Matthew 12

Matthew 12:1-50

CHRIST AND Matthew 12.Compare Mark 2:23-28 to Mark 3:1-35 and Luke 6:1-49.THE twelfth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel should be a great comfort to prophets of God. “The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord”. If, therefore, Christ Himself was compelled to continue His ministry in controversy and in spite of criticism, how may the mortal ministry escape? “It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master and the servant as his lord”, and certainly this twelfth chapter is one continued round of criticism and counter-criticism.The eleventh chapter ended with the most gracious invitation,“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 1 am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light”. But neither the sweetness of the speech nor the kindly spirit that prompted it, moved the opponents of Jesus to acceptance, or even acquiescence.The Pharisees, though temporarily silent, were watchful, waiting for the chance of a new opposing word. And they shortly found it, for while Christ’s gentleness was exactly such as to make Him great, it was not of that negative, minus quality that seeks to escape all possible personal or public offence, or tries to so accommodate itself to public opinion as to secure its universal approval. Christ lived a normal life and proposed to do normal things, no matter what men might say to the contrary.And now, let us turn to the text and see what men did say, and study His reaction to it all. We find, first of all, the edge of criticism blunted, a counsel and what became of it, and discover, eventually, Christ Himself in the role of a critic.THE EDGE OF BLUNTED. He stood for the sanctity of the Sabbath. “At that time, Jesus went on the Sabbath Day through the corn; and His disciples were an hungred, and began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto Him, Behold, Thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the Sabbath Day. But He said unto them, Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungred, and they that were with him; how he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which, were with him, but only for the priests? Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the Sabbath Days the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless? But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple. But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.

For the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath Day. And when He was departed thence, He went into their synagogue” (Matthew 12:1-9).Their law required that the Sabbath be kept holy, and to that the Pharisees referred when they said, “Behold, Thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the Sabbath Day”.

Jesus replied by reminding them of exceptions to the law and of the fact that there are exceptions to all laws. It is not right to eat the shewbread unless one be starving, and then it is right. It is not right to reap the grain on the Sabbath; but, when one is hungry, it is perfectly proper to pluck ears and eat. How simple these propositions seem to us now! How controversial they were then! and yet, our progress is not so marked as we had supposed. There are a great many men and women who will go forth in the performance of a man-made ceremony quicker than they will in the service of Christ Himself.

When Christ reminded them that the Sabbath was made for man, He didn’t intend to be understood that it was made for man to treat as he pleased; rather, that it was created in man’s interest and could not, therefore, be properly interpreted into man’s enemy. The Sabbath that starved men would not be such.

The table of shewbread is holy and is to be approached as Divinely-appointed; but life is holier still; and for bread to be within reach and yet life to perish because it is on a holy table, that would be a tragedy indeed and would make a silent law to be an enemy of life itself—a thing God never intended.The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. It belongs to Him to utilize according to His pleasure. That’s an additional reason why we have no right to trample it with unholy feet, to mar it with common-day work and to make it a mere medium of our ever-growing greed or selfish search of lust or pleasure. It is most amazing how men talk on this matter! They tell you that, since it is God’s Day, we want to use it in hunting in God’s open fields, or fishing in God’s streams, or driving in God’s fresh air, all of which means, in its last analysis, we want to deny His claim altogether and appropriate it for our profit or our pleasure, and as we please.Since it is the Lord’s Day, the sanctuary has a special claim upon it. Rest and worship were alike intended by its original constitution.

The release of the muscles in the interest of the mind and soul was back of the fourth commandment, and every man who desecrates the Sabbath, denies Christ’s Lordship of the same; and he who appropriates it purely for his own profit or pleasure, despises its Divine appointment and purpose.To some of us, it has always been a matter of amazement that Sunday was such a long day for certain of our fellows, for, since we could remember, it has always been a short day—all too short. It has had its music for us, but we wished there were more.

It has had its rest and we have commonly felt the need of it. It has had its spiritual refreshings in the form of sermon and prayer and Scripture, and we have known that they met an actual demand of life itself. We hear once in a while somebody stoutly inveighing against a “rigid Sabbath”. We might sympathetically join them, but we stand absolutely ready to confess that, even that puritan Sabbath which is not imposed by God’s Word, is better than “a lax Sunday”. Canada, fifteen years ago, when the street cars never turned a wheel and not a paper was hawked in their streets, and every man and every woman, in best dress, was found, at the hour of service, at the door of the sanctuary, was a thousandfold better off than America today, where the coming of Sunday is simply a signal for a Saturday night debauch, to be slept off on Sunday, or a Sunday picnic attended by drinks, in contravention of the eighteenth amendment, or a day spent in the wild delirium of free love, long drives, big feeds, and the like. We can do nothing better for ourselves and society than to remember that “the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath Day”.The Sabbath has its chief sacred intent.“And, when He was departed thence, He went into their synagogues”. Men, therefore, who desire to do the will of God, will forever have before them a good example, even the example of Jesus Christ in this matter. There are multitudes of men, and, let it be understood, they are society’s best men, who believe that a Sabbath without a sanctuary is a seventh-day desecration. They know the history of the sanctuary; they know the sacred influence it has exerted upon society; they know how absolutely essential to the State the sanctuary is—a holy place, into which men can go, at least once a week, to meet God; and they applaud the example of Jesus, practice it themselves, and urge their fellows to unite with them in the same. Who shall say they are not right? One has every reason to thank God if he were born to believing parents. He has additional reason to be grateful if the schools in which he has been trained were loyal to truth, spiritual as well as physical; but he has the highest occasion of gratitude if his life-lot has been cast in the lap of the church, and if Sunday, from his infancy, has been like a spiritual oasis in the desert of heavy and hard duties, a place to rest, a grateful shade, a refreshing fountain, and such the sanctuary has been to the souls of many of us.

We know not, therefore, how to sympathize with those who oppose proper Sabbath laws and find ourselves incapable of co-operating with those who would abolish the tithe of time now devoted to rest and to spiritual interests.We believe that the illustration in verses 10 to 13 of the withered hand healed on the Sabbath, is placed here by the appointment of wisdom. The Sabbath has always been a healing day—a day in which men’s hands, withered by the rough uses of six days, were released and rested and recovered; a day in which men’s heads, wearied with figures, were rested, refreshed and recovered; a day in which men’s hearts, wearied with business and professional cares, were rested, refreshed and recovered, that the hand might be stretched forth capable of helping another; that the mind itself might think on the things of others, and the heart go out to the needs of a world. The time can never come when the Word of the Lord shall not be wisdom’s way. “It is lawful to do well on the Sabbath day”!A COUNCIL AND WHAT CAME OF IT. “Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against Him, how they might destroy Him. But when Jesus knew it, He withdrew Himself from thence: and great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all; And charged them that they should not make Him known: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the Prophet, saying, Behold, My Servant, whom I have chosen; My Beloved, in whom My soul is well pleased: I will put My Spirit upon Him, and He shall shew judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear His voice in the streets. A bruised reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall He not quench, till He send forth judgment unto victory. And in His Name shall the Gentiles trust”.Note, first of all, the council of critics. “Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against Him”.That was a typical “ex parte” council. The Pharisees were not the friends of Jesus; they were His opponents rather. They had long been silent, but in their silence, felt resentment and sought opportunity for its expression. When men are looking for such an opportunity, it is sure to come. That these men had been watching for it, has been made evident again and again, as we have passed through Matthew’s record. In recent study, we saw that, when the man sick of the palsy was forgiven, certain of the scribes said within themselves, “This Man blasphemeth”.

When Jesus dined at the house of Levi, the Pharisees said unto His disciples, “Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?” And when the demon was cast out of the dumb man, and his tongue was loosed, the Pharisees muttered, under their breath, but with deep feeling, “He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils”.The resentment of this hour, therefore, is not a sudden shock, resultant from His treatment of the Sabbath. It was the expression of a tide that had long been rising.

Men do not become enemies of the Christ suddenly, but slowly rather. Men do not burst into violent opposition to the truth with an individual provocation. They grow, rather, in their dislike of the Lord. Opposition to the true, yea, even to truth itself, is one of the few illustrations of the evolutionary hypothesis that can be found in human experience; and even there, it is a development and not a change of species. Criticism is naturally a fungus growth. It arises out of the mental fermentation that often amounts to decay, and it reaches enormous proportions in an incredibly short time.

In nine cases out of ten, it is born of an over self-estimation, and voices a professed personal piety.The case in point here was no exception to that rule. It amounted to an assertion, “We keep the Sabbath.

We have no sympathy with such as You, and Your disciples, who violate that sacred day”. When will we get to the point where we can divorce the condemnation of others from a self-commendation? When will we see separated pious performances from an impious spirit in expression, and how shall we prove ourselves truly loyal to the laws of God and yet, at the same time, not lacking the grace that is in Christ Jesus? The Pharisees never found a solution to these questions and their successors have been no more successful. The “ex parte” council is far more often pharisaical than faithful; more often evil than good; more often prompted by the adversary than of God. So far as the Bible goes, we do not recall that it has set its approval upon any “ex parte” council, and yet, certain ecclesiastical potentates still approve and employ it.

It is interesting to study Christ’s treatment of this particular instance.He refused it any participation.How significant is the sentence: “But when Jesus knew it He withdrew Himself thence”. In our language, that means that He walked away.

He didn’t even stay to explain beyond the declaration of the great principles to which we have already given attention. He knew that he had nothing to explain, that explanation was not essential to His self-justification. He also knew that argument here was useless. You can’t convince the man whose mind is closed; you can make very little progress with a man who has erected against all that you say the barriers of prejudice. There is many a criticism that is most eloquently answered by silence, and many an argument that can be best defeated by walking away. One does not have to stay and give answer to every man that is in for debate, or every council called to criticise and condemn.In an extended ministry of more than forty years, I have yet to know the first preacher’s interests that were ever advanced, or the first church difficulty to ever be amicably settled, or even aided by an “ex parte” council.

What folly, then, for any minister to jeopardize his reputation and his influence by participating in such, or even continue with it in controversy; and what wickedness for a church to profess a sincere desire to settle difficulties by selecting a company of men who are known to be filled with raging prejudices, whose judgments were formed before they came together, determined by those that called them.In the present controversy between modernism and orthodoxy, with the ecclesiastical machinery so largely in modernistic hands, this satanic weapon of the “ex parte” council will be much in vogue. As a senior in the ministry, we advise our companions in that high calling, to consider and imitate the example of the Christ and turn their backs upon all such inquisition committees—all such self-determined, crucifying councils.The Scriptures that follow here just as plainly indicate the greater sweetness involved in such a course; for, to the multitudes that followed Him, He reminded them of the prophet Esaias’ words:“Behold My Servant, whom I have chosen; My Beloved, in whom My soul is well pleased: I will put My Spirit upon Him, and He shall shew judgment to the Gentiles.

He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear His voice in the streets. A bruised reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall He not quench, till He send forth judgment unto victory”.Eloquence is seldom loud-voiced! Few subjects of controversy are settled by strife. The healed people that followed Him were His sufficient answer to the council that sought to destroy Him. If those great outstanding leaders of fundamentalism, who are now winning their fellows to Christ, continue successfully in such a ministry, all modernistic councils will make no headway against them. To them the people will turn as the Gentiles did to Jesus.Evangelism is the antedote to modernism.

Multiplied conversions are death to criticism, and the advancement of the Church of God is the most effective reply to all the opponents of the Truth. The man who keeps these facts full before his face and who, animated by the spirit of Jesus, follows His example, will come with Him into a kindred experience; the demon-possessed will be brought to him; men blind to the Truth of God and dumb concerning His praises will also come, and with the soul-healing of men, people will be amazed and will believe, all pharisaical critics to the contrary, notwithstanding.He uncovered to them the True Church.“In His Name shall the Gentiles trust”. The Church of God does not depend upon some men who set themselves up as leaders in the same. Its future is not in the hands of Pharisees. In fact, many a man who is “over the church”, as a veritable earthly lord, holding high office in connection with the same, a political bishopric, for instance, is not even a member of that spiritual body of Christ named in the New Testament—“the Church”.Some years since, a high official in the world’s largest protestant denomination, put forth a declaration concerning his ideal church. Into it he would take the unconverted Jew and Gentile; into it he would take the warring liberal and conservative, the Unitarian and the Trinitarian; into it he would take the most devout believer and the most determined atheist. But, a society created after that manner is not a church, no matter what name it wears. It is a social conglomeration as far removed from the Church of Jesus Christ as the east is from the west, and, instead of building up the True Church, congregations assembled after that manner would shortly dissipate the same from the face of the earth.

He would have in His Church only those who “trust” in Him, and if but “two or three are gathered together in His Name”, He in the midst, there is a Church of God.But, shall we conclude this study by giving consideration to that extensive portion of the chapter which presents Christ from another angle altogether.CHRIST IN THE ROLE OF CRITIC.We have already seen the rising tide of resentment at His teaching; we have listened to its increasing murmurs, and in this chapter, we have witnessed its oft-indictments. It might be well to reflect a while on the character of Christ’s replies.His first answers reveal the superficiality of His opponents. He charged that they essayed to define and determine the Sabbath without at all understanding its meaning, nor even comprehending its Divine objective. See Matthew 12:4-8. When the Pharisees held a council against Him, seeking how they might destroy Him, He showed them the futility of their plan by quoting prophecy that must be fulfilled (Matthew 12:14-21). When they assigned His power to Satan, He made their reasoning absurd by a single sentence: “If Satan cast out Satan, how then shall his kingdom stand?” (Matthew 12:22-30). In answer to their charge of blasphemy, He reminded them of a possible blasphemy not to be forgiven in this world, nor yet in the next (Matthew 12:31-37). In response to their faithless plea for a sign, He showed them the low level upon which they were living; demanded of them that they believe the Bible, even the Book of Jonah, or else be condemned by the men of Nineveh and the Queen of Sheba in the day of judgment (Matthew 12:38-42). He uncovers the secret of their opposition.“When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I mill return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it he also unto this wicked generation” (Matthew 12:43-45). This Scripture is most suggestive. There are many men who imagine their restlessness is due to some external cause; that people other than themselves are not behaving correctly—are not walking as they ought to walk, are not talking as they ought to talk. The disorder is internal and not external; the adversary has gotten in and there is no rest. The most terrible thing about sin, and, in fact, a scientific suggestion as to its final and possible consequences, is to be found in this very Scripture.Sin renders its victims restless! There is, in the lower animal nature, a loud hint of this whole, terrible fact. Every farmer-bred lad knows that if a dog kill a sheep, he is never a contented dog again.

Observation upon his conduct would reveal the fact that he is restless, and there is as much of a battle that goes on in his mind and flesh as is recorded in the seventh chapter of the Book of Romans; and there is hardly an instance on record in which he ever settles down to a contented life. His restlessness will eventually work his ruin and bring him to judgment.The man in whose life liquor conquers, becomes a restless man; the gambler is a restless man; lust is a restless spirit.

It is doubtful if, in the annals of human history, one man, who ever deliberately and in cold blood, committed murder, has ever experienced a contented or acquiescent spirit thereafter. If there be evil spirits, as the Bible seems clearly to teach, and as human experience rather attests, they are spirits that “find no rest”. Is this the explanation of Jude, “raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever”, and is this the possible explanation of an eternal hell—the everlasting restlessness of sin?We face the awful facts with which we are familiar. We leave these difficult questions without an attempted answer and call attention to the one known certainty, namely, that Christ is adequate, not against seven devils only, but against a legion of them, and, by His grace, He introduced into our study of the chapter before this, that great and gracious invitation,“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”. In other words, the antidote to a satanic possession is the admission of the Christ.But finally, He announced the spiritual basis of His kinship.“While He yet talked to the people, behold, His mother and His brethren stood without, desiring to speak with Him. Then one said unto Him, Behold, Thy mother and Thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with Thee. But He answered and said unto him that told Him, Who is My mother? and who are My brethren? And He stretched forth His hand toward His disciples, and said, Behold My mother and My brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in Heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother” (Matthew 12:46-50). It is probably true that the deepest wound received on this day when criticisms flew so thick and fast, came from the members of His own family— the darling mother to whom He was so devoted, and the brothers and sisters that were dearer than life itself. He knew they suspected Him as “mad”. It is always within the power of our dearest to wound us most deeply. Our indifferent kin cannot hurt us as can those that are doubly dear. Our indifferent friends can do us no such harm as we can feel at the lips of those to whom we have long been bound by the tenderest ties of affection. But after all, we face the fact that the closest ties of life are not those of blood, are not created at all by the first birth.

They are, rather, the fruits of the second birth—the birth from above.I felt that fact afresh this past week as Dr. Philpott and myself sat together waiting our respective turns of speech in connection with the funeral service of Dr. Chas. A. Blanchard, late great President of Wheaton College. I felt moved to say to Dr.

Philpott, “After all, beloved, there is no fellowship in this life that equals the fraternity that is in Christ”. I have buried a father; I have buried a mother; I have buried a sister; I have buried a brother; I have buried a child; but I was never more sensible of my loss than at this moment, for truly, kinship is of the spirit as well as of the flesh, and this man was, in the highest conceivable sense, “my father, my mother, my brother, my sister”. He was all that Christian kinship can claim. Our family ties are tender, and the ties of human friendship are sweet, but in the last analysis, our greatest kinship is in the family of God in Heaven and on earth, and with His Son, Jesus Christ.

Matthew 12:38-45

JONAH’S THE SYMBOL Matthew 12:38-45. (Delivered on Easter Sunday, 1933) OUR recent studies in the Book of Jonah have refreshed the memory and emphasized the meaning of that much-debated Old Testament incident. We take up this morning its New Testament interpretation; an interpretation given it by none other than the Lord Himself. When Christ selected Jonah 1:17 to Jonah 2:10 as an illustration of His own resurrection from the grave, He set upon the history itself the Divine seal of certainty, and elected to take that very part of it, over which men have most often stumbled, as an illustration or type of His own experience in the heart of the earth and His return after three days from the power of death and the grave. It becomes, therefore, an appropriate study for this Easter morning.Think with me first of all ofTHE OF JONAH THE PROPHET “Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from Thee, “But He answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the Prophet Jonas: “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:38-40). This age, like that one, seeks for signs! It is doubtful if there has ever been a time when men were more mad over a possible miracle than now. Since the opening of this twentieth century interest in the plain, simple, New Testament Christianity has weaned; Evangelism has languished; church attendance decreased, and the number of converts diminished, and the great crowds that Moody and Chapman saw, in the dying years of the nineteenth century, are no more. Billy Sunday is still in health; his mind is as alert as ever and his voice no worse; but even his street-slang fails to pull together crowds akin to those that once nightly packed his tabernacle doors, and his converts are no longer in the hundreds.There is just one appeal now popular with the crowds, and that is the professed miracle, “the working of wonders,” and “the speaking with tongues” where men and women fall on floors, where glasses and crutches and canes are collected, and where emotional people jabber in “tongues unknown” to themselves and interpretable by no person present. Thither the multitude, in recent years, have been wending their way, many of them honestly believing that the only proofs of Christ’s supernatural power, the only adequate evidence of His Deity, exists in “SIGNS and wonders.” If this be true, it strikes one strangely that Christ should have said to the kindred companies of His day, “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign”.Thomas belonged to the sign-demanding company. When the other disciples said unto him, “We have seen the Lord”, he answered,“Except I shall see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe. “And after eight days again His disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. “Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold My hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into My side: and be not faithless, but believing. “And Thomas answered and said unto Him, My Lord and my God. “Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed” (John 20:24-29). The demand for a sign, as the basis of faith, is, in itself, an evidence of the lack of faith; and the interest in Christianity that is only excited by some strange emotional act has neither an intellectual nor Scriptural basis.When the Chapman campaign was on in this city Dr. Henry Ostrom was the preacher for the downtown section, with week day meetings in the Plymouth Congregational Church, (then at the corner of Eighth street and Nicollet) and Sunday meetings in the First Baptist Church. The crowds were not coming. Dr. Ostrom was impatient and critical of the committee of arrangements, and a certain degree of discouragement and confusion was incident to that fact.Suddenly, one night at the close of the sermon when the invitation was given, a girl who lived in the old three-story brick building located on the very ground where Jackson Hall now stands, lost self-control and screamed aloud for a few seconds. The next morning the Tribune announced, “Wild Excitement at the Ostrom Meeting.” From that day, the house was filled.Possibly your Pastor made a mistake, when, recently, in the New England meeting, a girl equally wrought up and beginning to scream was quickly committed to a woman who was asked to silence her and take her to a side room and quietly tell her how to accept Christ. But his study of the New Testament left him neither other precept nor example to follow.On the day of Pentecost there were twenty-five hundred converts, and here is the simple record of the procedure,“When they heard [Peter,] they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter, and to the rest of the Apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we dot “Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost”. And as for their part, it is simply recorded,“They that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls”. When they had found the Saviour they were without the necessity of signs.The truest of all signs is already given. Its type existed in the return of Jonah from the belly of the fish; and in the saving truth of Christ’s triumph over the grave, and consequent ability to redeem from death and the grave.It has come about that men imagine themselves demonstrably intellectual if only they publicly deny the resurrection of Jesus from the grave. It might be well for some of the so-called intelligentia to read again what George J. Romanes, the distinguished biologist, said at the very time that he himself was adrift concerning the faith. This was his statement:“I am not ashamed to confess that, with this virtual negation of God, the universe to me has lost its soul of loveliness * * and when at times I think, as think at times I must, of the appalling contrast between the hallowed glory of that creed which once was mine, and the lonely mystery of existence as now I find it— at such times I shall ever feel it impossible to avoid the sharpest pang of which my nature is susceptible.”If there is one company who deserves the pity of their fellows beyond others it is the unbelievers of the day—those ministers and laymen who doubt the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave; and who deny the supernatural work of God in the world! Unbelief is baseless!

We live in an age of signs; we dwell in the midst of miracles, if we but had discernment!John G. Wooley used to stagger through these streets; at times be found drunk in the gutters of the same: but one day John G.

Wooley believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, and instantly he was “a new man” and became a mighty preacher of the Gospel and one of the most effective foes of the infamous liquor traffic that that diabolical business ever faced.What was that but a miracle? What was that but a resurrection from the grave? What was that but a triumph against sin and death? And the world has in it thousands of such men; men who but yesterday were wrecks and who today, by the simple act of believing on the risen Christ, are themselves redeemed and able with the blind man to say, “One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see”. Whereas I was drunk I am now sober; whereas I was lecherous, I am now moral; whereas I once loved sin, I now loathe it; whereas I doubted the Saviour, I have discovered Him to be my all in all!That is the sign of the centuries! That is the miracle of the ages!

That, bless God, is the message of the morning!This Easter day celebrates its significance. We are here in great numbers this morning solely because, on another Sunday morning, Christ conquered the grave, becoming victor over death.Some years ago my friend Dr.

Massee said:“The proclamation of three great facts composes the Gospel message. They are the death of Jesus Christ; the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Return of Jesus Christ. The resurrection lies at the center. Without the resurrection the death of Jesus would have been meaningless. Without the resurrection the Return of Christ would be impossible.”“If Christ is not Divine, Then lay the Book away, And every blessed faith resign That has so long been yours and mine, Through many a trying day; Forget the place of bended knee; And dream no more of worlds to be; If Christ is not Divine. Go seal again the tomb; Take down the Cross, Redemption’s sign; Quench all the stars of hope that shine; Forget the upper room; And let us turn and travel on Across the night that has no dawn.” But the resurrection accepted, how certain, how dependable the whole Gospel message! Only God could conquer against death and the grave. The resurrection, then, is the sure ground of sins forgiven. Only God could sustain the soul in a sinful world, immersed as it is in sinful society. But He who conquered death, the product of sin, can throttle sin itself—the soul’s enemy.“The day of resurrection: Earth, tell it out abroad; The passover of gladness, The passover of God. From death to life eternal, From earth unto the sky, Our Christ has brought us over With hymns of victory. “Now let the Heavens be joyful, Let earth her song begin; Let the round world keep triumph, And all that is therein; Invisible and visible Their notes let all things blend, For Christ the Lord is risen, Our joy that hath no end.” THE OF THIS “The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here” (Matthew 12:41). The conduct of Nineveh is the condemnation of this generation. Ninevites were perhaps equally bad with this generation. They were famed for godlessness, violence and bloodshed; but perhaps they were no worse than this generation in any of them.The late Dr. T. C. Horton, writing a while ago for one of our magazines, said, “The crime craze is rampant in every section of our country. Men and women, boys and girls are committing crimes that once would have caused a shudder of horror, but now are so common that they create hardly a ripple of interest. Amusement centers, dance halls, movie palaces, autos and flying machines are all making their contribution to the immorality of the day.

Decency and order have surrendered to indecency and disorder.”The reason is not far to seek, for as Horton said, “The Word of God expresses it—’because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil’.”Take our own local situation! Months ago, three or four men walked into one of our Banks on the East side, looted it of its riches, shot to death the two policemen who responded to the burglar alarm, and later in St. Paul killed an innocent young man whose ignorance of their character and accomplishments led him to stop by their disabled car, doubtless with the good motive of helping them.And yet, the sentence of law has been pronounced against but two of these men, and owing to the silly sentimentalism of the age, the utmost that can be done with them is to spend the State’s money in convicting them and in keeping them in fairly comfortable quarters at Stillwater, and wait the newspaper announcement they have made good their escape, or have been paroled by a tender-hearted Board.The greatest crimes are trifled with by those in authority, and the sinners of this age mock the prophets of the day, laughing their deliverances to scorn instead of falling upon their faces, repenting in sackcloth and ashes, as Nineveh did at Jonah’s preaching.I say that the conduct of Nineveh is the condemnation of this generation, and they will rise to speak our judgment in the hour when the final assize is on.Yes, and the Queen of Sheba shames the same generation. In her day the greatest teacher living was Solomon. She traveled a long distance to hear what he had to say. She sat docilely at his feet and received approvingly his every sentence.

She took pains to pass encomium upon both his palaces and his precepts.But a greater than Solomon is here, even Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, and the average man of the streets has no ear for Him and no interest in Him. The world never saw another work the works that He wrought, and men never listened to such wisdom as passed His lips.

The moral lessons that He taught are the matchless maxims of the millenniums. Little wonder that men were astonished at His Words! They uncovered alike conscience and conduct; they sounded motive and purpose; they uniformly pointed to the peaks of righteousness.Tauler used to be called “Dr. Illuminatus”—the doctor for whom a great light hath shined. But the Dr. Illuminatus, the Doctor who is Light, yea even “the Light of the world”, is Christ, and for the men and women of this day and generation to walk in darkness is a scientific demonstration of the fact that they do so “because their deeds are evil”; that they refuse to come to the Light “lest their deeds should be reproved”.Bishop Ainsworth, in a recent article that appeared first in “The Alabama Christian Advocate”, but later in a number of magazines, says truthfully,—“If America is not in a crisis, this nation has never known one.

The crisis that confronts this country is not just a matter of economics. It is much more moral than economic.

Some people never see any sort of crisis but a collapse of material values. America is threatened with moral collapse in high places. The Church of God is the only way out. The soul of the country must be awakened. A new consciousness of God must come upon the people. The principles of Jesus Christ are the only basis for prosperous and stable society. ‘Whosoever heareth these sayings of Mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock’. ‘The Statutes of the Lord are right’—and ‘in keeping of them there is great reward’. The Divine order is religion, righteousness, happiness, prosperity. It is time for action.

As Richard Cecil said to England a hundred years ago, ‘The state of the world and of the church is such, and so much depends on action, that everything seems to say loudly to every man, Do something. DO IT! DO IT!’”And yet, at the very time that sordid social conditions are so crying in our ears,—The Church is being held in the grip of a deadly indifference. The judgment of some of us is that the pulpit of the present is far more at fault than is the pew. It is not so long since New York’s preacher-pride told an audience that “sin and hell had been sent to the Museum,” and in fact most pulpits have so relegated them, and the pews are coming to so regard them-. I confess my own fault in this matter.

I believe that one reason why this church has enjoyed the blessing that has been poured out upon it during the ministry of my visiting brother, Dr. Jas.

B. Leavell, is that he has not minced words. Hell has been often on his tongue, and the terrors as well as the certainty of it have been faithfully presented, and “damnation” has not been exchanged for some smoother word. He laid a strong hand upon some of our social idols, and compelled us to face the fact that “It is better * * to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire” (Matthew 18:9).We have listened to the siren song of Twentieth Century philosophy until we have forgotten the declarations of all centuries’ Christianity. By that song we have been lulled to spiritual sleep, at the very time when the ship of Church is driving before the winds of infidelity straight into the breakers of soul-ruin and death.As Dean Farrar once said,—“Oh, better surely that a sinner should tremble with agony, as the last leaves of the aspen shudder in the late autumnal wind, than that he should thus falsely presume that he knows more of God than God Himself hath taught him, and, seeing, as has been said, ‘that wrath is written in Scripture against his way of life, should hope that it is not wrath, but mercy, and so rush upon the bosses of the Almighty’s buckler as the wild horse rusheth into the battle.’ ”It is rather natural to pass from the judgment of this generation toTHE OF THE Mark then the progress of Scripture:—“When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. “Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. “Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse them the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation” (Matthew 12:43-45). The reformed man is not necessarily the redeemed one. There are a good many men that think if they could get rid of one unclean spirit they would be all right. One man says, “I am profane; that is the only thing wrong with me. If I could quit that I would be all right!”Another says, “I am lecherous. If I could just resolve to live a clean life I would be all right!”The third says, “I do get drunk occasionally. I wish I could get rid of that demon of drink. Then I would be all right!”The fourth one says, “I have a tendency to thievery. It is a sort of a kleptomania with me, and if I could cease from that I would be all right!”But would he?Resolution can drive the unclean spirit out for a while.

I have seen men go as long as a year, two years, three years, yes even four years, in sobriety, and then suddenly find themselves drinking again.I have known men to firmly resolve that they would quit gambling, and with a whip of will-cords drive the demons of gambling from the heart, and for a year turn their backs upon the hole of green cloth, and the Faro wheels, and all the devices of Gambrinus; but, suddenly, in the second year, they were back at the gambling table again, and the avidity with which they practised the black art marked a new enthusiasm for the thing they said they would never indulge in again. Take the subject of Prohibition as an illustration.Twelve years ago, when we were in the humility and grief of ten thousand, thousand slain, we faced the wickedness of the drinking practice, and by a majority of votes in State after State we said, “We will banish this demon from the land,” and by fit legislation we put the whole traffic away. We swept and garnished the house, and for a dozen years we have had a national room that was comparatively clean. But “the blind pigs” and “the liquor rats” have been gnawing and gnawing on the walls thereof, eager to work their way through, and repossess the cleansed house; and, finally that public opinion which is as vacillating as the individual’s resolutions, pushed back the door and said to the whole filthy, swill-loving herd, “Come in,” and each devil has brought with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and the last state of the government is worse than the first. Reformation is not redemption!The cleansed life even is not necessarily the Christian life. You can “sweep and garnish,” and yet stop short.

Go out yonder to that unoccupied house, (and the city is now full of them); take your broom with you, your brushes and varnish; sweep the rooms clean, varnish baseboards, cover the walls with brand new paper, close and lock the windows, shut and bolt the door, and let it alone one year, and then go and look in. You will find that cobwebs will hang from the ceiling, festoon the corners, and in all probability mice will have made their nests, and vermin will have found an entrance.The best way in the world to keep a house clean, or even a single room of any home, is to put in it a clean and cleansing occupant.The trouble with this room described by Jesus was that it was empty, and if you can, by act of will today, banish every evil spirit from your life, and you leave the heart empty, they will come back and bring with them others, worse than themselves, and a year hence your condition of soul will far exceed that of the day before the cleansing.I have no doubt that a number of men and women who have listened to my friend, Dr.

Leavell, these last three weeks have said, “Well, I am going to turn over a new leaf. I am going to quit this; I am going to cease from that; I am going to refrain from the other.” You have been “sweeping”; you have been “garnishing.” Alas, what folly!You have refused to let in the One whose presence would keep the. life clean and sweet. You have locked the door of your will against the Christ who alone hath power to save, and to preserve. The result is uniformly this,—Your last estate will be your worst estate. I have traveled a great deal, of which you are painfully conscious. I have preached to multitudes, and am compelled, therefore, to deal with many men, and hosts of women and children; and I say to you that the worst cases, from a spiritual standpoint, that I ever meet, are backsliders.

When I find a man in an after-meeting who frankly says to me, “I have never been a member of any church; I have never made a profession of Christianity,” my heart thrills with instant hope, and as a rule I succeed in bringing him to a decision for Jesus as the Christ, as personal Saviour and Lord.But when I meet a man, and he says, “Oh, I tried that once; I know all about it. I made a profession myself once and found out there was nothing in it,” I know full well the improbability of doing aught for him.

He is the identical individual described by the words of Jesus. He had decided once that he was going to turn over a new leaf, and he said so. In order to aid himself in the endeavor he joined the church, but having left his heart empty of the Christ, every demon that he willed out for a time he consented to let return later, and each of them brought with him seven others.The most godless men in the world are the men who once took the Name of God upon the lips but refused Him the domination of their hearts. The most difficult people on earth to do anything with, or for, are the men and women that once joined the church, but did not yield to Christ.A big proportion of the atheists have developed from this company. The President of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism was once a Methodist minister.On this Easter morning there are in this audience not less than a hundred men and women who belong to this backslidden company. You are infinitely farther from God this morning than you were twenty years ago,— the time you fully intended to be Christians; the time when you went so far as to profess Christ and receive the ordinance of baptism, in some form, and had your name enrolled as a church-man or a church-woman, but you know that you did not take Christ into your heart; that you did not permit Him to live in and tenant your entire being, and you know better than I can tell you that you have drifted, and drifted, and drifted; that you have gone down, and down, and down, and today you are farther from Heaven, and closer to hell, by the descent of the intervening years.Are you going to continue to drift?

Are you going to keep up your indifference? Are you going to practice the farce of going to church once a year, or only when some friend has pleaded with, and almost forced, you to accompany him, all the while refusing to let Christ come into your heart?The time will come when there will be a voice saying, “This day thy soul is required of thee.” The time will come when the last enemy will lay his finger on your eyelids and close them for ever to the scenes of earth, and your soul will awaken in hell or in Heaven.If in hell, you know what it will mean.

You have heard already the voice crying from that burning pit “Father Abraham, * * send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame”.Thomas Payne cried out during his last moments: “O Lord, help me! God, help me! Jesus Christ, help me!” Voltaire said: “I am lost! I am lost! Oh, that I had never been born!” Colonel Charteris said: “I would gladly give 30,000 pounds to have it proved to my satisfaction that there is no such place as hell.” But, oh, if in Heaven, then what? As one once said:“What must it be to step on shore, and find it Heaven; To take hold of a hand, and find it—God’s hand; To breathe a new air and find it—Celestial air; To feel invigorated, and find it—Immortality; To rise from the care and turmoil of earth Into one unbroken calm; To wake up and find it—Glory!”