Acts 24

Acts 24:1-27

PAUL HIS OWN Acts 24:1-27. “And after five days Ananias the high priest descended with the elders, and with a certain orator named Tertullus, who informed the governor against Paul” (Acts 24:1). THIS is an interesting statement. It deals with one of the greatest of all social questions, namely, the judgment of men who do not know us. A Modernist has recently published two books— “The Man Nobody Knows,” and “The Book Nobody Knows,” and there are competent readers who declare that he has perfectly illustrated his subject in both instances. It is almost a uniform custom for people who know least to talk most. The truly strong man is seldom so described by his opponents as to be even recognizable were he not named! I have heard personal and prominent friends of mine commented upon so adversely that I have more than once felt constrained to say, “Pardon me; but the man you are talking about is not the one you have named at all—not the one that I know, and know intimately.” Certainly, if that remark was ever justified, some friend of Paul’s might have made it to Tertullus. Here is the most conscientious and Christian of men—the most courageous soldier of the Cross— the most competent Christian living on the face of the earth, and here is a hired enemy of his talking to a judge, and he speaks of him as “a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes”, a “profaner” of the temple—in other words, a blackened criminal. How remote the description from the man named; and such is life! This chapter presents Tertullus, the Accusing Attorney, Paul’s Speech in Self-Defense, and Felix, the Contemptible and Temporizing Judge. —THE “When Paul was called forth, Tertullus began to accuse him”, and that accusation involves certain lawyer traits.The very speech employed proves a shyster lawyer. Addressing Felix, Tertullus said, “Seeing that by thee we enjoy great quietness, and that very worthy deeds are done unto this nation by thy providence, we accept it always, and in all places, most noble Felix, with all thankfulness”.It was a fine compliment. It was paid to a man who would appreciate it. The weaker the judge the more potent the laudatory method. The man who is consciously wrong wants people to tell him that he is right. The man who is consciously weak would like a competent attorney to tell him that he is strong. The man whose deeds are ignoble listens with pleasure when you tell him that they are worthy. A judge with nobility of character does not even desire flattery from an attorney at his court. He resents it instead. The attorney who attempts it prejudices his case; but not so with the weakling, not so with the purchasable, not so with the politician sitting in the place of power. The latter fattens on flattery and delights in adulation and even dares to hope that, after all, the public judgment of his conduct is better than the censorship of his own conscience. If there is one thing that a shyster lawyer knows, it is the nature of men. He rests his chances of success upon that knowledge and he never fails to flatter the weakling, to compliment the cowardly and to pay undeserved tribute to an unjust judge. He hopes always to win his case, not by adequate proofs of its justice, but by compliment. Tertullus was typical! Shyster-like, he indulges in blanket charges. A “pestilent fellow”, “a mover of sedition”, a “ringleader of the sect”, a “profaner of the Temple”, a dangerous criminal deserving judgment. It is amazing, and yet amusing, to listen to the deliverances of a certain kind of an attorney.Some time since, two of my friends were divorced. The husband took the initial steps in the case. He had no cause whatever except that he had ceased to love the woman to whom he swore an eternal loyalty at the altar, and had come to love another; and yet, when that lawyer had prepared his statement for the court, one would imagine that of all the abused, outraged, martyred men time had known, my acquaintance was the chief. Such is the shyster-lawyer’s ability to magnify minor disagreements, or even to imagine non-existent ones. Christ knew this kind of criticism in its fullest extent. There were few villainous charges they did not lay against him. His servants should scarcely expect escape from the world’s serpent tongue and tooth. “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household”? (Matthew 10:25).Christianity is, however, by nature and character calculated to excite criticism. There was some measure of truth in what Tertullus said. When Christianity is rightly understood, its advocates are disturbers of world peace. They are seditionists in the world’s judgment, and they are ring-leaders of the Nazarenes. Christianity is and will forever remain revolutionary. It practically overthrew the reign of the Caesars, and since that time it, has overturned governments more than once, and such a disturber it will remain until the end of time, for has not the Lord said, “Exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until He come whose right it is; and I will give it Him” (Ezekiel 21:26-27). The explanation of this questionable course is also characteristic.“Whom we took, and would have judged according to our law. “But the chief captain Lysias came upon us, and with great violence took him away out of our hands, “Commanding his accusers to come unto thee: by examining of whom thyself mayest take knowledge of all these things, whereof we accuse him. “And the Jews also assented, saying that these things were so” (Acts 24:6-9). A feature of this accusation that is intentionally interesting is found in the fact that this lawyer suddenly turns religious. He is shocked that the Temple should be profaned. There is no evidence whatever that he had any personal interest in this Temple. Tertullus is a Roman name, and the fact that he identifies himself with his clients is no proof that he was a Jew. Such has been the custom of lawyers from time immemorial! In order to appreciate Paul’s innocence in this whole procedure, one needs to read Acts 21:27-40, and compare Acts 23:26-30. The employment of pious terms to cover putrid purposes is not a custom of two thousand years of age. There are men alive now, whose skepticism is undermining the very foundations of both the denominations to which they belong and the very cause of the church itself, and yet, these men are making it appear that every true apostle of the faith is “a pestilent fellow”, a “mover of sedition”, an enemy of the true temple of God. Some time since, in the defense of the anti-biblical theory of evolution, a certain professor, speaking in my presence, became suddenly eloquent in his interest in the church and his deep concern for Christianity, lest, believing all things that are written in both the Law and in the Prophets, should overturn both and bring discredit to the cause of Christ. More than once have I heard these anti-Christian teachers voice alarm lest, standing steadily for the Christian faith should drive young people from the church and cause them to become infidel and even atheistic. The fact that no such consequences can be found, interferes in nothing with the flow of their eloquence. They know that the appearance of piety will pass with many auditors, and so they shed crocodile tears in fear for the future of the church at the hands of people who believe God and His Word, and voice themselves as alarmed for the conclusions of an open and inquiring mind in matters of religion, while they themselves are doing their utmost to destroy the foundations of the Christian faith. Satan is ingenious but not particularly novel. Unlike Shakespeare, he often repeats himself. The Tertullian critics of the twentieth century are trying to make it appear that the enemies of God and of true religion are none other than the mightiest apostles of the Christian faith, and they are calling upon high heaven to witness the truthfulness of their accusations, and they are still bringing the unbelieving Jews, who are the menace of this millennium, as eloquent witnesses to the charges they make against Christ and His cause. But let us hear, now, while PAUL SPEAKS IN SELF-DEFENSE “Then Paul, after that the governor had beckoned unto him to speak, answered, Forasmuch as I know that thou hast been of many years a judge unto this nation, I do the more cheerfully answer for myself” (Acts 24:10).The Apostle employs only the compliment of truth. Being at once a Christian and a gentleman, he will say the best he can for the man before whom he appears, and that best is but an indifferent compliment. “Thou hast been of many years a judge unto this nation”. Long continuance in office is complimentary. It commonly indicates that the man has been efficient or he would not have continued; but in this case it was an accommodated speech. Felix had been judge but a few years. They were only long in comparison with the indifferent, slothful and inefficient judges who had preceded him, and had been changed often. But even that little sign of superiority is not passed over by the Apostle in silence. There is no occasion, nor is there any profit in wantonly insulting the man who holds your destiny in his hands. Paul was neither gross nor foolish. He would think out what he could say truthfully and let the man on the throne make the most of his meagre words. It reminds one of a story that has gone the rounds—a story of a certain Irishman who made it his business to speak well of the dead. He attended every community funeral, and when the preacher had closed his remarks, he would rise and ask the privilege of an additional word, and it was always a reference to some virtue of the deceased.

Consequently, he was an acceptable attendant at all funeral occasions. Finally, the most worthless man of the town died. The preacher did his best with the difficult subject and the laudation was exceedingly light. Upon its conclusion, Pat stepped forward and the mourning audience listened with bated breath to hear what this complimentary soul could say concerning the deceased. He was silent a moment and stepped back. The audience felt that for once he had been baffled and found honest compliments impossible.

A second time he moved forward, and again the people bent in keen listening, but he paused and partially retired. Then, with a sudden recovery, he turned again to the assembled company and said the only thing he could think of that was favorable, “Begorry, he was a mighty good schmoker!” Paul is almost as barren, but he does his best. He, at least, leaves the impression that he expects justice from this judge, and that impression must exist or even the best of judges will do injustice. The man who comes to trial, showing his contempt of judge or jury, and whose visage and voice alike indicate that he expects nothing, is doomed to failure. The cheerful man is the conquering man, whether in court or out of it. Paul knew that fact and employed that philosophy in his opening words. The Apostle answers the charges and demands proofs.“Because that thou mayest understand, that there are yet but twelve days since I went up to Jerusalem for to worship.“And they neither found me in the Temple disputing with any man, neither raising up the people, neither in the synagogues, nor in the city:“Neither can they prove the things whereof they now accuse me” (Acts 24:11-13).Therein is a truthful suggestion! The guilty man seldom answers in any direct way the testimony given against him, and the guilty man never desires, much less demands, that all the witnesses be heard and all the proofs presented. You take two people charged with great crimes and watch the way in which they meet the charge and you will well-nigh discover the measure of innocence and guilt involved with each. The man who says, Paul-like, “Bring on your witnesses, the more of them the better; let nothing be covered up; let the whole truth be known; turn on the light—the stronger the light the more surely will my conduct be shown correct—that man is innocent, as a rule. But the man who does not want a careful trial; who is glad if the court throws it out; who rejoices when the prosecuting attorney shows a pale interest and who is extremely happy when the whole procedure is dropped—that man is guilty as a rule. Two notable cases have been headlines in all American newspapers for the last two or three weeks. One of them, a New York murder, the other an Atlanta murder. In the New York murder the participants revealed their fear from the first, fought desperately to escape an indictment and were utterly disconsolate when witnesses appeared against them. In the Atlanta murder, circumstantial evidence was equally strong, but society might one day discover its mistake and base this supposition upon a single circumstance, namely, the supposed Southern murderer smiled through the whole trial; the Northern murderers wept theirs through. The Southern murderer frankly and openly affirmed with perfect good-nature that a mistake had been made in laying the crime at his feet, and the Northern murderers weakened and collapsed at the conclusion of the whole matter. We are not saying that there was guiltlessness in either case, but we are saying that the single circumstance of good cheer, open and frank discussion and flat denial, often characterizes the innocent, while the confusion, counter-criticisms, a covered face, a broken spirit, are seldom absent when the blackest sinners are called to judgment. It is a frightful thing to be tried, whether one be guilty or guiltless, but the trial of the guiltless can never embarrass and shame as does the trial of the guilty. Men have been heard to whine over some slander that has been passed against them, saying, “I would not have minded it had he told the truth!” How absurd! That would have killed, indeed. It is the truth that hurts, and humbles, and bends, and breaks, as false indictment can never do. Every innocent man faces a court with complacency and every guilty man faces it with fear. The innocent man meets the policeman on his beat with a smile, a hearty salutation, a sense of friendship.

A guilty man passes him only when compelled to and watches stealthily his gaze to see whether it be upon him, and is nervous if the officer but stop and look at him. Truly, conscience makes cowards of us all! The Apostle deliberately planned to divide his opponents. In the preceding chapter he split their forces in twain by referring to his allegiance to Pharisaism. Here, again, he makes use of the same argument in another form. He says, “If they have found any evil doing in me, while I stood before the council, Except it be for this one voice, that I cried standing among them, Touching the resurrection of the dead I am called in question by you this day” (Acts 24:20-21). In other words, the Apostle employed an effective policy. He knew that if his opponents were divided into two camps, he would walk out between them, and he also felt in his deepest soul that to be silent on this great question of the resurrection was a sin. It pays always to be open and above board as to one’s creed as well as one’s conduct. Years since, I was engaged in a hot debate over the liquor traffic. I was fighting a proposed legislation that looked to the extension of saloon territory in my city, and my opponent thought to put me in bad light by saying, “This man not only wants the limit of sixth street in Minneapolis to restrain the saloons. Down in his secret soul he hates them, and if he had his way, he would prohibit their existence in every part of the earth,” and then in the hope of carrying the prejudiced by making this pass, he turned to me and said, “Is not that true that you hate the saloon and would feign see the whole institution in hell?” He was a bit abashed when I arose in reply and said, “You report me accurately! I believe that strong drink was born of the pit and that men who are addicted thereto are fools to the correction of the stocks, and the nation that legally licenses it is particepts criminis”.To his dismay, nine-tenths of the audience vociferously cheered, and he saw at once that his middle-of-the-road position had lost out, and the radical demand for a repudiation of his pet advice had been roundly applauded. Doubtless the Apostle’s declaration produced a kindred effect. The Pharisees were not few in number, and this open and above board belief would bring many of them to the Apostle’s defense, and the new fight in the ranks of his opponents would give the Apostle rest and the greater prospect of escape. However, the power to release or condemn was with FELIX, THE AND JUDGE Felix’ knowledge retarded His deliverance. He knew much of the Christian faith. The text says that he had “more perfect knowledge of that way”, and yet he delayed his decision. On the one side, he wanted to please the Jews. That was policy. On the other side, he wanted to conserve his own conscience, for he saw nothing in the Apostle Paul worthy of condemnation. Delay on the part of a judge is seldom a sign of desire to do exact justice, or even the mental repose of an unformed opinion. Our observation would lead us to think that the delay of judgment is an ill omen. The judge often knows what is right long before the case is finished. Any observant judge ought to know what is right when the last attorney has closed his plea, and we believe, as a rule, he does know. Yet, under the pretense of reviewing arguments and testimony, long delays are often indulged. This gives the conscience a chance to sleep and makes the final deliverance in defense of the wrong seem less despicable to the man who makes it. In a lifetime I have had but one case in court, and the contracts were alike interpreted by both parties, and there was both verbal and written proof of the same. When all testimony was in, the judge asked for time and kept extending it day after day until it became to me an ill omen, and I was not half so much surprised as I was amazed when his final deliverance came—a deliverance which he sought so industriously to defend as to prove his shame in making the same. Again, This judge sought to still his conscience by softening imprisonment. “He commanded a centurion to keep Paul, and to let him have liberty, and that he should forbid none of his acquaintance to minister or come unto him” (Acts 24:23). In other words, he permitted him a certain measure of the free life when he knew he deserved full freedom. He would not release him, but he would show him special favors. He would not set him free, but he would permit his friends and acquaintances to visit and minister to him. How often such is true! Today there languishes in a federal prison in the Southern states an ex-governor of state. He was technically guilty, but his condemnation was the pure product of political prejudice, and of the natural endeavor of a man in financial straits to find a way out. The prominence of this man in politics was such that any favor shown him would react upon the party to which he belonged, and which is yet in power. So he goes on adding day to day, week to week, month to month, and year to year, of this prison experience. But, knowing that he is not deep-dyed in guilt, and that his crimes were more technical than deliberately intended, he was shown so many favors as to produce a political protest. He is permitted to go about at his pleasure, quit the prison grounds and return at will.

He is made the teacher of a great Bible class, and is everywhere accorded courtesies that belong only to the free man and to the honored citizen. Alas, for the makeshifts of justice! They are many. Finally, This knowledge eventuated in a “no-judgment”. Felix never set Paul free, nor did he ever pronounce his condemnation. By failure to do either he left the Apostle in prison, often visited with him and even hoped that he might be paid a price to permit the freedom that he knew the Apostle deserved. He was the kind of a judge who sways back and forth between the love of gold on the one side and the desire for political power on the other.The Catholic church claims a few hundred successors to Peter. It would be easy to prove a few thousand successors to Felix. Such judges are common!

They characterize every city! They curse every state in the Union! Perhaps nowhere in the annals of history has the character of such a judge been more vividly portrayed than in this twenty-fourth chapter. A man who is imprisoned here is making for himself an honorable name that time will constantly enhance, and the man who sits in the place of judgment is bringing on himself a condemnation that the centuries will increasingly feel. The astute politician and the sanctified prophet are poles apart. Paul or Felix, which are you? Which am I? We conclude this discussion with these questions, solely because we propose to return to it again, and in an evening address present a further exposition of Act 24:24-27.

Acts 24:14-16

THE AND OF THE BIBLE Acts 24:14-16. THE nine articles of faith formulated and adopted by The World’s Christian Fundamentals Association, May, 1919, gave first place to the authority and integrity of the Bible. This was not because they set the Scriptures above the Saviour, but on account of the patent fact that “apart from the Scriptures we know nothing of the Saviour; or at least so little as to make life’s pathway dark and doubtful”. Jesus is the world’s only Saviour! We grant, “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved”, but the Jesus of our worship and our hope is the Jesus of the Bible. To speak of discarding the Scriptures and retaining the Saviour is like saying, “If American history were destroyed Washington would remain; or if Jewish history were dropped absolutely out of existence, Abraham would still be the ‘Father of the faithful’.” The hour in which we live gives fresh occasion to the old and inspired question, “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do”? When France discarded the Bible, it “tore established faith to shreds” (to employ the language of Mr.

Campbell). And when England adopted Deism and threw the Scriptures away, its spirituality was dead. Mr. Campbell said an English’ king declared that half his bishops were atheists. But when Wesley harked back to the Book, he called England from its spiritual grace, and when Luther restored and preached it in Germany, he produced a reformation and witnessed a revival, both of which have gone on until this hour. In other words, apart from the Scriptures, spiritual life is unknown to history and is an impossible conception.

That makes our theme of fundamental importance. To three things we here invite attention. THE HISTORY OF THE BIBLE ITSELF When Paul affirmed that he believed all that is written in the Law and the Prophets, he referred to that portion of the Bible in existence at his time. The phrase on his lips covered exactly the same conception that arises in the mind of the present-day Christian man when he speaks of “the Bible”, and involves common facts. Its authors were notable men. Peter declared that God has spoken “by the mouth of all His holy Prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:21). Writing his Second Epistle (2 Peter 1:21), he further affirmed, “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost”. Paul, speaking of the dispensation of the grace of God given unto him by revelation, declared that this “mystery” in their generation, “was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto His holy Apostles and Prophets by the Spirit” (Ephesians 3:5).If one take the pains to remind himself of who these men were, he will neither dispute the character of their accomplishments nor the holiness of their lives. What a matchless man was Moses! Never equaled by another mortal!

What a marvelous warrior was Joshua! What a white soul was Samuel! What an imperial character was David! What a philosopher was Job! What a prophet was Isaiah! It takes the pen of a Paul to depict the characters of these giants of old, and even he seems to feel his insufficiency, for after having paid them the tribute of the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, he takes breath and says, “And, what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: “Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, “Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens, etc” (Hebrews 11:32-34). No other book ever had such authors back of it. Your latest scientific compendium, your most complete encyclopedia, your library full of the world’s greatest classics—these all fade away compared with the Bible, as stars are obscured by the rising sun. When their writers are forgotten, not one name will be stricken from the galaxy of Bible authors. The Bible claims to be inspired of God. When Paul affirmed his faith in what was written in the Law and in the Prophets, he remembered the contention that these men had spoken and written under the power of the Spirit. It is doubtful if he ever penned a single Epistle in which he did not remind his readers of that circumstance. Writing to the Romans he reminded them that he was “separated unto the Gospel of God, (Which He had promised afore by His Prophets in the Holy Scriptures,)” (Romans 1:1-2). Writing to the Galatians he affirmed that the Gospel which was preached by him was not received of man, “but by the revelation of Jesus Christ”. Penning the Epistle to Timothy, the son he had begotten in the Gospel, he made that colossal, yet justifiable claim, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). A. J. F. Behrens, at one time a destructive critic, but later converted to unshaken confidence in the Bible, says, “Two things I know, that the Bible is God’s Book, and that it is true! I smile when I hear men disputing about the phrase, ‘The Bible is the Word of God’, and ‘The Word of God is in the Bible’. I believe both, as I believe body and soul constitute a man. The message of God is the eternal soul. The history is the body in which the soul lives and moves. The body is the medium through which that soul goes. The message is infallible and eternal. That message to me would not be infallible did I believe the history false and fabricated”. Its translations are unequalled. We believe the Divine purpose of retaining His Book comparatively intact was phrased by His servant John as he concluded the Revelation, “For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book” (Revelation 22:18-19). The tercentenary of the King James version was fixed upon by evangelical ministers to pay tribute to that work, and the tributes could not exceed its desserts, for with all the necessary changes incidental to a language in three hundred years, the King Tames version remains to this hour a perfect marvel of accuracy in translation; and that literary merit of which scholars have recently made so much, finds its basis not in the circumstance that the scholars of that hour deliberately determined to give to the world a work of model English, but rather, in the very demand that they be faithful to what God had spoken by the mouth of His holy Prophets and Apostles. Arthur Pierson, in his volume, “Character, Culture and Conduct”, says, “Libraries are not always a blessing; they are sometimes a curse. The Alexandrian Library is said to have contained seven hundred thousand volumes. It was called by Livy, ‘Elegantiae regum curaeque egregium opus’, and embraced the whole Greek and Latin literature. It is reported that when burned it supplied fuel for six months to the four thousand baths of Alexandria. Scholars have been wont to speak of this loss as an unmitigated disaster, and to heap execration upon the name of the Calif Omar, who is said, on poor authority, to have burned it. But, in the ruins which modern enterprise has disinterred at the foot of Vesuvius, we have proof that ancient society was so corrupt that, as Dr.

Wayland said, a necessity similar to that which occasioned the flood, or the fires of Sodom, caused God to overwhelm the works of ancient civilization with a deluge of barbarism, and to consign the most splendid monuments of ancient literature to almost universal oblivion. In contrast, how miraculous the preservation of the Bible—that library in itself! While kingdoms have been dismembered, thrones have crumbled, and nations dropped out of history, the Word of God, firmer than the eternal hills, has survived them all— a witness to the race that the highest guaranty for literary perpetuity is moral purity”. And, Pierson might have added that this preservation of the Bible has not only expressed itself in the fact, but in the fancy, for not in all ages has such scholarship combined to preserve any book from the slightest error of translation, or the minutest addition, or inconsequential subtraction. But Paul voices more here than confidence in the history of the Bible. THE BIBLE AND He makes it the basis of Christian conviction. When a great conference declares the first article of their faith after this manner: “We believe that the Bible is the Word and Revelation of God, and is therefore our only authority”, it is not only speaking with Isaiah—the Old Testament Evangel—“To the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them”, but with Paul, the Evangel of the New, who declared that his belief is based on that which is according to the Law, and which “is written” in the Prophets. It is little wonder, therefore, that when he went to Berea and preached, and the people in the synagogue heard his speech, they felt driven back to the examination of the Scriptures to see whether these things were so. Paul had no new philosophy and had declared no novel faith, but was defending the assertions of the ancient dogma. When the Sadducees, who were the critics of Christ’s time, were about Him with their quibbling questions, Jesus explained their ignorance after this manner: “Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures”.If Christ faced the critics of the present moment, He would need to change his phraseology in nothing. This fact is practically confessed by Professor George B. Foster when, in the preface to his volume, “The Function of Religion”, he says to those who would be his students, concerning his own state of mind, and his leadership of them that were willing to follow him, “I have tried to do no more than cleave to the sunnier side of doubt. And may there be light and warmth enough to keep us from freezing in the dark”. It is a pitiful confession! Paul also regards the Bible the rule of conduct. Here again the evangelicals and premillenarians have spoken with him. The great Apostle affirms that just because of this confidence he is exercising, he is to have “A conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men”. Long before this mighty Apostle made his appearance in the Church, the Psalmist had given reason for the strength of angels, namely, that they hearkened “unto the voice of His Word” (Psalms 103:20), fulfilling the same. He believed also that that word marks the way for men, and so he wrote,“Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the Law of the Lord.“Blessed are they that keep His testimonies, and that seek Him with the whole heart” (Psalms 119:1-2).For himself he cries out, “Oh, that my ways were directed to keep Thy statutes! “Then shall I not he ashamed, when I have respect unto all Thy Commandments?” (Psalms 119:3; Psalms 119:6). Addressing young men he says, “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to Thy Word” (Psalms 119:9). In the New Testament the same idea exactly is expressed, “Now ye are clean through the Word which I have spoken unto you”.“The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life”. “Verily, verily I say unto you, if a man keep My saying, he shall never see death”. It is a significant thing that when the great Sermon on the Mount was being finished in what one has called “the imagery of incomparable solemnity”, Christ said, “Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of Mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: “And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. “And every one that heareth these sayings of Mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: “And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of if’ (Matthew 7:24-27). James, regarded as one of the most practical of all the Apostles, dipped his pen to emphasize this great truth—the vital relation between faith and practice: “Be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. “For if any be a hearer of the Word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: “For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. “But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed” (James 1:22-23). As Henry Ward Beecher said, “The Scriptures of the Old and New Testament alike employ external and physical elements as the means of adjusting internal manhood. The end and aim of the Bible is not external, but internal; and where it has employed external elements, it employs them as having relation to internal manhood. The drift of the Book from Genesis to Revelation is the building up of men in Christ Jesus. A manhood which is central, royal, divine, is the thing which it aims at. Its object is man’s spiritual development and perfection. If it teaches domestic life, if it teaches civic duties, if it teaches in material elements, it is because all these, in their place and proportion, have relation to the building up of that spiritual manhood which is inherent in men.” Lorimer once declared, “There is no position we occupy, no relationship we sustain, no serious issues we have to meet, concerning which we may not, if we will, obtain the fullest information; neither is there any honest doubt, springing from a troubled conscience, that has not its antidote in the affluent provisions of Divine grace. If you would know how to approach and honor your Creator; if you would realize the claims of Christ upon your faith and love; if you would learn how to fulfil your obligations as parent, child, citizen, or friend, and if you would understand how to live and die triumphantly, you have but to consult the sacred volume, whose pages glow with simplest wisdom and with safest counsels.” Paul also made it the ground of Christian expectation. His hope of the resurrection rests solely on God’s revelation. Christian assurance is the product of the promises of the Word, and Christian confidence results from a knowledge of the prophecies of the Word. It was this Apostle who wrote to Titus, “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, “Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; “Looking for that Blessed Hope, and the Glorious Appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:11-13). Such was the Apostle’s expectation, and this his fellow Apostles shared. Peter, in his Epistle, reminds his hearers that, “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; where-unto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts?” (2 Peter 1:19). The Blessed Hope of the one was the day-dawn for the other. Just what it would mean to the Church of God, and even the unregenerate world, to lose the promises and prospects presented by this Bible, was forcefully illustrated by Henry Rogers in his “Eclipse of Faith”, when he recorded a dream entitled “A Blank Bible”. He thought that he had taken up his Greek New Testament one morning to read, as was his custom, and he found the book a total blank. Thinking that some blank book had somehow gotten into his library, he took down a Bible and then a Hebrew Bible. These were also blank. While he was musing on this mystery, his servant came to tell him of a strange robbery.

He had gone to his Bible in the morning and found it blank. Going out on the street he met a friend who told him excitedly that during the night every copy of the Bible had been taken from his home, and volumes containing only pure white paper left in their stead.

On pursuing the investigation it was found that it was universal, and even the Bible Society could not produce a copy in which the same miracle had not taken place. In fact, as though in judgment upon the race for the abuse of the Book, God had actually withdrawn it from among men, and not a sentence from the Word of God remained in all human literature. Mr. Rogers thought in his dream that as soon as men had lost the Bible, they began to prize it as never before. Any price would have been paid for a single copy. One old sinner declared, “It is confounded hard to be deprived of religion in old age”.

Another, whose vices were common talk, was greatly alarmed for the morals of mankind, now that the Guide Book to duty was lost. Did dream ever present to disordered imagination a more dire calamity?

As Dr. Arthur Pierson says, “What if every Bible should turn to blank paper; what if all that it has wrought in man and for man could be obliterated from human character, all ideals and ideas of chastity and charity, equity and ethics, mercy and magnanimity; all the motives for morality and piety, heroism and martyrdom, which it has supplied—who can conceive of the wreck and ruin which would reach unto every heart and home in church and community? It would be found that millions of men, and whole peoples who had remained unbelieving, would still own their civilization to this very Word of God, and when the Bible was withdrawn, a darkness would be felt that covered the earth. Permit some words on THE BIBLE AND Paul was not speaking to hear himself talk, or to compel the attention of others. His whole ministry had a definite object. He was executing the great commission; he was striving toward a Christ of conquest and of a crown, and he was using the Scriptures as the very sword with which opposition was to be put down and the King brought back. The Scriptures are God’s appeal to the soul. Paul knew it well and voiced it in his Epistle to the Romans, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth”. Peter so thought, and in his general Epistle he reminded believers that they had been “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever”. The way of salvation for the soul is faith in Jesus Christ. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life”, but as Paul wrote to the Romans, “So belief cometh of hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ” (Romans 10:17, A.S.V.). Walter Rauschenbusch was not the most stalwart defender of the Scriptures known to the twentieth century, and yet, hearking back to that confidence in the Word in which his mother confirmed his youth, he asks, “What is the Bible to me?” and answers, “To my religious instinct it is the history of the revelation of the existence, the holiness and the love of God; to my conscience it is a mirror, in which I recognize my blemishes; to my moral judgment it is a whetstone, upon which it is sharpened and quickened; to my will it is the battle-cry that summons to conflict and victory; to my aesthetic sense its exalted poesy, simple narrative and heroic figures are a source of constant joy; to my memory it is the old, tried friend of childhood days; to my heart it is the voice of comfort in loneliness, of hope in discouragement. Above all, it is the principal means by which I can understand Jesus Christ and in Him the Father”. The Scriptures are God’s solution of all problems. The temptations of life are summed up in those to which Jesus was subjected in the wilderness. But He answered them every one with an appeal to the Word of God, and came off more than conqueror. Next to the terror of life’s sin is the weakness of its sorrows. When the broken-hearted sisters made their appeal to Jesus He turned their thought to the promises of God’s Word, of that very resurrection defended by the Apostle in the text that introduces this chapter. When the problems of marriage and divorce were presented to Jesus, He reminded His inquirers of what the Scriptures had originally said.

If one wants a perfect guide of morals, the decalogue is God’s answer; if one would know what to do in benevolence, the Old Testament presents the tithe, and the New retains it and adds a love-offering. If one would understand his social obligations, the Sacred Book will explain, “Bear ye one anothers burdens”, the “strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak”, “Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others”, etc.

What Christ was to the individual soul, the Scriptures are to society—the world’s soul. “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls”. We confess frankly that if we be chargeable with making a fettish of the Book, an affection for it second only to that which we feel for Christ, sometimes we wonder if we should make it second, when we remember that God indicted these words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us”.All the Scriptures need is sincere and intelligent advocacy. The century waits for no new theology, but for a Pauline presentation of the old revelation. The one man that is meeting the cry of this hour as no other can, is the man equipped in the knowledge of the Scriptures. The greatest single phase of work the church over which I preside has ever undertaken since God gave it human birth in a dingy hall, is the establishment of a Bible Training School, the chief purpose of which is the equipment of men and women in the knowledge of this revelation, that they might go forth to make its promises, provision and prophecy known to a dying world.

Acts 24:25

THE DANGER OF DELAY Acts 24:25THE picture is, “Paul Before Felix”, the prisoner before the judge, and yet, before the touches of the inspired penman are all given, the picture is so changed that Paul is the judge and Felix the man on trial; Paul the courageous one and Felix the man filled with fear; Paul the free man and Felix the man in bonds. This Apostle always so changes the circumstances of his trials. When the Sanhedrin had him before them, he stood up and cried, “as touching the resurrection of the dead I am called in question”, and so silenced every Pharisee in the company, because the Pharisees believed also in this same resurrection. When, before Agrippa, he tells of his conversion so eloquently that the king is angered and says, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian”, and here before this Roman procurator, he so reasons of “righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come”, he makes himself appear the judge and Felix the culprit. Truly, as Charles Spurgeon once remarked, “The man who believes in the Gospel and determines to spread it is made a grand man”. Paul was little in stature only; every other way he was a giant, and kings feared before his face. He was not one of those preachers of whom Thomas Dixon once spoke, “For a goody-good preacher, I have always entertained only pitying contempt. What a sublime calling indeed to go about the earth patting everybody on the back, with ‘It’s all right; everything is all right; the devil is all right’. I think I would rather my boy would go back to the farm in North Carolina and grub stumps, maul rails, hoe corn and plow a mule, as his father did, than be such a man”. Paul was not a goody-good preacher; nor was Jesus, though He was an impersonation of love, in any sense of the term, a goody-good preacher. “I came not to send peace, but a sword”. But the blade He wielded was the surgeon’s knife, not the cimeter of the Saracen. Every man who has to speak before the prominent, either proves himself a preacher for good by being courageous and speaking the truth, or else a poor stick of a pretender by being cowardly and saying smooth things. Three things impress me in this text. FELIX WAS FAVORED WITH “And as he reasoned of righteousness (or justice, the word means), temperance (or self-control), and judgment to come, Felix trembled”.Notwithstanding the fact that Paul was before a great man, he poured out no sickly adulations, no eloquent flatteries. Paul was a poor politician, but a most magnificent Christian. First of all he reasoned of righteousness, or justice. He did this before a man who was a judge, whose business it was to mete out “justice”. How appropriate—preaching to a man about his occupation! No preacher who deals in glittering generalities, never seeking to get at the real conduct of men, is doing God’s will. Whether Paul knew the history of Felix we do not know, but it would seem most likely that he did. Felix had been a slave, was freed by Claudius, and became one of the infamous favorites of that emperor. It is often true that the man who goes from the bottom of society to the top, gets a swelled head in consequence, and becomes a servant of evil, and to this Felix was no exception. As the governor of Judea, he was guilty of extortion in taxation, and of living a life of unbridled lust, and so badly did he behave that even Nero, the tyrant, was not pleased with him and recalled him, and but for Pallas, Felix’s brother, who was influential with Nero, he would have lost his head. To such a man then, Paul reasoned of justice, of “justice”. I expect Paul said, “You are a judge; you are put here to mete out justice; do you do it? The people know whether you do or not, and God knows, and God will call you into account. Your injustice has cried to Heaven, and the sentence of conviction is already passed against you. A judge and yet unjust! Unjust, Felix, you know you are unjust!” Years ago, in Chicago, the papers told a story of a certain judge, who, having a man on trial before him, pointed his cane at the man and said, “There is a great rogue at the end of this stick”, to which the prisoner replied, “At which end of it, judge?” The rogue here was at the Felix end, and Paul was faithful enough to tell him so. There are few such preachers as that now. As one has said, “We have come upon cringing times and cringing preachers”. Many of us study what will be the popular thing, and seek to please. Out with such preaching! It means perdition both for our hearers and ourselves. As I look back over my own life, I hold in highest esteem those ministers of the Gospel who set my faults before me, and who struck fear of sin into my heart; who uttered the word that convicted and condemned. It is not compliments the man being eaten of a cancer needs, it is the surgeon’s knife. The faithful physician will not hesitate to cut, for he inserts the blade to save. Paul also preached temperance, or self-control. At that point his words went deeper still, cut closer to the very heart of Felix’s conduct. He had long since loosed the reins and had given himself over to unbridled lust. In the 24th verse we read, “And after certain days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla”. But she was not his wife; she was a Jewess, the daughter of Herod Agrippa, a woman noted for her superlative charms, and voluptuous spirit. She had been engaged to Antiochus, but he learned her character and refused to marry her. She was afterward wedded to a king, who though a heathen, accepted the Jewish religion in the hope of her love, but she deserted him and took up with Felix, the man who is now before Paul’s face. Many a preacher would have carefully studied his sentences in order to mark out any paragraph, line, word, or letter, that could suggest this illegitimate relation, and so wound the feelings of this honored auditor. Not so with Paul! He was not so much interested for himself, not so ambitious to sustain his reputation in the presence of the great, as he was to uncover sin and reclaim souls, and he knew that Felix could never be saved as long as he lived in this relation, and he did not hesitate to tell him so. Paul appreciated the danger of such an utterance. He was not unacquainted with the end of John’s life. He remembered that for just such an utterance the great Baptist had lost his head and died in his early days, and that this same house of the Herods to which Drusilla belonged, was responsible for his decapitation, and yet—and yet—Paul preached on self-control. If we may judge from other sermons of his, it is likely that he went back to the Old Testament for illustration, and reminded this Roman Governor of what came to David for a similar sin. I believe, as I live, that if we had more of such preachers today, we would have fewer people living in lawless relations. Back in the book of Ezekiel, the 33rd chapter, we read these words: “If the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchmans hand” (Ezekiel 33:6). Soon we shall see Pilate over a pail of water vainly endeavoring to wash the stain of Christ’s blood from his polluted fingers. Foolish effort! The better way to be free from the blood of men is the way of Ezekiel, “Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul” (Ezekiel 33:9). Again, Paul reasoned of “judgment to come”. Through the centuries the voice is sounding still. What he must have said is something like this, “Felix, injustice will not escape the judgment of God. Felix, incontinence invites God’s wrath. You will have to come into judgment yourself. That judgment means for you death and hell, except you repent.” “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone” (Revelation 21:8). Faithful preaching! No wonder God advanced Paul; he was worthy. I believe today that God has His offices, and that in many respects they are the best offices, for those preachers who are loyal to conviction. You know the story of W. H. Milbourn’s appointment as chaplain of the United States Congress. It is this: In 1845 Milbourn, who was then a circuit rider, was on a journey from St. Louis to Wheeling, W. Va. He went by boat. On board were a number of congressmen making their way to Washington. The young preacher was astonished at the oaths that came from these representatives of the nation, at their betting, card games, and their excesses in whiskey-drinking. By and by, as the boat slowly made its way up the Ohio, the Sunday came, and these men, with others, invited this young minister to preach. He readily consented and delivered a good discourse, at the end of which he turned to these congressmen and said, with the deepest feeling, “I understand, gentlemen, that you are members of the Congress of the United States, and as such you are, or should be, the representatives not only of the political opinions, but also of the intellectual, moral and religious condition of the people of this country. If I am to judge the nation by you, I can come to no other conclusion than that it is composed of profane swearers, gamblers and drunkards. Consider the influence of your example upon the young men of the country. What a school of vice you are helping to keep up! If you insist upon the right of ruining yourselves, do not, by your example, corrupt and debauch those who are the hope of the land.

I must tell you that as an American citizen I feel disgraced by your behaviour. As a preacher of the Gospel I am commissioned to say that unless you renounce your evil courses, repent of your sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ with your hearts unto righteousness, you will certainly be damned.” “The judgment to come”! Milbourn was faithful. He quit the presence of these men, supposing that they would hate him forevermore, but he had not been in his stateroom an hour when one of them rapped at the door and said, “I have been requested to wait upon you by the members of Congress on board, and present to you this purse (which contained between $50 and $100) as a token of their appreciation of your sincerity and faithfulness, and to ask if you will allow us to use your name at the coming election as a candidate for chaplain to Congress. If you will consent, we feel sure we can secure your election”, and they did. It does not always mean promotion to put the judgment before the great, so far as earthly honors are concerned, but to preach the Gospel faithfully, showing sin as it is, and Christ as the only way of salvation, always means promotion. FELIX WAS FILLED WITH FEAR OF He felt the truth. He was not an utterly abandoned man. Deep as he had gone into sin, some conscience was still preserved. No man is hopelessly lost so long as he feels the truth of God’s Word, so long as conscience smites and convictions come. The one man that is most utterly given over to Satan is the calm man—the man who can hear any sort of a minister and be little or nothing moved by what he says; the man who could listen to a Paul preaching of justice and yet be nothing disturbed by his own injustice; of continence and be little distressed concerning his own lust, and of the judgment to come, and laugh at it as unlikely! I had rather take chances with Felix, who felt the truth, than with that moral man, even, who knows no conviction of sin, for the simple reason that when a man sees his wrong, he may seek to get right before God, but so long as he is satisfied, no changes are in the least likely. But we would not have you presume that you are going to be saved simply because you are not conscienceless as yet. David prayed, “Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins”, and there is danger that the devil will come along and say, “Oh, well, you are not lost yet. You feel the truth of what the minister says. You are troubled about your sins, you will be saved as yet”. That old deceiver knows that by this suggestion he can keep you continuing in evil practice, and that is his purpose. I have read a humorous story of a gentleman who told a drinking darkey that he must either stop his liquor habit, or it would kill him. To which the negro answered, “Major, I fear I done been at it too long and cannot stop”. “Why, Eph,” answered the white man, “it is never too late to mend; never”! After a long spell of thinking Eph replied, “Well, Major, if dat’s so, I guess I’ll keep on a while longer”—the devil’s delusion! That is what he said to Pilate. He felt the truth, but he did not act upon it. That is what he said to Ananias. He felt the truth, but he did not act upon it. That is what he said to the scribe. He felt the truth, but he did not act upon it. It is a good thing to feel the truth, but it is not salvation. To stop with a conviction is to perish. Again, Felix feared the result. He was no Ingersoll as touching the future. He was no Sadducee to say, “That is all right from your standpoint, but as for me, I don’t believe in any resurrection, in any angel, in any spirit, in any judgment to come. It is all a myth; it is a bug-bear to make people afraid. Clear out with you!” On the contrary we read, “And Felix trembled”. But fear is not enough. Mr. Moody said rightly, “Repentance is not fear”. Many people confound the two! They think they have to be terrified. They are waiting for some fear to come down upon them. But those who are made afraid do not always repent. Often men at sea, during the times of terrible storm, have grown so afraid that they have set aside their profanity, given up their card-playing, shuddered at the thought of gambling, and have even been pious and prayerful, but when the danger has passed, they go back to their swearing again, deal the cards faster than ever, and gamble till the morning breaks. It is a good thing to fear, but fear does not finish salvation. In Revelation we are told that “the fearful and unbelieving * * shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”He confessed his fault. Not so much with his lips as with his knees! While Paul talked, they knocked together, and as distinctly confessed his faults as though he had said to Paul, “It is all true; my injustice, I know; my incontinence, everybody knows; my evil course is as open as a book”. But even that does not always save a man. I have an acquaintance, a friend who has drunk a great deal, who has gambled considerably and given himself over to other sins at times, who many, many, many times has come to me and confessed his faults, cried over them as bitterly as children weep over their hard falls, and forgotten the dangers as quickly, and has gone back—back—back— to this same evil way, again, and again, and again. FELIX FAILED BY TO FUTURE SEASON“Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee”. Satan’s suggestion; poor soul! When you accept that, when you say that, you accept the seal of Satan; you say, I deliver myself over to the devil for a time, and the devil understands, “yes, and for eternity”. Resolutions for the future are worth nothing. Felix made them firmly. He was determined to do the right, but he let Satan say, “Don’t begin now. Wait! After a while you may not love Drusilla so much; in a little time, when you have accumulated more money, it will not be necessary to oppress the people so much; when you have laid up for yourself great riches and are independent, and Drusilla has proved unfaithful, or has grown old and no longer arouses your lust, then it will be easy to cease injustice and give up incontinence, and get ready for the judgment”. I expect Felix thought he was the author of all that reasoning, but he was not —not one sentence of it, not one word of it, not one letter of it. Satan suggested it all. I have read so many of Dr. Talmage’s sermons that I have learned his style and can tell it wherever I find it, without looking to see what name is signed. Dr. Joseph Parker’s style is unique enough for the same recognition, and it does seem to me that we ought to understand Satan’s suggestions. They are all of a kind, pieces from the same cloth, cut to fit dextrously into any position needed, but always black, deceitful, destructive. “Do right! Yes, but don’t do it now.” Ah, that’s the devil! “Next Sunday night will be a better season.” That is Satan! “Wait this week and see if your doubts won’t be driven away.” That’s the devil!

God never speaks that way. He says, “To day is the day of salvation”.Resolution! Resolution! Truly Mr. Moody has said, “In all the Bible, there is no book of resolutions, but there is a book of Acts”. That is what God wants! Felix delayed action. He said it is right, but not now! Has it ever occurred to you that the thing that is right cannot be done too soon? It is an honest question as to whether it can be done soon enough. Delay not to do the right. A man may hesitate so long as he is not sure that a thing is right, but as soon as he sees a thing to be sane, sensible, essential to salvation, then he must act, or like Felix he may fail through trusting the future. Col. Rohl, the Hessian commander, at Trenton was playing cards, when a messenger brought a letter stating that Washington was crossing the Delaware. He put the letter in his pocket without reading it until the game was finished. Then he rallied his men only to die just before his troops were taken prisoners. Marden comments on this episode, “Only a few minutes delay, but by it he lost honor, liberty and life.” Napoleon was right when he said, “Every moment lost gives an opportunity for misfortune.” Let me plead against this Satan’s suggestion— convenient season. For how long a time before this instance Satan had been using that suggestion, I do not know, but I do know that ever since the time of Felix, he has been destroying souls by that same suggestion. Every Sunday night, while I preach, he passes between the pews of the auditorium and whispers to the inner ear of convicted, trembling souls that same speech, “It’s right, you ought to do it; you must do it; but don’t do it to-night. There will be a more convenient season.” The majority of those that hear that suggestion yield to it. The majority of those that yield to it will be destroyed by it. Years since, I went down into Central Illinois and held a meeting. There was a man present in those services who became deeply interested, deeply convicted of sin, deeply desirous of salvation. Several times the tears were seen flowing freely from his eyes. One morning he rushed from the house before the services were finished. A man tried to stop him at the door, but he burst into sobs saying, “Not now, but sometime; sometime I will”. A day or two before I left I found him down town and had a long talk with him, and he said, as Felix of old, “It’s right, I am determined, but there will be a more convenient season.

I am in debt. When I have made my credit good before my fellows, then I will accept and confess Christ.” I pled, warned, quoted the Word, but all in vain. I went back to Chicago and had been at home two weeks when a message came saying that at eight o’clock in the morning that man was taken with a violent pain in the temple. At ten o’clock in the day he was unconscious; at five o’clock in the afternoon he died. Delay is the devil’s invitation for soul destruction. Ah, there is a better way. It is the way reported by a man who was prominent in Ohio. He wrote to Mr. Moody in these words, “When I was nineteen years old, I was reading law with a Christian lawyer in Vermont. One day his good wife invited me to go with her to class-meeting. I accepted the invitation and found about a dozen persons present in a little schoolhouse. The leader was an earnest man, and when the meeting was over, he went the rounds and spoke to every person, and finally reached me. “When I saw him coming, I said to myself, ‘Now this man will ask me if I am a Christian, and I will tell him I am not, but want to be, and expect to be some time, and he will answer, “Why not begin now?” Is there any intelligent reply I can make to that question, “Why not now?”“By this time he had reached me. Putting his arm upon my shoulder he said, ‘Brother Charles, have you anything to say?’ ‘Yes, sir’. I answered, with joy, ‘I have just decided within the last thirty seconds that I would begin a Christian life, and I begin it now’. And as we knelt to pray, somewhere between the time when I started to kneel and when my knees struck the floor, the Lord converted my soul, and I cried, ‘Glory to God.’ What further I said, I do not know, but to me it was all glory, glory, for I had done as God said.” The African Association, of London, wanted to send Ledyard, the traveler, to Africa. They sent a commission to say, “When will you be ready?” He replied, “I am ready now.” John Jervas, later the Earl St. Vincent, when asked how soon he could join his ship, replied, “I’ll go now.” Collin Campbell, appointed commander of the army in India, when asked how soon he could set out, replied, “At once.” That is what we need for salvation. “Behold, today is the day of salvation”!