THE KING’S BUSINESS
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mon and handy, and is continually in use in this work-ar,day world o f ours. It is continually in use like the bunch o f hyssop. And what is that? It is faith. What a howling Bedlam o f a world this would be —and it is bad enough—if we suddenly woke up tomorrow and had no faith. Sup pose that you discovered that you had no faith in your wife, and that she had none in you; and that you went down to busi ness and discovered that you could not trust your partner around the corner, and dis covered that he could not trust you. I say what a Bedlam, what a hell o f a world this would be, if there were no faith. Believe me, faith is as common as the hyssop that sprang out o f the wall. With all the rack and ruin that sin has made it is here. Now, what have you to do with this. Take that faith, that confidence that you are exer cising in brother man and sister women every day—it is the very cement of society —society would tumble into chaos without it—take that faith o f yours and give it a new direction. Give it an operation, which it never had before. “ Believe in the Lord Jesu.s'Christ, and thou sbalt be saved.” Trust for yourself His precious blood. Put out thine own hand and take in thine own share o f His atoning work for thyself. See toThat—I do not care how young you b e ; you have lived too long, ff this thing has yet to be done—see that it is done where you sit, and as you sit. Take this faith o f thine, and exercise it toward the aton ing Saviour, dying on the Cross to blot thy sin, and introduce thee to God’s favor, which is life, and to His loving kindness, which is better than life. Is it done? THE CRISIS FOR ALL | Here is the crisis o f this meeting. Here it is, old man, aged woman, men and women in mid-life, and you who are just in life’s morning march. With one hand I lift up before you the stein Lamb; and Oh, that God, with overmastering grasp, by means o f the other hand would plant you before the Cross, and let you see the situation. Saved, are you? How? How? Where? Only by personal trust in Him Who there
is dying, the Lamb o f God. Oh, let us see to it. I wish I had the tongue o f men and o f angels to put it as it ought to be put; but if I am not putting it right, see to it, my brothers, my sisters, that you do the thing. See that it is done. Whether you are quite sure about it or not, the best way is to take the bunch o f hyssop, and dip it in the blood, and strike in' on the lintel and the two side posts. Act thy part. Trust thou. And the last word I have to say is this —the test word in the text. “ Take the bunch o f hyssop and dip it in the blood, and let none of you go out of the door of his house until the morning.” I hear today, and so do you, about “ development” and “growth;” and what -We hear about them gets wearisome,. does it not? There was, very little development that night, “Let none o f you go out o f the door o f his house , until the morning.” Go in, and stay in, if you would be saved, that Is to say, there was to be no advance and absolutely, no development from the simplicity o f faith. That which they had begun to do saved them only as they kept it up. Human nature is the- same all the world over, whether you are in Eg>pt or in London; and I can imag ine a young Israelite, a young fellow just - like ourselves, full o f flesh and blood, full o f natural go and glow and enthusiasm, feeling it a little - irksome as the evening wore-on, and as the night darkened down; and feeling that it was rather an ignoble, inglorious position to be huddled in there like sheep, with that word over them, “Let none o f you go out o f the door o f his house until the morning.” MAY HAVE BEEN SCOFFER And to be saved in this simple way by the blood-red mark which they did not see, but which, being outside, could be seen by the destroying angel as he passed. And I should not wonder i p some young Egyptian came around about these blood- streaked houses and cried, with scoffs and jokes, “Come out! Come out!” and laughed and said, “What are you doing in there? There is no judgment. There was never
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