go free, this innocent

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