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  BILLY SUNDAY COLLECTION
  by Billy Sunday
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A collection of sermons by Billy Sunday, the famous early 20th-century American
evangelist known for his dramatic, colloquial preaching style. Includes his
renowned 'Booze' sermon and other powerful evangelistic messages that drew
massive crowds across America.

  Chapters: 8

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. Backsliding
    2. Booze
    3. Shew Thyself a Man
    4. The Blood of Jesus Christ
    5. The Second Coming of Christ
    6. Under the Sun
    7. What Shall I Do Then With Jesus
    8. Wonderful

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  CHAPTER 1: BACKSLIDING
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Backsliding by Billy Sunday

"Thy own wickedness shall correct thee. Thy backsliding shall reprove thee. Know
therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast forsaken
the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of Hosts."
Jeremiah 11:19.

Many start the voyage of the Christian life under sending skies and upon smooth
waters, but as they sail out of the harbor the sky becomes dark and the craft of
their religion crashes upon the rocks. At first they are careful to obey the
command of God, but after the revival they neglect their duties and finally come
to wreck.

God speaks much of the sin of backsliding, and in the Bible has spoken of it in
many places. There are all kinds of backsliding.

First, there is the careless kind. The invitation is never given at the revival
but there are those who will respond to it, and for a time will live as
Christians should. Then, when the revival is over and the routine of everyday
life begins, they slip gradually back into their former ways. They become
negligent and drift back to the old haunts and the old gang.

Oh, it is easy to think of things divine when the revival is on and there is
inspiration on every side and the bands are playing and the crowds are marching.

I've sometimes thought, almost, that it might be a Godsend to many a community
if it could only be swept by typhoid fever or pneumonia or scarlet fever just
after a good revival and before the people have a chance to slide back. The
second class of backsliders is the class that started soberly and seriously, but
not seriously enough. They do not make a complete surrender. If you secure a
balloon with 100 ropes and cut 99 of them, the balloon will still be held, but
don't cut the shore lines, they have failed to cut loose from sin, and it is
drawing them back. A friend of mine holding a meeting, asked how many who were
present had been Christians, but were now backsliders. Finally forty fessed up.
Then he asked them for the reasons for their falling away. Finally a man got up
and said he backslid through believing that he could be a Christian and keep his
store open on Sundays. A young lady arose and said that she backslid because of
cards. A friend had given a card party and she had to give one in reciprocity.
She said she had invited a young man to attend, but that he didn't know what
kind of a party it was to be. He came, but when he found out he said he was
sorry, but he must go, for he could not stay there. "I admired him for his
loyalty to his religion, he made me feel that I wasn't worthy to have my name as
a church member," the young lady said.

Another man stood up and said: "I backslid when I voted for the saloon." You bet
he did or he would not have voted for the dirty, rotten thing. Why, he backslid
before he voted that ticket, or he wouldn't have voted it. A young lady said: "I
thought I could be a member of the church and dance." Sure she could. You can be
a member of the church and a burglar too, but not a member of the body of
Christ. She said, "I attended a dance and found my desire to pray diminishing. I
attended another and I found my desire to pray had become nebulous. And then,"
she said, "my desire to pray disappeared."

I tell you I never saw a drinking, dancing, card playing Christian who amounted
to anything. The dance is a quagmire of wreckage. It's as rotten as hell. You
wait until I get at it.

I believe more people in the church backslide because of the dance, card playing
and theatre gadding then through the saloons. But hold on there, don't you think
for a minute that I'm in favor of the dirty, stinking, rotting saloons.

I'm against a lot of amusements popular among church members, as you people are
going to find out before I am through in Boston. I don't give that (snapping his
fingers) whether you like my preaching or not. Understand? It's a question of
whether you are interested in decency. If you live wrong you can't die right.
Emerson said: "What you are speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.
This is an age of incompleteness of unfinished things. Life is full of half done
things. Education is begun and abandoned. Obedience to the law of God is begun -
and given up. People start in business - and fail. They attempt to learn a trade
- and don't do it thoroughly. A hound once started running after a stag and
after running for a while it saw a fox and turned after it. A little farther
along it saw a rabbit and ran after that, and finally wound up holing a field
mouse. So it is with so many who enter the Christian life. They started to hunt
and compromised on a glass of booze. They enter a royal race, but compromised on
a glass of beer or on some little gain through dishonesty. Not every backslider
is an apostate, but every apostate is a backslider. Peter was a backslider, but
he came back and preached that sermon at Pentecost. Judas was a backslider, and
what he did so preyed upon his mind that he did not want it. He went out but he
never came back.

I have never tabooed but two towns in my life and one of them was a little town
in Iowa, where I once held a meeting before I really became an evangelist. That
town had an infidel club of 150 members. There were only two church members in
the place, and there was an interrogation point after them at that. They could
have started a founding asylum of their own in that community. My life was not
safe there - they threw stones at me in the streets. A storekeeper there told me
he was going to sell out and leave the town for purely moral reasons, at a loss
of about $8000.00. He said that he had daughters and that there wasn't a young
man in the town that he would trust with them. He said that any young man in
that town were to call on any of his daughters he wouldn't go upstairs to bed
unless he had a Gattling gun he could train on the visitor at a moments notice.
It is not only for here and now, it is not only for a time, but it is for
eternity. It is one of the great things. All other things are incidents. The
leader of that God - forsaken, iniquitous gang was a man named Dickson, who ran
a one - horse country grocery business in a place about as big as a boxcar. He
had been a Christian - used to be a classleader in a Methodist church. He kept a
store. I used to pass the store as I went to preach, and I would see the bunch,
as many as 40 sometimes, sitting around in the little store.

Whenever a new preacher came they would assemble to talk him over, and if old
Dickson gave consent, they would go to church to hear him. I remember one old
brush rat. He had bushy whiskers with a dirty brown streak down the middle, and
he could spit 30 yards and hit a fly. I'll bet my life he could hit a post down
there. He used to come in late, with one pant leg tucked in his boot, no coat or
vest, no galoshes - just a rope around his paunch - the old son of perdition.

He'd sit down and turn the hose on the wall. He looked to me as if he had had
only one bath in his life and that one when he was born. He came clattering down
the aisle - old hair and beard twisted - looked like a cows tail. He started as
a backslider, ended in apostasy, just as disease ends in death if not checked.
In business life, crises come unforeseen. Hard times come. When they do, you may
be able to get away with a overdraft at the bank if the cashier knows you too
well. At the bank of heaven no checks on God's mercy, when signed by God's loyal
followers have ever been turned down. If you come with honest heart God will
honor the appeal if your hands are red with blood. In a campaign like this, for
some little thing many men will sell out. There are men whose honor hang like
meat in butcher shop, for sale for so much a pound. I thank God though, that
most men are honest and most women are virtuous, and that even the minority can
be made to yield when you preach the gospel right.

I ask about a man. "Has he reached the burning bush?" They answer, "Yes, and got
past it." I ask, "Is he a K. of P.?" They say he is. I ask, "Has he jumped?"
They say, "Yes." I don't know what it means to jump, for I am not a K. of P. I
heard a couple of K. of P.'s talking, though ? they didn't leak. I suppose it
has something to do with the initiation. I ask. "Is he an Odd Fellow?" "Yes"
They tell me he will share his last dollar with a needy person, die for the
widow or the orphan, put his head on the track ahead of the Black Diamond or
allow himself to be shot to pieces before he would be false to the vows he took
amid the scent of the orange blossoms. That sounds like a good man, but there
are lots of men who will be true in all these things, and false to Jesus Christ.
They will go to church and partake of the communion, then will line up in front
of some bar and tell smutty stories. True in business, true to lodge, true in
society, true in the home, but a perjurer in the sight of God. If you are such a
man you are a backslider - a backslider, sir, and a liar.

If I were to go to a man and say: "They say you're an old liar." Would he say,
"Well, Bill, I suppose I am, but you mustn't put the standard too high for poor,
weak humanity, and I'm only human." If I were to say to him, "They say you are
an old thief and that they have to hide everything when you come around." Would
he say he supposed it was true, but I mustn't set the standard too high for poor
human nature? If I say, "They tell me that you are a rotten old libertine and
that you have ruined many innocent girls, that you would crush a woman's virtue
as quickly as a snake beneath your foot." Would he say he supposed it was true,
but I mustn't set the standard too high for poor human nature? No sir. If he
were anything of a man at all he would say, "I demand, sir, that you prove your
charges." But that's not what a man does when you charge him with being a
backslider or to say that he is a liar. Oh, for the Presbyterian or Baptist or
Episcopal backslider who stands up and talks about poor human nature - yet to
say a man is a backslider is to say that he is a liar. Of, for power to come to
you and show what you ought to be.

I can imagine a man being untrue in business. I can imagine him being untrue in
politics. I can even - but it is difficult - imagine him being untrue to the
vows made at the altar - but to be untrue to God! Be untrue to God and you will
lose heaven and lose all. Be true to God and you will lose hell. I pray that God
will so work upon the consciences of you backsliders who hear me that you will
cry salt tears and turn and roll upon your pillows when you go home tonight and
seek a dry spot that he may reproach you until you have been stung into a return
to the God to whom you have been false. A heathen woman named Panathea was
famous for her great beauty, and King Cyrus wanted her for his harem. He sent
his representatives to her and offered her money and jewels to come, but she
repulsed them and spurned their advances. Again he sent them, this time with
offers more generous and tempting; but again she sent them away with scorn. A
third time she said "Nay." Then King Cyrus went in person to see her and he
doubled and tripled and quadrupled the offers his men had made, but still she
would not go. She told him that she was a wife, and that she was true to her
husband.

He said "Panathea, where dwellest thee?"

"In the arms and on the breast of my husband." She said.

"Take her away." Said Cyrus. "She is of no use to me."

Then he put her husband in command of the charioteers and sent him into battle
at the head of the troops. Panathea knew what this meant - that her husband had
been sent in that he might be killed.

She waited while the battle raged and when the field was cleared she shouted his
name and searched for him and finally found him wounded and dying. She knelt and
clasped him in her arms, and as they kissed, his lamp of life went out forever.

King Cyrus heard of the mans death and came to the field. Panathea saw him
coming, careening on his camel like a ship in a storm. She called, "Oh, husband!
He comes - he shall not have me. I was true to you in life and will be true to
you in death." And she drew her dead husband's poniard from its sheath, drove it
into her own breast and fell dead across his body.

King Cyrus came up and dismounted. He removed his turban and knelt By the dead
husband and wife and thanked his God that he had found in his kingdom one true
and virtuous woman that his money could not buy nor his power intimidate. A
person of Boston, preachers, the problem of this century is the problem of the
first century. We must win the world for God and we will win the world for God
just as soon as we have men and woman who will be faithful to God and will not
lie and will not sell out to the devil.


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  CHAPTER 2: BOOZE
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Famous 'Booze' Sermon As preached by Billy Sunday in Boston, MA I am the sworn,
eternal and uncompromising enemy of the liquor traffic. I have been, and will go
on, fighting that damnable, dirty, rotten business with all the power at my
command. I shall ask no quarter from that gang, and they shall get none from me.
After all is said that can be said on the liquor traffic, its influence is
degrading on the individual, the family, politics and business and upon
everything that you touch in this old world. For the time has long gone by when
there is any ground for arguments of its ill effects. All are agreed on that
point. There is just one prime reason why the saloon has not been knocked into
hell, in that is the false statement "that the saloons are needed to help
lighten the taxes." It costs fifty times more for the saloon than the revenue
derived from it. I challenge you to show me where the saloon has ever helped
business, education, church morals or anything we hold dear. You listen today
and if I can't peel the bark off that damnable fallacy I will pack my trunk and
leave. I say that is the biggest lie ever belched out. The wholesale and retail
trade in Iowa pays every year at least $500,000 in licenses. Then, if there were
no drawback, it ought to reduce the taxation 25 cents per capita. If the saloon
is necessary to pay the taxes, and if they pay $500,000 in taxes, it ought to
reduce them 25 cents a head. But no, the whiskey business has increased taxes
$1,900,000 instead of reducing them, and I defy any whisky man on God's dirt to
show one town that has the saloon where the taxes are lower than where they do
not have the saloon. I defy you to show me an instance. Crime and Idiocy Listen!
Seventy-five per cent of our idiots come from intemperate parents, 80 per cent
of the paupers, 82 per cent of the crime is committed by men under the influence
of liquor, 90 per cent of the adult criminals are whiskey made. The Chicago
Tribune kept track for 10-years and found that 53,438 murders were committed in
the saloons. Archbishop Ireland, the famous Roman Catholic of St. Paul, said of
social crime "that 75 per cent is caused by drink and 80 per cent of the
poverty." I go to a family and it is broken up and I say, "what caused this?"
Drink! I step up to a young man on the scaffold and say, "what brought you
here?" Drink! Whence all the misery and sorrow and corruption? Invariably it is
drink. Whiskey and beer are all right in their place, but their place is in
hell. The saloon hasn't one leg to stand on. Five Points, in New York, was a
spot as near like hell as any spot on earth. There are five streets that run to
this point, and right in the middle was an old brewery, and the streets on
either side were lined with grog shops. The newspapers turned a search light on
the districts, and before they could stop it the first thing they had to do was
to buy the old brewery and turn it into a mission, and today it is a decent,
respectable place. Look at Kansas. It is dry. In 85 of 105 counties in Kansas
there is not one idiot. In 38 counties they have not a single pauper in the
poorhouse, and there are only 600 dependents in the whole State. In 65 counties
in Kansas they did not have a single prisoner in the county jails in the year
1912, and in some of the counties the grand jury hasn't been called to try a
criminal case in 10 years. Sum of All Villainies The saloon is the sum of all
villainies. It is worse than war or pestilence. It is the crime of crimes. It is
parent of crimes and the mother of sins. It is the appalling source of misery
and crime in the land and the principal cause of crime. It is the source of
three-fourths of the taxes to support that crime. And to license such an
incarnate fiend of hell is the dirtiest, low-down, damnable business on top of
this old earth. There is nothing to be compared to it. The Legislature of
Illinois appropriated $6,000,000 in 1908 to take care of the insane people in
the state, and the whiskey business produces 75 per cent of the insane. That is
what you go down in your pocket for to help support. If I remember rightly the
Legislature appropriated nearly $9,000,000 to take care of the state
institution. Do away with the saloon, and you will close these institutions. The
saloons make them necessary, and they make the poverty and fill the jails and
the penitentiaries. Who has to pay the bills? The landlord who doesn't get the
rent because the money goes for whiskey; the butcher and the grocer, and the
charitable person who takes pity on the children of drunkards, and the tax payer
who supports the insane asylums and other institutions that the whiskey business
keeps full of human wrecks. Do away with the cursed business and you will not
have to put up to support them. Who gets the money? The saloon keepers and the
brewers, and the distillers, while the whiskey fills the land with misery and
poverty and wretchedness and disease and death and damnation and it is being
authorized by the will of the sovereign people. Last year the corn crop was
2,553,732,000 bushels, and it was valued at $1,250,000,000. Secretary Wilson
says that the breweries use less than 2 per cent; I will say that they use 2
percent. This would make 51,000,000 bushels, and at 50 cents a bushel, that
would be about $25,000,000. I'll be generous with the dirty, rotten gang. Drink
and Bankruptcy Now listen! In 1912 the income of the United States government
and the cities and towns and counties from the whiskey business was
$134,000,000. That is putting it liberally. You say that's a lot of money. Well,
last year the working men spent $2,200,000,000 for drink, and it cost
$1,200,000,000 to care for the judicial machinery. In other words, the whiskey
business cost us $3,400,000,000, I will subtract from that the dirty
$350,000,000 which we got, and it leaves $3,000,000,000 in favor of knocking the
whiskey business out on purely a money business. And listen! Last year we spent
$600,000,000 for our paupers and criminals, insane, orphans, feeble minded,
etc., in the United States, and 82 per cent of our criminals are whiskey made
and 75 per cent of the paupers are whiskey made. Our national increase in wealth
was only $5,000,000,000, so you can figure out how long it will take us to go
into bankruptcy with that cussed business on our backs. The average factory hand
earns $500 a year, and it costs us $5,200 a year to support each of our whiskey
criminals. There are 335,000 enrolled criminals in the United States and 80,000
in jails and penitentiaries. Three-fourths were sent there because of drink, and
then they have the audacity to say the saloon is needed for money revenue. Never
was there a baser lie. "But," says the whiskey fellow, "we would lose trade, the
farmer would not come to town to trade." You lie. Say, when you put up the howl
that if you didn't have the saloons the farmer won't trade-say, Mr. Whiskey Men,
why do you dump money into politics and back the Legislatures into the corner
and fight to the last ditch to prevent the enactment of county local option?
Scared of Farmers You know if the farmers were given a chance they would knock
the whiskey business into hell the first throw out of the box. You are afraid.
You have cold feet on the proposition. You are afraid to give the farmer a
chance. They are scared to death of farmers. When the whiskey gang tries to say
its business is, not falling off it lies. I've got the last annual report of the
government right here. I tell you I have an inside track on that dirty gang.
This report says that there were 10,741,738 less gallons of whiskey made last
year than there were in 1913. It says there were 127 fewer registered
distilleries in 1914 than in 1913 in our land, which means a lot when you
consider there are only 743 in the United States. Also, it says there were 33
fewer breweries in 1914 than there were in 1913. Don't put any stock in the man
who gets up in Congress, says he is a temperance man in the next breathe says
prohibition is a state affair. If it is a state affair why doesn't the United
States government divide the $225,000,000 revenue it collected last year with
the States? Pennsylvania produced 8,800,876 gallons of beer last year, more than
any other state in the union except New York. It ranked fifth in the production
of whiskey producing 8,489,062 gallons. I say the temperance question is as much
a national question as slavery was in the days of'61. And if the politician
hasn't the manhood to stand up and defend, then somebody else will get his job
in Washington before long. Saloon vs. Government The saloon is strong against
good government. It supports the boodle aldermen, the political boss and the
political machine. And all it asks for the $30 it hands out is that it be left
alone. It says, "keep your hands off and let me go on with my business of making
drunkards out of the countries youth, and filling the jails and the
penitentiaries and the asylums and the poorhouses." The saloon is never
identified with any movement for good government, and there was never one
started that the saloon didn't oppose, tooth and nail. All the slanders and lies
out about me crawled out of a grog shop. The liquor gangs press bureau has got
my itinerary, just as well as I have got it, and they send out there dirty;
rotten, stinking lies ahead of me. Yes, and there's always a dirty, rotten,
stinking newspaper or two that will print them. But don't you think that scares
me a bit? I'm not afraid of the worst old scoundrel that ever dipped his pen in
the inkbottle. I tell you, gentlemen, the American home is the dearest heritage
of the people, for the people, by the people, and when a man can go from home in
the morning with the kisses of his wife and children on his lips, and come back
at night with an empty dinner bucket to a happy home, that man is a better man,
whether white of black. Whatever takes away the comforts of home - whatever
degrades that man or woman - whatever invades the sanctity of the home, is the
deadliest foe to the home, to church, to state and school, and the saloon is the
deadliest foe to the home, the church and the state, on top of God Almighty's
dirt. And if all the combined forces of hell should assemble and conclave, and
with them all the men on earth that hate and despise God and purity and virtue -
if all the scum of the earth might mingle with the denizens of hell to try to
think of the deadliest institutions to home, to church and state, I tell you sir
the combined hellish intelligence could not conceive of or bring an institution
that could touch the hem of the garment of the open licensed saloon to damn the
home and the manhood, and womanhood and business and every other good thing on
God's earth. "But," you say, "we will regulate it by high license." Regulate
what by high license? You might as well try to regulate a power mill in hell.
Worse Than a Thief It is my opinion that the saloonkeeper is worse than a thief
and a murderer. The ordinary thief steals only your money, but the saloonkeeper
steals your honor and your character. The ordinary murderer takes your life, but
the saloonkeeper murders your soul. The saloon is an infidel. It has no faith in
God; has no religion. It would close every church in the land. It would hang its
beer signs on the abandoned altars. It would close every public school. It
respects the thief, and it esteems the blasphemer; it fills the prisons and
penitentiaries. It despises heaven, hates love, and scorns virtue. It tempts the
passions. Its music is the song of a siren. Its sermons are a collection of
lewd, vile stories. It wraps a mantle about the hope of this world to come. It
is the moral clearinghouse for rot, and damnation, and poverty, and insanity,
and it wrecks homes and blights lives today. The saloon is a liar. It promises
health and causes disease. It promises prosperity and sends adversity. It
promises happiness and sends misery. I tell you that the curse of God Almighty
is on the saloon. Legislatures are legislating against it. Decent society is
barring it out. The fraternal brotherhoods are knocking it out. The Masons and
Odd Fellows and the knights of Pythias and the A. O. U. W. are closing their
doors to the whiskey sellers. It is on the downgrade. It is headed for hell; and
by the grace of God, I am going to give it a push, with a whoop, for all I know
how. Listen to me; I am going to show you how we burn our money. It costs 20
cents to make a gallon of whiskey; sold over the counter at 10 cents a glass it
will bring $4. We dumped nearly four times the value of the national bank stock
in the United States into the whiskey hole last year, and we didn't fill the
hole up at that. What is the matter? Whenever the day comes when every Catholic
and Protestant whose name is on a church record votes against the saloon, that
day will saloon go to hell. I charge the church as being responsible for the
saloon, for it is strong enough to do away with it. Hell will be so full of
whiskey-voting church members that their feet will stick out the windows. Say,
hold on a bit. Have you got a silver dollar? I am going to show you how it is
burned up. We have in this country 218,000 saloons, and allowing 50 feet
frontage for each saloon. It makes a street from New York to Chicago, and
5,000,000 men, woman and children go daily into the saloon for drink. And
marching 20 miles a day, it would take 20 days to pass this building and
marching 5 abreast they would reach 500 miles. There they go; look at them! Half
Million Enter Grog Shop On the first day of January 500,000 of the young men of
our nation entered the grog shop and began a public career, hellward, and on
Dec. 31 I will come back here and summon you people and ring the bell and raise
the curtain and say to the saloon and breweries: "On the first day of January I
gave you 500,000 of the brain and muscle of our land, and I want them back and I
have come in the name of home and church and school; father, mother, sister,
sweetheart: give me back what I gave you. March out." I count, and 18,000 have
lost their appetite and have become muttering, bleary-eyed drunkards, and I say:
"What is that I hear, a funeral dirge?" What is that procession? A funeral
procession 3,000 miles long and 600,000 hearses in the procession. One hundred
and ten thousand men die drunkards in this land of the free and the home of the
brave. Listen! In an hour 80 men die drunkards, 2,000 a day and 110,000 a year.
One man will leap in front of a train, another will plunge into a river, another
will plunge from the dock into a lake, another will throw his hands to his head
and life will end. Another will cry "mother!" and his life will go out like a
burnt match. Like Hamilcar of old, who swore eternal enmity against Rome, so I
propose to perpetuate the feud against liquor traffic until the white-winged
dove of temperance builds her nest on the dome of the Capitol at Washington and
spreads her wings of peace, sobriety and joy over our land, which I love with
all my heart. Two Uses of Dollar I hold a silver dollar in my hand. Come on, we
are going to a saloon. We will go into a saloon and spend that dollar for a
quart. It takes 20 cents to make a gallon of whiskey and a dollar to buy a
quart. You say to the saloonkeeper: "Give me a quart." I will show you, if you
wait a minute, how she is burned up. Here I am, John, an old drunken bum with a
wife and six kids (Thank God it's all a lie.) Come on, I will go down to a
saloon and throw down my dollar. It costs 20 cents to make a gallon of whiskey.
A nickel will buy a quart of booze. Who gets the nickel? The farmer, for corn
and apples. Who gets the 95 cents? The United States government, the big
distillers, the big corporations, I am John, a drunken bum and I will spend my
dollar. I have worked a week and got my pay. I go into a grog shop and throw
down my dollar and I get a quart of booze. Come home with me. I stagger and reel
in my wife's presence and she says: "John, what did you bring home?" "A quart."
What will a quart do? It will burn up my happiness and my home and fill my home
with squalor and want. So here is the dollar. The saloonkeeper has it. Here is
my quart. There you get the whiskey end of it. Here you get the workingman's end
of the saloon. But come on. I will go to a store and spend the dollar for a pair
of shoes. I want them for my son, and he puts them on his feet, and with the
shoes to protect his feet he goes out and earns another dollar, and my dollar
becomes a silver thread in the woof and warp of happiness and joy, and the man
that owns the building gets some, and the clerk that sold the shoes gets some,
and the merchant, and the travelling man, and the wholesale gets some, and the
factory, and the man that made the shoes, and the man that tanned the hide, and
the butcher that bought the calf, and the farmer that raised the calf, and the
little colored fellow that shined the shoes, and my dollar spread itself and
nobody is made the worse for spending the money. Gang Has His Money Say, wife,
the bread that ought to be in your stomach to satisfy the cravings of hunger is
down yonder in the grocery store, and your husband hasn't money enough to carry
it home. The meat that ought to satisfy your hunger hangs in the butcher shop.
Your husband hasn't any money to buy it. The cloth for a dress is lying on the
shelf in the store, but your husband hasn't the money to buy it. The whiskey
gang has his money. Why didn't the United State Congress vote to let the people
have a shot at the whiskey gang? I'll tell you. The whiskey gang has a Congress
backed into a corner, and is squeezing the gizzard out of it so it can't even
peep. I would like to do this. I would like to see every booze fighter get on
the water wagon. I would like to summon all the drunkards in America and say:
Boys, let's cut it out and spend the money for flour, meat and calico; what do
you say? Say! $500,000,000 will buy all the flour in the United States. Say, if
the man that drinks the whiskey goes to hell, the man that votes for the saloon
that sold the whiskey to him will go to hell. If the man that drinks the whiskey
goes to hell and the man that sold the whiskey to the man that drank it goes to
heaven, then the poor drunkard will have the right to stand on the brink of
eternal damnation and put his arms around the pillar of justice and say, "That
isn't a square deal." If you vote for the dirty business you go to hell as sure
as you live, and I would like to fire the furnace while you are there. Some
fellow says, "Dry the saloon out and the buildings will be empty." Which would
you rather have, empty buildings or empty jails, penitentiaries and insane
asylums? You drink the stuff and what have you to say? You that vote for it and
you that sell it? Look at them painted on the canvas of your recollection. "We
will make laws for you. We must have lumber for houses." He goes up to another
mill and says: "Hey, what kind of a mill are you?" "A grist mill?" "What do you
make?" "Flour and meal out of wheat and corn." "Is the finished product worth
more than the raw material?" "Yes." "Then come on. We will make laws for you. We
will protect you." He goes up to another mill and says: "What kind of mill are
you?" "A paper mill." "What do you make paper out of?" "Straw and rags." "Well,
we will make laws for you. We must have paper on which to write notes and
mortgages." He goes up to another mill and says: "Hey, what kind of a mill are
you?" "A gin mill." "I don't like the looks nor the smell of you. A gin mill?
What do you make? What kind of a mill are you?" "A gin mill." Growing Boy Is Raw
Material "What is your raw material?" "The boys of America." (Here the
evangelist summoned five small boys to the platform.) The gin mills of this
country must have 2,000,000 boys or shut up shop. Say, walk down your streets;
count the homes and every fifth home has to furnish a boy for a drunkard. Have
you furnished yours? "What is your raw material?" "American boys." "Say, saloon,
gin mill, what is your finished product?" "Blear-eyed, low down, staggering men
and the scum of God's dirt, that have gone from me and taken the count." Go to
the jails, go to the insane asylums and the penitentiaries and the homes for the
feeble minded. There you will find the finished product for their dirty
business. I tell you, it is the worst business this side of hell; and now you
know it. They don't even give you the pure stuff. If ever there was a jubilee in
hell, it was when lager beer was invented. Not 3 per cent of the beer sold is
made exclusive from barley, malt, hops and yeast. Look at the breweries. What
are those sidetracks for? Why, to bring in the carloads of gincose and sugar and
other things they put into the stuff. Pure beer is dark in color and bitter in
taste. You poor idiot, you never drank pure beer. Not 15 per cent of the whiskey
on the market is pure stuff. When it is first distilled and pure, whiskey is the
color of water. It gets its color in the aging process. Legitimately, that takes
from four to eight years. But now they stick a steam pipe into the stuff and
"age" it in 20 hours. What is your raw material, saloons? American boys. Say, I
would not give one boy for all the distilleries and saloons this side of hell.
And they have to have 2,000,000 boys every generation. And then you tell me you
are a man when you will vote for an institution like that. What do you want to
do, pay taxes in money or in boys? Say, will you line up for the prohibition?
Men of Boston, Massachusetts and our nation, how many of you will promise that
by the help of God you will vote against it? Stand up. Let me have a look at
you!


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 3: SHEW THYSELF A MAN
========================================================================

Shew Thyself a Man by Billy Sunday

"Be thou strong therefore, and shew thyself a man" 1 Kings 2:2 No one can read
the Bible in a thoughtful way without being impressed with the fact that it
makes much of manhood, and holds it up as something that should be sought after
with diligence and perseverance. In fact the Bible exalts and emphasizes manhood
in a remarkable way, and shows that real manhood is a great thing in the world.
The book of Genesis contains sixty chapters and covers 2,300 years of human
history, and yet one half of it is devoted to telling us about the colossal
manhood of Abraham, and a third to that of Joseph. The story of creation is told
in 800 words, but a great deal more space is given to the story of Caleb's
rugged manhood. A whole book is occupied with the story of Job, and another with
that of Daniel, while long chapters here and there tell us of other men who are
safe examples to follow. God has thus shown very plainly what He considered
important by where He has put the italics. The Lord is not a respecter of
persons, but He is a respecter of character, and a very good respecter of it,
too. Indeed, He does more than respect it. He admires it. Hear his admiration of
the character of Job, in the strongest language that even God can use, in
declaring, "He is perfect!" Abraham towers like mountains above molehills when
he pushes aside the spoils of the unrighteous king of Sodom, lest he should say
that Abraham was depending on him. Look at Daniel keeping himself pure in that
pestilential palace. Look at David. We are also told that the steps of a good
man are ordered by the Lord, and that he delighteth in his way, and this, I take
it, means in plain English, that God loves to watch a real man go out and grow.
Let me ask you to note, first of all, that David wanted Solomon to be anchored
to a noble purpose. He didn't want the young man to drift along in an aimless
way, like a log in a whirlpool, but he wanted him to have, his eye set on
something for which it would be worth his while to spend every energy to reach.
And so with his dying breath he said, "Don't be a mere floater, my son. Don't be
a drifter on the stream of time, but stem the current that would carry you down,
but be a man". David himself had been a man of high and lofty purpose. His own
life must have been greatly influenced by the character of Moses and the other
mighty men of God who had preceded him. That his aim was high and his purpose
lofty is clearly evident from his life and his writings. It is not an accident
that he went from the sheep fold to the throne. Success like that never comes
about by mere chance. One reason why there are so many bones bleaching along the
highway of life is those who once started out with bright and shining faces
never expect to go anywhere in particular. David was faithful to all his duties
as a shepherd, but he looked higher than that humble calling, and made it a
stepping stone. While a shepherd he improved his opportunities, trained his
powers and qualified himself to be a king. David was anxious that Solomon should
have a high aim. He wanted him to reach out for the top of the mountain. He
didn't want him to be content with a summer house in the valley. He wanted him
to own the very best estate in the country where the giants were. He didn't want
him to be an old woman or a sissy sort of a fellow, but a man with knotted
muscles on his arms, a big heart in his body and plenty of matter in his head.
He wanted him to aim high, as a king's son should, knowing that if his aim was
high his endeavor would not be wasted. He wanted his son to raise his chin high
enough to look the sun in the face, and so he said, "Solomon, be a man"! Manhood
- true manhood - princely manhood, like that of David, is one of the grandest
things in the world, and it is something that counts as nothing else does. It
does not depend upon the size of the body. There are men of small stature, like
St. Paul and Napoleon, who tower above other men as the mountains above the
plain, and there are physical giants who are middle weights in manhood. Samson
was a giant in stature and a baby in self-control. It was not the Philistines
who destroyed Samson. It was Samson himself. The man who is able to say "no"
whenever it should be said is walking in a way that will lead straight to his
own good. Strive to be strong in self-control by making timely decisions about
what you are going to do about such important matters as temperance, morality
and religion. Settle the question very early that your life shall be directed by
principles and not by impulse. If you are not willing to deliberately take the
risk of becoming a good-for-nothing sot, settle the question at once and finally
that you will never take your first drink. Not to do this is to have about half
decided that you will yield when the temptation comes. It means that you have
concluded that you may yield, and so the probability is great that you will. If
you are not willing to take the risk of becoming a social outcast, decide as
Joseph did long before he reached Potiphar's house that you will have a white
life. Boys take an example from their father. Every man's some boy's hero. Some
fathers are woefully deficient, their sparker and gasoline don't work either.
They can't make the grade. If every man lived light today, no boy would go to
hell tomorrow. To be a man means to he strong in purpose and self-control. If
your manhood is buried under doubt, dig it out. There's a Gettysburg in every
man's life which he has to fight. To be ready is half the secret of success.
Having oil or no oil in your lamp is the difference between light and darkness,
between happiness and despair. If you are not willing to run the risk of losing
your soul take the only step that can make it safe by taking Christ into your
heart and life at once. Join the church of your choice and commit yourself to a
religious life. Decision determines what life is to become for every man in this
world, and also decides it for eternity. If you do not want to deliberately
build your house on the sand, where it is but a question of time as to when
destruction will come, decide that you will never go in bad company, for no
other one thing will have more to do with your weal or woe than the company you
keep. The man who lets the devil choose his company for him will soon do
anything the devil wants him to do. Strive for self control by forming good
habits before bad ones fasten themselves upon you. A thread can be broken, but a
rope will hang you. Before you get into the hopper take a look at the grist that
is coming out. Be prudent by learning your own strength and weakness, as a wise
general knows his army. Be prudent in speech, for many a fine career has been
cut short by a long tongue. Be prudent in making the best possible preparation
for the thing you set out to accomplish. Start out in life as you would set out
for the North Pole. First make sure that you are ready and then go straight on
with confidence. Be prudent by keeping as far from the edge of every precipice
as you can. Don't fool with temptation or trifle with sin, for the man who keeps
on putting his head in the lion's mouth every day is certain to have his
breathing interfered with sooner or later. Get the best training and culture
possible. Remember that knowledge is power, and try to obtain your share of it.
There is no excuse for ignorance in this day, when colleges are everywhere, and
books seem to almost grow on trees. If you are a young man get a college
education if you have to live on oatmeal and sorghum molasses to do it. First
get understanding and you may have everything else you want. The life of the
uneducated man is like that of a mole living in the dark, while that of the man
with culture is like the eagle, mounting above the clouds and soaring towards
the sun. Take the great men of the Bible and stand before them long enough to
realize how great they were, and then ask yourself what there was in them that
you ought to have in you, and then spend some time every day in considering the
man who had in himself the great and manly qualities of them all in a
superlative degree - the divine man - the God man - the man of Galilee. Learn
how to behold as in a glass His glory and so be changed into His likeness from
glory to glory even as by the spirit of the Lord. Let your soul go out to Him
and be filled with Him, and you will soon begin to see that everything that is
not like Him is unmanly and mean. As Solomon studied and meditated upon the
beautiful life of David, his father, so give time and thought and prayer in
striving to be like the divine pattern that is shown to you in the perfect Man.
Spend three months in studying His life on its man ward side, and you will have
a more exalted knowledge of what it means to be a man than you ever before
possessed. A knowledge that will quicken and inspire you to live for God and man
as you never lived before. Study the purpose of Christ and notice that He never
once swerved from the business for which He came into the world, although
Gethsemane and Calvary lay directly in His way. By a very little veering to one
side He could have missed them both, but He set His face like a flint and went
up to Jerusalem when He knew that to go would mean suffering and death. Study
His prudence and courage and you will also find it true of His self control,
faithfulness, charity, unselfishness, benevolence and sympathy. Find anything in
any man anywhere that everybody considers noble and manly, and then look for the
same thing in Jesus, and see how it shines out in Him as the day above the
twilight. He never shows the white feather, and never in his whole life does He
speak one single unmanly word, think an unmanly thought or do an unmanly deed.
Surely this man was the Son of God and the most glorious promise for us ever
given that when He shall appear we shall be like Him. "Be thou strong,
therefore, and show thyself a man."


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 4: THE BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST
========================================================================

The Blood of Jesus Christ by Billy Sunday

"For if the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling
the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh" - Paul argued in his
letter to the Hebrews "how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the
eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from
dead works to serve the living God." Hebrews 9:13-14 No more of this turtle-dove
business, no more offering the blood of bullocks and heifers to cleanse from
sin. The atoning blood of Jesus Christ - that is the thing about which all else
centers. I believe that more logical, illogical, idiotic, religious and
irreligious arguments have been fought over this than all others. Now and then
when a man gets a new idea of it, he goes out and starts a new denomination. He
has a perfect right to do this under the thirteenth amendment, but he doesn't
stop here. He makes war on all of the other denominations that do not interpret
as he does. Our denominations have multiplied by this method until it would give
one brain fever to try to count them all. The atoning blood! And as I think it
over I am reminded of a man who goes to England and advertises that he will
throw pictures on the screen of the Atlantic coast of America. So he gets a
crowd and throws pictures on the screen of high bluffs and rocky coasts and
waves dashing against them, until a man comes out of the audience and brands him
a liar and says that he is obtaining money under false pretense, as he has seen
America and the Atlantic coast and what the other man is showing is not America
at all. The men almost come to blows and then the other man says that, if the
people will come tomorrow, he will show them real pictures of the coast. So the
audience comes back to see what he will show, and he flashes on the screen
pictures of a low coast line, with palmetto trees and banana trees and tropical
foliage and he apologizes to the audience, but says these are the pictures of
America. The first man calls him a liar and the people don't know which to
believe. What was the matter with them?

They were both right and they were both wrong, paradoxical as it may seem. They
were both right as far as they went, but neither went far enough. The first
showed the coast line from New England to Cape Hatteras, while the second showed
the coast line from Hatteras to Yucatan. They neither could show it all in one
panoramic view, for it is so varied it could not be taken in one picture.

God never intended to give you a picture of the world in one panoramic view.
From the time of Adam and Eve down to the time Jesus Christ hung on the cross he
was unfolding his views. When I see Moses leading the people out of bondage
where they for years had bared their backs to the taskmaster's lash; when I see
the lowing herds and the high priest standing before the altar severing the
jugular vein of the rams and the bullocks; on until Christ cried out from the
cross, "It is finished," (John 19:30) God was preparing the picture for the
consummation of it in the atoning blood of Jesus Christ. A sinner has no
standing with God. He forfeits his standing when he commits sin and the only way
he can get back is to repent and accept the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.

I have sometimes thought that Adam and Eve didn't understand as fully as we do
when the Lord said; "Eat and you shall surely die." (Genesis 2:17) They had
never seen any one die. They might have thought it simply meant a separation
from God. But no sooner had they eaten and seen their nakedness than they sought
to cover themselves, and it is the same today. When man sees himself in his
sins, uncovered, he tries to cover himself in philosophy or some fake. But God
looked through the fig leaves and the foliage and God walked out in the field
and slew the beasts and took their skins and wrapped them around Adam and Eve,
and from that day to this when a man has been a sinner and has covered himself,
it has been by and through faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Every Jew
covered his sins and received pardon through the blood of the rams and bullocks
and the doves. An old infidel said to me once, "But I don't believe in atonement
by blood. It doesn't come up to my ideas of what is right."

I said, "To perdition with your ideas of what is right. Do you think God is
coming down here to consult you with your great intellect and wonderful brain,
and find out what you think is right before he does it? " My, but you make me
sick. You think that because you don't believe it that it isn't true.

I have read a great deal - not everything, mind you, for a man would go crazy if
he tried to read everything - but I have read a great deal that has been written
against the atonement from the infidel standpoint - Voltaire, Huxley, Spencer,
Diderot, Bradlaugh, Paine, on down to Bob Ingersoll - and I have never found an
argument that would stand the test of common sense and common reasoning. And if
anyone tells me he has tossed on the scrap heap the plan of atonement by blood,
I say, "What have you to offer that is better?" and until he can show me
something that is better I'll nail my hopes to the cross.

Suffering for the Guilty

You say you don't believe in the innocent suffering for the guilty. Then I say
to you, you haven't seen life as I have seen it up and down the country. The
innocent suffer with the guilty, by the guilty and for the guilty. Look at that
old mother waiting with trembling heart for the son she has brought into the
world. And see him come staggering in and reeling and staggering to bed while
his mother prays and weeps and soaks the pillow with her tears over her godless
boy. Who suffers most? The mother or that godless, maudlin [drunk] bum? You have
only to be the mother of a boy like that to know who suffers most. Then you
won't say anything about the plan of redemption and of Jesus Christ suffering
for the guilty. Look at that young wife, waiting for the man whose name she
bears, and whose face is woven in the fiber of her heart, the man she loves. She
waits for him in fright and when he comes, reeking from the stench of the
breaking of his marriage vows, from the arms of infamy, who suffers most? That
poor, dirty, triple extract of vice and sin? You have only to be the wife of a
husband like that to know whether the innocent suffers for the guilty or not. I
have the sympathy of those who know right now. This happened in Chicago in a
police court. A letter was introduced as evidence for a criminal there for
vagrancy. It read, "I hope you won't have to hunt long to find work. Tom is sick
and baby is sick. Lucy has no shoes and we have no money for the doctor or to
buy any clothes. I manage to make a little taking in washing, but we are living
in one room in a basement. I hope you won't have to look long for work," and so
on, just the kind of a letter a wife would write to her husband. And before it
was finished men cried and policemen with hearts of adamant were crying and fled
from the room. The judge wiped the tears from his eyes and said: "You see, no
man lives to himself alone. If he sins others suffer. I have no alternative. I
sympathize with them, as does every one of you, but I have no alternative. I
must send this man to Bridewell [house of correction]." Who suffers most, that
woman manicuring her nails over a washboard to keep the little brood together or
that drunken bum in Bridewell getting his just deserts from his acts? You have
only to be the wife of a man like that to know whether or not the innocent
suffer with the guilty. So when you don't like the plan of redemption because
the innocent suffer with the guilty, I say you don't know what is going on. It's
the plan of life everywhere. From the fall of Adam and Eve till now it has
always been the rule that the innocent suffer with the guilty. It's the plan of
all and unless you are an idiot, an imbecile and a jackass, and gross flatterer
at that, you'll see it.

Jesus' Atoning Blood

Jesus gave his life on the cross for any who will believe. We're not redeemed by
silver or gold. Jesus paid for it with his blood (1 Peter 1:18). When some one
tells you that your religion is a bloody religion and the Bible is a bloody
book, tell them yes, Christianity is a bloody religion; the gospel is a bloody
gospel; the Bible is a bloody book; the plan of redemption is bloody. It is. You
take the blood of Jesus Christ out of Christianity and that book isn't worth the
paper it is written on. It would be worth no more than your body with the blood
taken out. Take the blood of Jesus Christ out and it would be a meaningless
jargon and jumble of words.

If it weren't for the atoning blood you might as well rip the roofs off the
churches and burn them down. They aren't worth anything. But as long as the
blood is on the mercy seat (Lev. 16:14), the sinner can return, and by no other
way. There is nothing else. It stands for the redemption. You are not redeemed
by silver or gold, but by the blood of Jesus Christ. Though a man says to read
good books, do good deeds, live a good life and you'll be saved, you'll be
damned. That's what you will. All the books in the world won't keep you out of
hell without the atoning blood of Jesus Christ. It's Jesus Christ or nothing for
every sinner on God's earth.

Without it not a sinner will ever be saved. Jesus has paid for your sins with
his blood. The doctrine of universal salvation is a lie. I wish every one would
be saved, but they won't. You will never be saved if you reject the blood.

I remember when I was in the Y.M.C.A. in Chicago I was going down Madison Street
and had just crossed Dearborn Street when I saw a newsboy with a young sparrow
in his hand. I said: "Let that little bird go."

He said, "Aw, g'wan with you, you big mutt."

I said, "I'll give you a penny for it," and he answered, "Not on your tintype."

"I'll give you a nickel for it," and he answered, "Boss, I'm from Missouri; come
across with the dough."

I offered it to him, but he said, "Give it to that guy there," and I gave it to
the boy he indicated and took the sparrow.

I held it for a moment and then it fluttered and struggled and finally reached
the window ledge in a second story across the street. And other birds fluttered
around over my head and seemed to say in bird language, "Thank you, Bill." The
kid looked at me in wonder and said: "Say, boss, why didn't you chuck that
nickel in the sewer?"

I told him that he was just like that bird. He was in the grip of the devil, and
the devil was too strong for him just as he was too strong for the sparrow, and
just as I could do with the sparrow what I wanted to, after I had paid for it,
because it was mine. God paid a price for him far greater than I had for the
sparrow, for he had paid it with the blood of his Son, and he wanted to set him
free. No Argument Against Sin

So, my friend, if I had paid for some property from you with a price, I could
command you, and if you wouldn't give it to me I could go into court and make
you yield. Why do you want to be a sinner and refuse to yield? You are
withholding from God what he paid for on the cross. When you refuse you are not
giving God a square deal.

I'll tell you another. It stands for God's hatred of sin. Sin is something you
can't deny. You can't argue against sin. A skilful man can frame an argument
against the validity of religion, but he can't frame an argument against sin.
I'll tell you something that may surprise you. If I hadn't had four years of
instruction in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, before I saw Bob
Ingersoll's book, and I don't want to take any credit from that big intelligent
brain of his, I would be preaching infidelity instead of Christianity. Thank the
Lord I saw the Bible first. I have taken his lectures and placed them by the
side of the Bible, and said, "You didn't say it from your knowledge of the
Bible." And I have never considered him honest, for he could not have been so
wise in other things and such a fool about the plan of redemption. So I say I
don't think he was entirely honest. But you can't argue against the existence of
sin, simply because it is an open fact, the word of God. You can argue against
Jesus being the Son of God. You can argue about there being a heaven and a hell,
but you can't argue against sin. It is in the world and men and women are
blighted and mildewed by it.

Some years ago I turned a corner in Chicago and stood in front of a police
station. As I stood there a patrol dashed up and three women were taken from
some drunken debauch, and they were dirty and blear-eyed, and as they were taken
out they started a flood of profanity that seemed to turn the very air blue. I
said, "There is sin." And as I stood there up dashed another patrol and out of
it they took four men, drunken and ragged and bloated, and I said, "There is
sin." You can't argue against the fact of sin. It is in the world and blights
men and women. But Jesus came to the world to save all who accept him.

"How Long, O God?"

It was out in the Y.M.C.A. in Chicago. "What is your name and what do you want?"
I asked.

"I'm from Cork, Ireland," said he, "and my name is James O'Toole." Here is a
letter of introduction." I read it and it said he was a good Christian young man
and an energetic young fellow.

I said, "Well, Jim, my name is Mr. Sunday. I'll tell you where there are some
good Christian boarding houses and you let me know which one you pick out." He
told me afterwards that he had one on the North Side. I sent him an invitation
to a meeting to be held at the Y.M.C.A., and he had it when he and some
companions went bathing in Lake Michigan. He dived from the pier just as the
water receded unexpectedly and he struck the bottom and broke his neck. He was
taken to the morgue and the police found my letter in his clothes, and told me
to come and claim it or it would be sent to a medical college. I went and they
had the body on a slab, but I told them I would send a cablegram to his folks
and asked them to hold it. They put it in a glass case and turned on the cold
air, by which they freeze bodies by chemical processes, as they freeze ice, and
said they would save it for two months, and if I wanted it longer they would
stretch the rules a little and keep it three.

I was just thinking of what sorrow that cablegram would cause his old mother in
Cork when they brought in the body of a woman. She would have been a fit model
of Phidias [ancient Greek sculptor], she had such symmetry of form. Her fingers
were manicured. She was dressed in the height of fashion and her hands were
covered with jewels and as I looked at her, the water trickling down her face, I
saw the mute evidence of illicit affection. I did not say lust, I did not say
passion, I did not say brute instincts. I said, "Sin." Sin had caused her to
throw herself from that bridge and seek repose in a suicide's grave. And as I
looked, from the saloon, the fantan rooms, the gambling hells, the opium dens,
the red lights, there arose one endless cry of "How long, O God, how long shall
hell prevail?" (Psalms 74:10) You can't argue against sin. It's here. Then
listen to me as I try to help you. When the Standard Oil Company was trying to
refine petroleum there was a substance that they couldn't dispose of. It was a
dark, black, sticky substance and they couldn't bury it, couldn't burn it
because it made such a stench; they couldn't run it in the river because it
killed the fish, so they offered a big reward to any chemist who would solve the
problem. Chemists took it and worked long over the problem, and one day there
walked into the office of John D. Rockefeller, a chemist and laid down a pure
white substance which we since know as paraffine [paraffin wax].

You can be as black as that substance and yet Jesus Christ can make you white as
snow. "Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow." (Isaiah
1:18)


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 5: THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST
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The Second Coming of Christ by Billy Sunday

"Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the
clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Wherefore comfort one another with these words" (1 Thessalonians 4:17-18). THE
MEETING here mentioned is to be the greatest meeting the Bible tells us anything
about. There have been some wonderful meetings, but never has there been one to
compare with this. It was a wonderful meeting the children of Israel had on the
shore of the Red Sea, after Pharaoh's pursuing host had been destroyed in the
angry waters, and Miriam, the prophetess, with her timbrel, led the people in
singing, "Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and
his rider hath he thrown into the sea" (Exodus 15:21). And it was another great
meeting they had at the foot of Mount Sinai, when the Law of God was given to
them amid thunders and lightnings and fire and smoke. That was a great meeting,
too, on Mount Carmel, when Elijah, the sturdy Tishbite, defied the prophets of
Bal; and that was a great meeting where David danced before the Ark of God, as
it was home into Jerusalem. It was a great meeting when Solomon dedicated the
temple, and the glory of the Lord came upon the people, and those were great
meetings that were held on the banks of the Jordan when Jerusalem and all Judea
went out to hear the man who dressed in camel's hair and wore a linen girdle,
and lived on locusts and wild honey.

It was a wonderful meeting when Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount, and
another when He fed the multitude with five loaves and two fishes. And that was
a great meeting on the day of Pentecost, when the Spirit came like a rushing
mighty wind, and under Peter's preaching about three thousand were converted.

All these were great meetings, and any number of others have been held, both in
former times and in our own day. Those were great meetings in the early days of
Methodism, when Wesley and Whitefield preached to great multitudes in the
fields. Those were great meetings when multitudes were flocking to hear Finney
and Moody; and great meetings have since been held by other great evangelists
all around the world. But no meeting has ever been held anywhere or in any time
that could begin to compare in importance with the greatest of all meetings that
is to be held in the air, when our Lord comes to make up His jewels. That
meeting is the one for which all others have been preparing the way. It will be
the crowning meeting of all history. The purpose of all that has been done in
this world up to the present time has been to prepare for that great meeting in
the air. From Adam, mankind has been marching step by step up a grand stairway
leading direct to that meeting in the air. The call of Abraham was one step
toward it, and Jacob and his twelve sons were another. Joseph ruling Egypt was
another; the deliverance under Moses another; the conquest of Canaan under
Joshua another, and so on with every event in sacred history. It was for this
Jesus suffered on the Cross to make atonement for sin. It was for this He arose
from the dead and ascended into Heaven, where he took His place at the right
hand of the Father. It was for this the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, and it
was for this that Churches have been organized and missionaries sent to the ends
of the earth.

These things have all been done to prepare the way, and lead up to the meeting
which is so graphically described in the text. It was for this meeting God made
His plans before He laid the foundations of the earth, and it was of this
meeting He was thinking before the morning stars sang together.

We are not told when Jesus will come, but we are told that His coming is sure,
and we are charged to watch for it.

Anybody who says that he knows when Jesus is coming is a liar. When they say
that they know when He is coming they lie.

Only Jesus and the Father know when the Savior is coming again. Yet the Church
today shows as little concern about His coming again as His disciples did about
His going away. All this is fully in accord with Peter: "There shall come in the
last days scoffers walking after their own lusts, saying, Where is the promise
of His coming, for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they
were from the beginning until now?" (2 Peter 3:3-4).

Jesus not only foretold His going away, but charged His followers to expect His
return, and be ready for it: "Watch, therefore, for ye know not what hour your
Lord doth come. Therefore, be ye also ready, for in such an hour as Ye think not
the Son of Man cometh" (Matthew 24:42-44).

Jesus said: "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a
witness unto all nations; then shall the end come" (Matthew 24:14).

Before I started to Preach in Omaha God knew the names of every man, woman and
child who would be saved as a result Of my preaching - If God didn't know that,
He wouldn't be God. And God knew all about the fools who wouldn't be saved, and
He knew that all of Omaha wouldn't be saved. I tell you that God is pretty wise
to who are going to Hell and who are going to Heaven - The sooner you get that
through your head and don't try to sidestep Jesus, the sooner the devil will let
go the stranglehold he has upon most of you.

There is not a nation on the face of the earth that has not had the Gospel
preached within its bounds. The second coming of Christ is the emphatic doctrine
of the New Testament. It is mentioned and referred to more than 350 times, and
yet the majority of Church members never heard a sermon on the subject; that is
the reason they think so little of looking into the matter themselves. The
Church makes much of Baptism, but in all of Paul's epistles Baptism is only
mentioned or referred to thirteen times, while the return of the Lord is
mentioned fifty times. This certainly shows which he considered the most
important. McCheyne, the great Scotch preacher, once said to some of his
friends: "Do you think Christ will come back tonight?" One after another they
said: "I think not." Then he solemnly repeated: "Watch, therefore, for ye know
not what hour your Lord doth come. Therefore, be ye also ready, for in such an
hour as ye think not the son of man cometh" (Matthew 24:42-44). With such
admonitions as this, what right have we to be unconcerned about it and say, as
many preachers do, "It is nothing to me; I take no interest in the subject,
whatever." Who would care to travel on a train where the engineer would never
read his orders? Who would ride on a ship where the captain never looked at the
compass? You may call it rubbish, but the disciples called it the "blessed
hope."

"Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things I say" If Jesus had said: "I
will not return for 2,000 years," nobody would have begun to took for Him before
the time was near, but He expects his followers to be always looking for His
return. Just as Simeon and Anna watched and waited for His coming, so we should
be watching and waiting for His return.

It is not enough to say, "Oh, I'm a Christian; I'm all right." We are not all
right unless we obey the command to watch, for it is certainly as much of a
command to look for the coming of the Lord as it is to keep the Sabbath holy.
Nothing else will do so much to keep us right where we should be in our
religious experience. Knowing that the bank examiner may drop in at any moment
keeps many a cashier from becoming dishonest. We should purify the Church that
it may be the proper Bride to meet the Lord in the air. How pure is the Church
today? How pure are the Church members? How pure are the Preachers?

I suppose there would be a mighty scramble to get right with God if you all
found out that Jesus was going to return tonight. It wouldn't make any
difference to Jesus if you had to do the right thing just because He turned up
unexpectedly. You would have to prove to Him that you were on the level with
Him, and although you might all be baptized, sprinkled and immersed, there would
be nothing doing in the salvation line if you didn't play square with the Lord.
This old world is going to wake up some morning and find that all good men and
women have beaten it, and she'll rub her eyes when she finds out that the Lord
has been here on the job and taken his own with Him.

Every time I preach and every time you do personal work, I feel that we are
helping to bring about the second coming of the Lord, and it sets my bones on
fire when I think that the last man or woman need only be saved before this
campaign is over in order that the Lord may come. That is my incentive to do the
work I am doing. It is my hope that, before I finish here, the Church will be
purified as a Bride, ready to meet Jesus, the Bridegroom, in the air. A little
more than twenty years ago Mr. Moody called a convention of Christian workers to
meet in Chicago, and that convention was in session there in Moody's church for
two months, and out of it came the great Bible institute. The daily program was
to spend the forenoon at the church in prayer and Bible study, and the afternoon
and evening in doing practical Christian work. A man who was my assistant some
years ago attended that convention. He told me that one day Mr. Moody asked him
to go down among the anarchists, in the hard parts Of Chicago, and hold a
meeting there.

"Do the best you can," said Moody, "and some night I'll come down and help you."
My friend said that promise was a continual incentive to him to keep up his
courage and do his very best. He didn't know when Mr. Moody would come, and so
he looked for him every night, and the harder time he had, the harder he hoped
and looked. This shows how the constant expectation of the coming Of Jesus will
inspire and encourage us. A great many say: "I believe the Millennium will come
first, then Christ will come at the end Of it." What people think has nothing to
do with it, but what God says has everything to do with it.

Many have missed railroad trains because they believed they would come at a time
that did not correspond with the official time card. You will see God's time
card if you carefully read the Bible. Not a word can be found in the Bible that
gives the slightest hope for the millennium before the return of Christ - but
you can find plenty of verses that tell you to look for the coming of the Lord
first. As we look back over the 2,000 years since Christ, how far we seem to be
away from the time when the will of God shall be done on earth as it is in
Heaven. Every edition of the press seems to make it clear that the devil is
still having his way. Look at the reign of wickedness in our great cities in
both high life and low. No college has ever yet made a Saint or ever will.
Education may improve conditions, but it can never change or cleanse the heart.
Look at the lukewarmness and indifference in the Churches everywhere and see
what many of them are compelled to resort to in order to keep from going under.
See to what schemes and dodges and foolishness some preachers have to resort to
to get anybody to go and hear them.

There can be no millennium until Jesus comes; it is His presence that makes the
millennium. You might as well talk of daylight not coming until the sun goes
down. The millennium cannot begin until Satan has been bound in the pit. Nothing
is more certain than that the glory of God shall cover the earth, but it will be
after Jesus comes.

Many have an idea the world will grow better and better until the coming of the
millennium, and everybody will be converted, and you hear that stuff preached,
but the Bible does not teach any such trash. On the day before the flood there
were no doubt many people who were sincere in thinking that the world was
growing better, and yet it was so hopelessly wicked that God had to destroy it.
Some of the men who married into the family of Lot may have made the same claim
for Sodom, only a day or two before its destruction; no doubt Lot's wife was of
the same opinion. On the day before the Crucifixion there were men in Jerusalem
who undoubtedly agreed with each other that the world was growing better. The
world will grow worse and worse. They did eat, they drank, they married wives,
they were given in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark and the
flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot,
they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded.
But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from
heaven and destroyed them all.

"Even thus shall it be in the day when the son of man is revealed" (Luke
17:27-30). Lawlessness, vice and crime will increase; Communism, nihilism,
anarchy, adultery, divorce, graft, all will continue to grow until they will
finally ripen into the anti-Christ.

Many think and preach that the millennium will be brought about by the increase
of knowledge, culture, great discoveries, such as the gasoline engine,
automobile, electricity, radium, liquefied air, wireless telegraphy, airships,
etc. These have nothing to do with bringing the millennium. It is the personal
reign of Christ that brings the millennium. Those who have been the greatest
blessing to the world were filled with this hope and preached it. The word of
God was vitiated and neutralized by the traditions of men when Jesus first came,
and that is very largely the trouble in present times. Instead of going to the
Bible to find out what God says, the Preacher is too apt to go to his books, to
see what the great men of his Church have to say about it, and all their
preaching and teaching take its color from the glasses the rabbis wear, just as
was the case in the time of Jesus. The fact that Jesus was not recognized by the
high-up authorities, but was rejected and crucified as an impostor, shows what a
dangerous and deadly thing it is to accept the traditions of men rather than
what God says about things.

Too many who are now masters in Israel are as much in the dark as Nicodemus was.
The truth is no harder to get at than corn on the cob, if we will first strip
off the husk and shell it. We need to depend more upon the Holy Spirit and less
upon our libraries if we would preach so that those who hear us will also hear
the voice of God in our message. It is not what Doctor This or Professor That
has to say about it that settles the question, and settles it right, but who
reads the Word. What does the Bible say about it? And what we need to do is to
take the Bible as it reads, not as some big man says it means.

Big men have been mistaken about vital things just about as often as little
ones. The safest pilot is not the one who wears the biggest hat, but the one who
knows the channel the best. We should let the Bible speak to us just as God
means it should, without distorting it by the prejudices and vagaries of those
who are always trying to put their own camel into it and strain out somebody
else's gnat.

It is high time for Christians to interpret unfulfilled prophecies by the light
of prophecies already fulfilled. The curses on the Jews were brought to pass
literally - so also will be the blessings. The scattering was literal; so also
will be the gatherings. The pulling down of Zion was literal; so also must be
the building up. The rejection of Israel was literal; and so also must be the
restoration. The first coming of Christ was literal, visible and personal, and
what right has anybody to conclude that His second coming will be altogether
spiritual? If His first advent was with a real body, why not the same with His
second coming? When Jesus first came the smallest predictions were fulfilled to
the very letter; and should this not teach us to expect that the same will be
true when He comes again? There are very many more prophecies concerning His
second coming than His first, and does not this mean that God wants to give us
the most favorable opportunity possible to prepare for it? If the humility and
shame of Christ at His first coming were literal and visible, should not His
second coming in power and glory be also literal and visible?

What right have we to say that the words Judah, Zion, Israel and Jerusalem ever
mean anything but literal Judah, Zion, Israel and Jerusalem? Some one has called
attention to the fact that there are only two or three places in the whole New
Testament where such names are used in what may be called a spiritual or
figurative way. Jerusalem occurs eighty times, and in every case is
unquestionably literal, except when the opposite is clearly indicated by such
qualifying terms as "Heavenly," "new" or "holy." Jew occurs a hundred times, and
only four are ambiguous. Israel and Israelite occur forty times, and all
literal, Judah and Judea about twenty times, and literal in every case.

John Bunyan was once studying the passage foretelling that the feet of the Lord
should stand on the Mount of Olives, and he thus reasoned: "Some commentators
say that the Mount of Olives means the heart of the believer; that it is only a
figurative expression, and means that the Lord will reign in the heart of the
believer, and the Holy Spirit will dwell there, But I don't think it means that
at all. I just think it means the Mount of Olives, two miles from Jerusalem, on
the east." And that is why the Lord could use the poor tinker so marvelously,
even when he was shut up in Bedford jail.

While face to face with them, Jesus taught His disciples to be in constant
expectation of His early return, and they so understood Him and lived
accordingly. They preached the doctrine and taught it in their epistles, every
one of them. Certainly, if anybody ever understood the Lord correctly, it was
the men whom He personally trained to do that very thing, that they might hand
the truth he gave them down to us. If they failed to understand him, what hope
is there that anybody else may do so?

Jesus is going to come and reveal Himself to the members of His body at the very
moment when the last soul is saved necessary to complete that body - for the
body of Christ must consist of a certain number of souls, or it never could be
completed. If it were an infinite number it would be an endless task, and Jesus
would never return, for He can no more come with His Heavenly body than He could
come the first time without a human body. It is the completion of the body of
Christ, therefore, that will bring Him, and this shows how we may help and
hasten his coming.

"Looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of the God wherein the
heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with
fervent heat" (2 Peter 3:12).

Every time we do personal work or try to get anybody saved, we may be doing
something that will bring the coming of the Lord. Instead of being discouraged
by looking about us and seeing what a small prospect there is of the whole world
being converted, it will set our bones on fire to think that perhaps the last
man needed to complete the Lord's body and bring Jesus back to earth may be
converted this very day. That gives us something definite and tangible to work
for, and hope for, don't you see? Colonel Clark, the founder of the Pacific
Garden mission in Chicago, put in six nights out of every seven at the mission
as long as he lived. One day somebody said to him:

"Colonel, why don't you take some rest? You are killing yourself by sticking to
that mission so close. Why don't you take a vacation and go away somewhere and
rest?"

"I can't do it, brother," answered the colonel. "I could never do that, for
every time I start for the mission, I think, maybe the last man may be saved in
our little meeting tonight, and the Lord will come; and I wouldn't miss being at
my post for anything in the world. When Jesus comes I want to be right where he
expects me to be." The Bible very clearly makes known the great truth that God's
purpose for this dispensation is the completing of the Body of Christ. He is not
trying to save the world now; that is to be the work of the next dispensation.
Here is the scripture for it:

"God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His
name. (The body of Christ.) And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it
is written. After this I will return and will build again the tabernacle of
David (the Jewish nation) which is fallen down (scattered and no longer being
used)- and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set them that the
residue of men might seek after the Lord (through their missionary efforts)"
(Acts 15:14-17). That is the present dispensation, and that is what God is doing
now. There is nothing said here about the conversion of the world, but it is
made clear that a people is being chosen, and much Scripture might be quoted to
show that the people so referred to will constitute the body of Christ.

Throughout this dispensation the Lord has been working among the Gentiles (those
not belonging to the Jewish nation), and this shows the purpose for which he has
been working. There is no thought expressed there of the Millennium.

"And to this agree the words of the Prophets (about God's purpose in gathering a
chosen People from the Gentiles). As it is written (and that means what God
says). After this (after the number of People to be chosen from the Gentiles has
been I will return (to direct dealing with Israel) and build again the
tabernacle of David, which is fallen down"(Acts 15:15-16).

What does that mean? What does it mean for a house to be fallen down? Certainly
that it cannot longer be used as a house while in that condition. Read the
prophecy of Amos, from which this is taken, and see why it is that God is
through with Israel until He has taken from the Gentiles the people for His
name. (To bear His name, to glorify His name.) The mission of the Church - the
Bride of Christ, or Body of Christ is to get ready to meet the Bridegroom. When
the Body of Christ is completed He will reveal Himself to the members who are
alive and in this world at that time, and at the same moment they will be caught
up to meet those who have gone on before in the air, and from that moment they
are forever with the Lord. The Body of Christ will be composed of believers from
every race and nation on earth. That is why the Gospel must first be preached as
a witness to every nation. Not from every dispensation. It had its beginning on
the day of Pentecost and will be complete at the time of the meeting in the air,
which is called the Rapture. For He is now preparing, perfecting and completing
the Church - the Body of Christ, the Bride who is to meet the Lord in the air,
and be with Him forevermore.

These different members will be found, one here and another there, and gathered
together from all parts of the world, and the moment the last one is saved
Christ will be revealed - not to the world, but to his Church - His Bride - just
as the electric light blazes out when the last condition is fulfilled. At that
time Christ will not be revealed to the whole world, but only to the individual
members of His Body who may be alive and here at that time.

There remains no prophecy to be fulfilled. There is not a nation where the
Gospel has not been preached. So Christ must be waiting for the completion of
the body of believers. When the Rapture comes it will come in the twinkle of an
eye. Those who have died in the Lord will be resurrected, and they, with the
believers who are alive, will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. When the
Rapture comes it will come in the twinkling of an eye, and will be altogether
unexpected except by those who have been searching the prophecies and are
looking for it, just as Simeon and Anna and the wise men were looking for Jesus
at His first coming. After it has occurred there will be an army of Church
members and Preachers who will not know that it has come, because they are not
members of the Lord's Body; for the Lord will not at that time be seen by any
except those who have been caught up to meet Him in the air. The remainder of
the world will not know that He has been here, and they will not know what has
become of the missing ones. They will seem to have disappeared in all kinds of
unaccountable ways, unless their earthly bodies shall be left behind them, as
the linen clothes of Jesus were left in the tomb. But things will soon settle
back into their old condition, and the world go on its way, as did Sodom after
Lot was taken out of it. The notion that people have about the second coming of
Christ is that when He comes the Judgment Day will also come, and that the world
will come to an end. This idea is unscriptural and shows how little the Bible
has been searched to find and make known the real truth by those who are leaders
and teachers in the church. Business will go on and governments will go on as
now. After Jesus comes and takes the believers out of the world, then takes
place the great Tribulation, a description of which you will find later on. At
the close of the Tribulation the Lord will return, bringing with Him His saintly
members of His Body, to begin His Millennium reign. Then He will reveal himself
to the Jews. They will accept Him as their long rejected Messiah. Then the
millennium will begin - the devil will be cast into the bottomless pit for a
thousand years; nations will be born in a day, through the missionary efforts of
the Jews. When the Jews accept Jesus Christ and bring to Him all their wonderful
energy and intelligence, oh, this world will grow as it has never grown before!
Nations will be born in a day. The Jews have always been full of energy in
business, as no other people, and when they become ambassadors for Christ there
will be no lukewarmness or indifference. Either before or during the Tribulation
the Jews will have been restored to the holy land, rebuilding their Temple and
restoring the Jewish worship.

Also during the tribulation the antiChrist will come, most likely in the person
of some great king. It is supposed that he will be a personal incarnation of the
devil, just as Jesus was an incarnation of God. He will go to Jerusalem, and
there do great signs and wonders, by which he will so delude the chosen people
that they will accept him as their Messiah, and pay him divine honors in the
Temple. It will be during this that Jesus will return and destroy him by the
brightness of His coming, "And then shall the wicked be revealed, whom the Lord
shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the
brightness of His coming, even of Satan with all power and signs and lying
wonders" (2 Thessalonians 2:8-9). The devil has got some of you so close to Hell
that you can smell the fumes. He's no loafer. He's been working for 6,000 years,
and he was never laid up with appendicitis nor tonsillitis, nor the grip. In the
Lord's coming there are to be two distinct phases - His coming for the members
of His Body, and revelation to them at the time of the Rapture, or taking up
into the air, and His coming with the members of His Body at the close of the
Tribulation, when He is revealed to the Jews and destroys the antiChrist.

Overlooking these two phases has put some people in confusion about the order of
events, just as the failure to distinguish between the prophecies pertaining to
the first and second coming confused the Jews, and caused them to reject Jesus,
through what they supposed to be His failure to fulfill prophecy.

Yes, Christ will come in person, and will destroy the antiChrist. The seat of
his power will be Jerusalem. This is literal and not figurative. The visible
Church will be left here, strong in members and organization. It will probably
make a great show of missionary activity, but will have no more power against
the principalities and powers of evil than did the disciples who missed the
Mount of Transfiguration have over the demons that were tormenting the little
boy. In a worldly way it will appear to be in a very prosperous condition, rich
in property and elegant buildings; but here is a picture of what it will be
after the salt of the earth has been taken out of it: "This know also that in
the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own
selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents,
unthankful, unholy, without natural affection; truce breakers, false accusers,
inconsistent, fierce, dcspisers of those that are good; traitors, heady,
high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, having a form of
godliness but denying the power thereof" (2 Timothy 3:1-5). Did you ever know a
time in all history when the world was worse than it is now? People are passing
up the Church and the Prayer Meeting for the theater, the leg show and the
movies. Oh, Lord, how we need someone to cry aloud, "Return to God."

Bear in mind that this has no reference to the Turks, the heathen in Africa or
the people in the slums; but that it is a description of the rank and file of
the Church, after the Lord has come and taken His Body out of the world. For
notice that it is said that these people have a form of godliness which means
that they are professors of religion. They are not avowed infidels or atheists,
but professed believers.

Let us consider, in the first place, something of what it may mean to have a
part in that meeting in the air:

1. Well, the most glorious thing about it is that if we are there we shall be
members of the Body of Jesus Christ. It will mean that we are members of the
royal family of the universe; that we are kings and princes who are to sit on
the throne and reign with Jesus, and that we shall be with Him forevermore,
never to be separated from him again. And this will mean that we shall be the
most exalted beings in all the universe, for who could be higher than the sons
of God or the Bride of our Lord?

We are living in the most important part of the world's history. Great heaven! I
don't see how anyone can fail to be inspired.

It is an awful thing to miss being a part of the Body of Christ because you're
too big a fool to be a Christian. You would rather play bridge. Well, then, go
to the devil, if that's the way you want to live. I can't stop you.

Whenever I remember I'm a part of the Body of Christ, a member of the royal
family, I just want to shout "Hallelujah." In talking to men God must, of
course, use the language of men, but He can only put into our words just a
little of what He would tell us. A very little looking into the matter, however,
will show that He has used the most expressive words in our language to show how
near and precious is to be our relationship to Him. In fact, He has used about
all the words we have that could be used for that purpose, as members of His
Body, His Bride and sons of God.

If we are so fortunate as to have a part in that meeting in the air, it will
mean that we are among the most fortunate of all the sons of men, and that we
have lived in the most blessed of all times for men to live, for only those are
eligible to membership in the Body of Christ who live in the present
dispensation.

Moses and David and Isaiah and Jeremiah had no such chance as we have, for the
Body of Christ had its beginning at Pentecost. Neither will those who live after
the Rapture have an opportunity, for the Body will then be complete and the door
closed forever, as it was in the faces of the foolish virgins. Jesus said of
John the Baptist that he was the greatest of all prophets, but that the least in
the kingdom of God was greater than he. What an awful thing it would be, then,
to have such a glorious opportunity and miss it! Others will know the joys of
great salvation, for the world will be saved during the Millennium (the next
dispensation), and the knowledge of the glory of God will cover the earth as the
waters cover the sea, but the people of that day will have no place in the Body
of Christ; they cannot become members of the royal family. They will be loyal
subjects of the king. That is why Paul could say, "For I reckon that the
sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory
which shall be revealed in us" (Romans 8:16).

There is a vast difference between a son of King George and a subject of Great
Britain. The smallest babe of royal blood is greater than the greatest man in
the kingdom.

2. If we have a place in that meeting in the air it will mean that we are like
Christ, for "when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as
He is." The true child of God is always longing to be like his Master, and this
heart yearning is the sure prophecy of what we shall then be. It will also mean
that we shall nevermore be separated from Him. The devil will never again have
power to separate us from Him for a single moment, and wherever He is, there
shall we be also. The fact that Jesus is to be here during the Millennium would
be proof conclusive that we shall be here with Him, even if there were no other
Scripture for it.

3. For some that meeting will mean that they reached it without having to pass
through death, for it is to be composed of those who have gone before, and those
who are still living at that time. Some who are born into this world are never
to die, and we may hope to be of that elect number. The Christian has no
business to be looking for death. It is his right to hope to live forever, and
instead of expecting to go to the grave, he should be looking for the coming of
his Lord and the meeting in the air.

4. It will also mean that we shall then have bodies that will remain young
forever. Pains and aches, gray hair, wrinkles and feebleness will never again be
known. Listen to this: "Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep
(die), but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at
the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised
incorruptible (no longer subject to age or decay), and we shall be changed (into
His likeness)" (1 Corinthians 15:51-52). And it will come in the twinkling of an
eye - in a moment - and that moment will be what all time was made for. n that
moment some will give up old age to be young forever. Others will go from beds
of pain upon which they may have lain prostrate for years. Others, from the most
grinding poverty, will spring to eternal wealth. Some will go from burdens from
which they expected no relief save death. From what tribulations and troubles
and afflictions will not that moment be a deliverance, and how the angels will
begin to crowd the battlements of Heaven upon that glad meeting when they know
it is about to come! In a moment! In the twinkling of an eye!

"Come, Lord Jesus; come quickly," ought to be the daily prayer of every
Christian heart, And yet as we look about us now, and see how the devil seems to
be having his way as much as ever, it looks as if that great time would never
come. But you can't tell by appearances. An hour before the tidal wave comes
there is nothing to indicate that it will ever come. Nobody dreamed of an
earthquake ten minutes before San Francisco began to rock and tumble.

Some time ago the President touched a golden key in the White House and in a
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the acres of machinery at the great Seattle
exposition, on the other side of the country, were in motion, and countless
flags began to fly in the breeze; and that's the way the Lord will come.

Just that quick! Quicker than a clock can tick! Quicker than lightning can
flash! Ten minutes before the President touched the golden key it looked as if
the machinery would never start, but when the right moment arrived it was going.
"Therefore, be ye ready, for in such an hour as ye think not the son of man
cometh." God's clock is never behind the smallest fraction of a second.

All signs point to the great event, some of which seemed to me to be: (a)
Radical tendency to depart from the Christian life. (b) Prophecies fulfilled -
the gospel has been preached in every nation. (c) The world-wide expectancy of
his coming. (d) Revival among the Jews. They are flocking to Jerusalem. (e) The
political unrest. (f) Extreme views on questions of government. (g)
Concentration of wealth in the hands of the few,

5. If we have a part in that meeting it will mean that we shall be here in this
world with the Lord during the Millennium - a thousand years -with the devil
chained and cast out - not a saloon, gambling hell or brothel in the world, and
everything just as we want it. Hear this: "And cast him into the bottomless pit,
and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no
more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled; and after that he must be
loose a little season."

"And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them;
and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for
the Word of God, and which had not worshiped the beast, neither his image,
neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they
lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years."

"But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were
finished. This is the first resurrection."

"Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the
second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and
shall reign with him a thousand years" (Revelation 3:1-6).

6. To have part in that meeting will be to meet those who have gone on before -
fathers and mothers and other loved ones. Think of how glorious and blessed that
will be, and there will doubtless be infinite surprises that the Lord will have
in store for us, "For it hath not entered into the heart of man the things that
the Lord hath prepared for them that love him."

7. Think of the delight of meeting and continuing with the other members of the
Lord's Body, who will then be as dear to us as the apple of our own eye. Think
of being intimate with Peter, James and John, Andrew, Philip and the others, and
of hearing from them again and again all the incidents they witnessed in the
life of Jesus. Think of being more intimate with Paul and Silas and Mark and
Luke and Timothy, and the Saints who were in Caesar's household, than we are
with our very best friends now. Think of knowing Mary, the mother of Jesus, as
well as You know your own mother, and of having her intimate friends, Martha and
Mary Magdalene, and the unknown disciples who on the first Easter morning walked
with their risen Lord on the way to Emmaus! Think of talking with Zacchaeus and
Blind Bartimeus, the daughter of Jairus, and the wild man out of whom the legion
of devils were cast. And the blind man in the ninth chapter of John how good -
it will be to shake hands with him and tell him some of the good things, we have
so often thought about his courage. And Joseph of Arimathaea, Nicodemus and the
boy who had the five loaves and two fishes. And the blind woman who touched the
hem of His garment; the widow who gave the two mites and the Philippian jailer
who got the old time religion in an unmistakable way; the first leper who was
cleansed, and all the rest. How much we shall miss, if we miss that meeting in
the air.

8. Think of how glorious it will be to live for a thousand years in this world
with our blessed Master and be closely associated with Him: with bodies that
will not wear out or grow old, always in perfect health, and with faculties for
enjoyment a thousand times higher than we possess now. The millennium will be
the greatest time ever known, for it will be the golden age of man. Poverty,
sickness, war and pestilence will be unknown. There will be no devil to cause
human suffering and woe.

Then think of the delight of coming back into this world, where we have had so
much trouble and hardship and poverty and sickness, to live under such glorious
circumstances as will then prevail. A man told a friend of mine that when {he
was} a boy he footed it for nearly a hundred miles over the old National road.
It was in August, the weather hot and dusty, and the boy penniless, homeless and
disheartened. He had on a pair of cowhide shoes, and his feet became so sore
that over much of the way he could only hobble along in great pain. A little
while ago he went over the same road in an elegant automobile, and he never so
enjoyed a ride in his life. The weather was fine and he had nothing to do but
sit there and drink in the beauty of the day, and think of how much better off
he was than when he went limping over the same road, a poor, helpless, sore
footed boy.

Well, it will be something like that with us in the millennium, perhaps, only
vastly more glorious when we come back to have a good time here.

9. It will also mean to be richly rewarded for all we have ever done or suffered
for the Lord. Near the close of his hard and strenuous life, Paul said:
"Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord,
the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all
them that love His appearing" (2 Timothy 4:8).

Here are other verses showing there is to be a reward - "And when the chief
shepherd shall appear ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away" (1
Peter 5:4). "And behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with Me to give every
man according as his work shall be" (Revelation 22:12).

10. If we have a part in that meeting we shall escape the great Tribulation
which is to come upon all the earth as soon as the members of the Body of Christ
are taken out of the world. The Body of Christ is now the salt of the earth, and
the light of the world. It is the army with which God now holds in check the
principalities and powers of evil. It is therefore evident that when this army
is taken out of the world, the devil will have unhindered sway, and will
immediately begin to make this world as much like Hell as he wants it to be. In
speaking of this awful time, Jesus said:

"Then shall be great Tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the
world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be
shortened, there shall no flesh be saved; but for the elect's sake those days
shall be shortened" (Matthew 24:21-22). And here is what Daniel says of it:

"And there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation
even to that time, and at that time thy people shall be delivered (members of
the Lord's body), every one that shall be found written in the book" (Daniel
1:1).

Human imagination is incapable of picturing the awfulness of this great
tribulation, that is surely coming on the world, and may begin this very day -
yes, even this very hour! Think of it! It is to be the worst time the world has
ever known, or ever will know. A worse time than the flood; a worse time than
the bondage of Egypt, and a worse time than the destruction of Jerusalem, when
women and children were torn in pieces, and the very name of mercy was unknown.
A worse time than the reign of Nero; worse than during the Spanish Inquisition;
worse than when Cortes destroyed the Aztecs; worse than during the French
revolution and the communists, and worse than during the Dark Ages. A worse time
than when men were skinned alive; worse than when they were pulled asunder by
horses; worse than when men, women and children were thrown to hungry lions, and
worse than when they were dipped in pitch and burned as torches. Do you want to
live in that kind of a time? Well, the only thing that can surely save you from
it is to have a part in that meeting in the air, for no others who are living at
that time can escape from it, and that awful time may be upon us within the next
ten minutes, for it will begin at the very moment the Rapture takes place.

There is now not a single prophecy remaining to be fulfilled before the Lord may
come, and the members of His Body be caught up to be with him in the air.

It stands to reason that the tribulation must be the most awful time known,
because for the only time in all history the devil will then be loose and have
unhindered sway. Everything he can do that will add to human woe will certainly
be done. Governments will go to pieces, and there will be no security of life
and property. A man may be a millionaire one day and a beggar the next. Every
chaos of crime and outrage of every kind will be turned loose. God will let the
world and the universe see for a time what it will mean to live under the
devil's rule, and will let those who pass through the Tribulation see that the
good they so long enjoyed was because of the presence of the good.

Some of you people who throw your votes and influence in favor of whisky and all
kinds of hellishness that go with it may live to find out in the bitterness of
the Tribulation just what is meant by sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind.

It is supposed that the Tribulation will cover a period of seven years. It might
be seven hundred years, but it cannot be less than seven years. God in His mercy
will make it as short as possible. That the real Church of God, believers,
members of the Body of Christ, are to be taken out of the world before the world
is saved is as clearly taught in the Bible as that through the atonement made by
Christ man may have salvation from sin.

What will it mean to the world? Every believer will be instantly taken out of
the world; homes will be rent in twain, husbands will be robbed of Godly wives,
children will be taken out of the world and those left behind will wring their
hands in grief. No doubt newspapers will print extra editions. Universal
consternation will reign. The world will neither see the Lord, neither will they
see their loved ones go. Those who have died in the faith will be raised. The
statement of Jesus shows that not all the people are to be caught up in the air
in clouds, but one here and there:

"There shall be two men in one bed; one shall be taken and the other left. Two
women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken and the other left. Two
men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken and the other left" (Luke
17:34-36). This makes it look as if the number caught up in the air would not be
large. When will the meeting in the air occur? In regard to this Jesus said:

"But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven
- neither the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray; for ye know not
when the time is" (Mark 13:32-33). But also said, after speaking of conditions
that would prevail about that time:

"So, likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even
at the doors" (Matt. 24:33), Will the world come to an end when Jesus comes and
takes away the members of His Body? No, not for at least 1,000 years; perhaps
longer. The Millennium must come after Jesus comes, and must have its beginning
at the close of the great Tribulation. The real truth is, that great event will
not bring destruction to anything that is good, but will, on the contrary,
introduce an era of the greatest progress and prosperity the world has ever
known. The coming of Christ will bring the Millennium - the golden age of man in
this world - when the arts and sciences, and everything else that man ought to
delight in, will flourish as never before, and never until Jesus comes will the
knowledge of the glory of God cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. To
say that the second coming of Christ is a pernicious thing to preach is the same
as saying it would be a calamity for God to rule. It will be the culmination of
the redemption of this world, and to say that it would put an end to all
progress is as foolish as to say that putting the roof on a house would ruin it
and throw the carpenters out of work.

There is nothing more clearly declared in the Bible than that Christ will come
and reign on earth during the Millennium, when all will be restored that was
lost by the fall. Then and only then will God's will be done on earth as it is
in Heaven. The scribes and Pharisees thought that business was going to be
endangered by Christ's first coming. The only business that will be hurt by the
second coming of Christ will be the devil's business. At the time of His coming
there will be no general resurrection or judgment. At the close of the
Millennium reign of Christ the devil will be loosed out of the pit for a season,
and look for the first time upon a world without sin. He will tempt people. They
will be as foolish now and yield to his lies and subtlety.

He will gather his host and come against the saints to battle. Fire will fall
from Heaven and consume them. Then takes place the resurrection of the wicked
dead. Then the judgment of the Great White Throne, with Christ to judge.

There is this about it, however: we are living nearer to it than anybody ever
lived before, and when it does come it is going to come in a moment - in the
twinkling of an eye -and the only safe course for us to pursue is to be ready
for the Bridegroom when He comes.

"Take ye heed, watch and pray, for ye know not when the time is, For the son of
man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house and gave authority to
his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch.
Watch ye, therefore, for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at
even or at midnight or at the cock crowing or in the morning; lest coming
suddenly he find You sleeping. And what I say unto You I say unto all, watch"
(Mark 13:33-36).

We are not told when Jesus will come, but we are told that his coming is sure,
and we are charged to watch for it. How it would affect our lives and make hard
things easy to bear if we would only do this and always be doing this.

Don't you know how eagerly you get ready for company that you love when you
receive a telegram saying that they are surely coming? How you clean house and
want to have everything in the very best kind of order!

If we were continually looking for the coming of Jesus we would be as careful to
keep our lives as clean as you would be to have your homes clean if you were
expecting company. The certainty of His coming would also be a constant source
of comfort and inspiration to us, if we believed it to be near. The Lord does
not come to the world at the time of the Rapture, but only reveals himself to
the members of His Body. At the time of his resurrection He was only seen by
those who believed on Him. Pilate and the High Priest, and those who crucified
Him, did not know that He was risen. So it will be at the time of the Rapture.
The world will not know that He has been here, and will have no knowledge of Him
until He comes with the members of His Body, at the close of the Tribulation.

What an awful thing, then, to have the glorious privilege of living in His
dispensation, with all that it means, and miss getting into the Body of Christ
by refusing to become a Christian. The Preacher owes it to his people to look
into these things, that He may show them their great privilege, and warn them of
the awful things that may come upon them, if they miss their chance and have to
go through the Great Tribulation. The Preacher who has never qualified himself
to preach a sermon on the sure and certain coming of his Master will have to
answer for an awful breech of trust when he stands before Him. Our fleet of
battleships made its remarkable trip around the Horn and around the world, and
again dropped anchor at home on schedule time, almost to the minute, in spite of
storm and the fickleness of the wind and wave, and if the calculations of men
can be wrought out so precisely, certainly we have the right to expect that God
will execute His plans with absolute precision in whatever task he sets for
himself.

Certainly we can think of nothing so improbable as that He would complete His
program for creation on schedule time, and yet would so tie his own hands by
failure to anticipate and provide for all possible emergencies and contingencies
that the train of His purpose for redemption would be so delayed or nearly
wrecked that it would almost have to be abandoned. Do not think it for a moment.
God's purpose can no more be kept back a minute than the Heavenly bodies can be
delayed a minute. In redemption God is working by the clock as surely as in
creation, and His chariot of salvation is not marked late by a single minute.
Come, Lord Jesus!


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 6: UNDER THE SUN
========================================================================

Under the Sun by Billy Sunday (This sermon is probably one of the best that
Billy Sunday ever preached.) "What profit hath a man of all his labor which he
taketh under the sun?" Ecclesiastes 1:3 THIS question is asked and answered by
King Solomon, and in our language it means about this: "What good does a man get
out of life if he lives only for what this world can give?" If any man has ever
been able to give the right answer to this great question, out of his own wisdom
and experience, that man was Solomon. If any man ever came into this world with
a gold spoon in his mouth, he certainly did. The devil has a mortgage on some
people from the cradle, but Solomon had no such handicap, for he was well born.
He was the favorite son of one of the greatest and best men who ever lived, for
his father, King David, was a man after God's own heart, which means that he
just suited the Lord. Solomon was made king of a great kingdom in his early
manhood, while his father was still alive to counsel and help him. From this we
see that he had every advantage that high station and boundless wealth and
opportunity could give him. He had wisdom, riches, wealth and honor such as no
king ever had before him or since. An invincible army stood ready to do his
bidding, and all the power of a great nation that was under the special
protection and favor of God was behind him. He had only to command, and it was
done; to express a wish, and it was gratified. He had received the best
education it was possible to give him, and was called the wisest of men. The
fame of his wisdom covered the earth, and caused the Queen of Sheba, with a
great retinue, to make a long pilgrimage of weary weeks and months, to sit at
his feet in wonder. She looked upon the beauty of his wonderful palace and the
magnificent temple he had built. She reviewed his matchless army; considered the
numbers of men who served him and the elegance of their livery; then she looked
in amazement upon the wealth of gold and precious things that surrounded him,
and took her departure, declaring that the half had not been told her. This is
the kind of ability Solomon had with which to answer his own question. He wrote
three thousand proverbs and a thousand and five songs, all full of wisdom. If he
wasn't qualified to speak as an expert, where can we find one? Let us see how
well qualified he was to know what he was talking about from his own actual
experience. Every great pleasure was at his fingertips. If he wanted anything he
had only to reach out his soft-jeweled hand and take it. His kingdom had peace
and rest from war during all of his reign, so that he had plenty of time to
enjoy himself. And from what he says of himself he lost no time, for he took
about all the degrees and invented a few of his own. He was a thirty-third
degree sport. He lived in a palace, surrounded by courtiers who were not spring
chickens, and all highbrows themselves. He was honored, admired and flattered as
few men have been. No greater honor than his could be known, no greater wisdom
found in any books, and no higher station attained. He was so rich that his
wealth could not be measured. He had forty thousand horses and twenty thousand
horsemen. The high cost of living never troubled him, for his provisions for his
household and attendants one day were two hundred and eighty-one bushels of fine
flour; five hundred and sixty-six bushels of meal; ten fat oxen out of the
stall; twenty oxen out of the pasture; one hundred sheep, besides hart, roebuck,
fallow deer and fatted fowl. Solomon had no ambition that had not been achieved;
no curiosity that had not been satisfied. Like his princely father, he was a
close observer, and nothing escaped him, so that he was able to say, "I have
seen all the works that are done under the sun," meaning that the world had
nothing more to show him or to give him and that was certainly going some. At
some time in our lives we have all envied men of great scholarship and
intellectual attainments, and have thought of what a foretaste of heaven it
would be to have the time and opportunity to learn all the things we would like
to know. We have believed that one of the greatest joys this life could give is
the joy of knowing things. Well, Solomon not only drank that well dry, but he
pulled out the pump, for he exhausted all the schools and colleges of his day,
and gave all his teachers nervous prostration in their vain endeavor to teach
him something more than he already knew. And then when he had pumped that
fountain dry, he sighed and said, "Go to, now; I will see what I can get out of
mirth and pleasure," and then he cut loose on that line, and began to carry on
in a way to make a baseball fan at the world's series look like a dummy in a
clothing store window. He got into his golden chariot with the diamond-set
wheels and went round the track in a way to set the bleachers crazy. At
breakneck speed he galloped over the rose-lined avenues of sensuous pleasures
that opened for him in every direction, looking as if they led straight to
paradise; but ere long his shining car of delight lost a wheel and he was down
in the mud again, and crying out to any who might be following in his wake, "Go
back! Don't come this way, for here all is vanity and vexation of spirit!" Then
he took to wine and the rosiest kind of dissipation. He hit up the booze. He
tried a lot of things. He had a great natatorium built that was supported by
great lions. Then he began to love many strange women, laying hold on folly with
both hands. That's where he struck out. He had seven hundred wives and three
hundred concubines, but soon had to give the same verdict as before, and again
cry out, "Vanity, vanity; all is vanity!" Then he thinks he has discovered
something really substantial, and so goes to building great works and houses,
chief of which is the magnificent temple, still called by his name. It required
seven years to build it, and took the combined efforts of one hundred and
eighty-three thousand Jews and strangers to do the work. It took ten thousand
men eleven years to cut the trees. There were eighty thousand hewers of wood,
and seventy thousand burden bearers. There were eighty thousand squared stones,
all so perfectly shaped in the quarries that the sound of neither hammer nor
mallet was heard in putting them together in the temple. At the completion of
the work there was a feast of seven days at its dedication, and Solomon
sacrificed one hundred and twenty thousand sheep and twenty thousand oxen. The
temple was built of white marble, so artfully joined that it appeared like one
stone. The roof was of olive wood, covered with pure gold. That is where the
idea of covering the domes of many of our capitol buildings with gold leaf
originated. When the sunshine fell on the temple its splendor was so dazzling
that the eyes were almost blinded. The temple courts and apartments could house
three hundred thousand people. There were fourteen hundred and fifty-three
columns of Parian (fine white) marble; twenty-nine hundred and six pilasters or
columns. Over three billion dollars worth of gold was used. One billion dollars
worth of silver was used on the floors and walls, which were overlaid with gold
and silver. There were two hundred targets of beaten gold, with six hundred
shekels of gold in each target. There were three hundred targets with three
hundred shekels in each target. There were three hundred shields of beaten gold,
with three pounds of gold in each shield, and the value of the gold that came to
Solomon in one year was about twenty millions of dollars. When the temple was
dedicated the glory of God filled it. Then Solomon turned his great talent and
wealth toward making a beautiful Jerusalem, by planting vineyards and laying out
gardens that were like Fairyland, and then like a tale of magic he produced
orchards, in which he had a great collection of the finest and rarest trees in
all the world. Trees from every clime, and flowers of every kind and hue were
there, and all these were kept green and beautiful by irrigation from artificial
lakes. It is doubtful if the world had ever seen greater beauty than Solomon
with his unlimited power produced in Jerusalem at that time, but even all this
pleased his fancy only for a little while, and soon he seems to have nothing but
dust in his mouth, and again cries out, "All is vanity!" But almost immediately
he seems to have taken up another whim, and says, "I got me servants and
maidens, and also had great possessions of great and small cattle, above all
that were in Jerusalem before me. I gathered me also silver and gold, and the
peculiar treasure of kings, and of the provinces. I got me men singers and women
singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that
of all sorts, meaning, no doubt, that he became an art collector, and began to
feed on the beautiful, the artistic and esthetic, somewhat as millionaires are
doing now, securing for himself the very best to be had in painting, old china,
bric-a-brac, sculpture, musical instruments, singers and performers, and then at
voluptuous ease he would lie on a princely couch that seemed almost to float in
the air, and drink to the full all he could get out of them in the way of
enjoyment. But presently he is again almost dying with disappointment, and
crying out in the same old doleful tone, "All is vanity and vexation of spirit!"
Meaning that there was nothing in it all but an empty puff of air that could
only fill a bubble for a moment. And then he goes on to say, "So I was great,
and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem; and whatever mine
eyes desired I kept not from them. I withheld not my heart from joy; for my
heart rejoiced in all my labor. Then I looked on all the works my hands had
wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do, and, "Behold, all was vanity
and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun!" And so this wise
and honored and wealthy man goes on drinking first from one golden cup and then
another, only to dash them all away as soon as tasted in bitter disappointment,
and then after he had tried them all, to say, "Not one can satisfy!" confirming
what his father David had said in the statement, "The young lions do lack and
suffer hunger," and just what every millionaire on earth today knows from his
own experience. To find starvation of the most awful kind today, don't go down
into the slums, but go to the people who are enormously wealthy. Andrew Carnegie
says there are no happy millionaires, and Andy ought to know, for he's got the
dough. John D. Rockefeller has about as good as confessed that he got more out
of the first thousand dollars he made than out of any ten millions he has made
since, and today he is perhaps the hungriest man in all the world. Every man
wants to be satisfied. I do. So do you. Everyone is reaching out for happiness
and peace and rest. There are men before me who have tried many things in
pursuit of happiness. You have climbed high and you have probed deep, and some
of you have not found what you have sought. All who are here are on the verge of
eternity. The past is simply a memory, the future an uncertainty. No matter how
old you are; no matter if your hair is gray; no matter what your bank account
may be; some of you must say, "I have not found happiness. I am a failure. My
life has been a failure. All is vanity and vexation of spirit!" Why don't you be
a man? Why don't you show a man's courage, and take up the cross of the Son of
God? Why don't you rise to what you might be? We were all meant for better
things. You were never meant for the slop and the swill barrels of the devil.
Why do you let the devil control you? Why do you let him make you a pawn on the
board on which he plays his game? Why do you spend your money for that which is
not bread? Is there any bread in rum? Ask the poor fellows who have been
spending their earnings for drink during all these years. Ask their wives and
their children. No bread for them. Ask the saloonkeeper. There is bread in it
for him, but none for those who drink what he sells. But to go back to Solomon's
doleful cry of "All is vanity!" What does it mean? Was Solomon a dyspeptic, as
most millionaires are? Have you ever noticed that it takes more religion to make
a dyspeptic smile than it does to make a healthy man shout? Was there something
wrong with Solomon's liver, or what was the matter? Was the trouble all with
Solomon, or is all creation out of joint? Is there no good to be found in any of
the things with which he employed his time? Is going to school no better than
wasting time in idleness? Does a keen appreciation of the beautiful carry with
it a curse and not a blessing? Is there no benefit in architecture, music or
sculpture? Is there nothing but evil in wealth, wisdom and high station in life?
Was Solomon really starving while apparently feeding on the finest of the wheat?
He said so many things that appear to contradict all he said about vanity and
vexation of spirit and so what does it mean? But wait a moment. Here is
something that seems to throw light on the matter. When Solomon says, "All is
vanity," he also says, "under the sun," and that shows the standpoint from which
he drew his conclusions. What we see as we go through life always depends upon
where we stand to look. Many a man who tries to talk as if he were standing on a
mountain, shows by what he says that he is up to his eyes in the mud. When a man
tells you that the whisky business is a good thing for the country, you know
that he is looking at things through the eyes of a brewer or a saloonkeeper, and
not through the eyes of a father who has a son that has become a drunkard. When
a man tells you that he don't believe in foreign missions, you know that he
don't know any more about what pure and undefiled religion is than a jack rabbit
knows about running for president. From what he says you know the viewpoint from
which he has come to his conclusion. To know a man's viewpoint is to know why he
sees the thing he claims to see, and now we know why Solomon said, "All is
vanity and vexation of spirit!" It was because he was looking at things from the
viewpoint of "under the sun." As if a man could tell what a rainbow were like
while standing on his head in a dark cellar. In the little book of Ecclesiastes,
from which the text is taken, the expression "under the sun " occurs thirty-one
times, as if Solomon wanted everyone to understand that what he said therein was
said from the standpoint of low ground. The great king was looking at things
from a low, sensual, materialistic plane, and from that viewpoint every word he
said was true. Take away God, take away the Bible, take away inspiration and
revelation, take away all hope of a better life in the world to come, destroy
all thought of resurrection, and put in its place nothing but hopeless and
endless night, and you have nothing left that is worth living for. The life of
the greatest and wisest man is then no better than that of a fool. The best
fruits of the world would then turn to ashes on the lips, and it were better to
die than to live. Blot out everything except what we can know through our
senses, and keep from us all light from a source higher than the sun, and the
very best this life can give is worse than nothing at all. Destroy in every man
the divine spark that tells him there is a God, and that there is a beyond, and
every grave would hold a suicide. Let all hope die, and despair would reign. We
have only begun to know a little about the soul when we discover that nothing
under the sun can satisfy it. It was this great truth Solomon began to realize
after he found nothing but disappointment in the very best the world could give
him. Under the sun nothing lasts; nothing endures; nothing satisfies. No sooner
do we begin to think we have a thing safe forever than it is gone. We love but
to lose. Whatever we have is ours but for one brief moment, and the anguish of
our loss is a wound that never heals. No happiness is possible without the hope
of certainty, and the thing we feel we must have mocks us as it flies. No
fountain under the sun can hold enough to satisfy an immortal spirit, and that
very fact proves us to be spirits in prison while we are here. All the gold
mines in the world have not given up treasure enough to satisfy the man who has
a greed for gain. The man with a hunger for honor and distinction has never been
able to get enough of it, and the same can be said of everything else for which
men strive and struggle and destroy each other and themselves. Nothing this
world can give is worthwhile, unless while living in it we can have more than is
revealed by the light of the sun. Destroy the Bible and all faith in God, and we
might as well eat, drink and be merry and die. Nothing will do unless it can
give us the wings of the morning and let us mount higher than the sun, for what
can a mole know about the sunrise, or a man in a pit know about the beauty of
the mountains? No heaven we can build for ourselves without God can be more than
a little anteroom to hell. Without God and revelation and the Bible and hope of
heaven, all is indeed vanity and vexation of spirit. But at last Solomon spreads
the wings of faith and gets higher than the sun, and when he does the change in
his viewpoint changes the meaning of life, for now he can see with a clear eye.
I know a man who through some difficulty with his vision can see scarcely
anything a little distance away, but one day he went up in a balloon, and when
over a half-mile high he could see like a bird. In fact he could see better than
he had ever believed anybody could see, and it was that way with Solomon when he
reached the place where his faith could lay hold on God. Listen to this, and
note how his vision has expanded, and his sight cleared up, "Surely I know (no
uncertainty about that) that it shall be well with them that fear God." There is
no more talk about everything being vanity now, and the reason is because at
last he has a viewpoint higher than the sun, as is always the case with even the
humblest man who has faith in God. Solomon can now see that nothing good is ever
lost, and that bread cast on the waters is sure to return after many days. He
now sees that wisdom is better than weapons of war, the plain meaning of which
in our day is that good common sense is better protection than a slingshot. And
then, to sum up, he closes the book by saying, "Let us hear the conclusion of
the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments, for this is the whole
duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret
thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." And there is no vanity about
anything God does. And now let us employ our time for a little while with some
of the men who have looked at life from a viewpoint higher than the sun. It was
this that kept Noah working away on the ark for a hundred and twenty years,
without seeing a flash of lightning or hearing a clap of thunder. Had he been
living only for what he could see, it would never have been said of him that "he
was a just man and perfect, and walked with God." The man who walks with God
will not spend much time in thinking about the bugs that may be creeping under
his feet. Abraham was another man who had a faith that lifted him higher than
the sun, when looking for "a city which had foundations, whose maker and builder
was God." You never hear a word from that grand old man about all being vanity
and vexation of spirit. And then there was Moses. He had a vision that pierced
the clouds and went far beyond the sun, when he saw that "the reproach of
Christ" would bring him greater and more lasting riches than the treasures of
Egypt, that he might have had by simply folding his arms and doing nothing. But
he endured as seeing Him who is invisible, and that made it easy for him to
refuse to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. Neither was he looking from
the low plane of "under the sun," when in bidding farewell to the army he had
brought out of Egypt, he said, "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath
are the everlasting arms." A man must have a sweep of faith reaching higher than
the sun before he can say things like that. There is not a word about "under the
sun" in the chapter where grand old General Joshua says, "As for me and my
house, we will serve the Lord," and no such words as "vanity and vexation of
spirit" ever fell from the lips of that great captain of iron courage. Samuel
was looking at things from much higher than the sun when he said, "To obey is
better than sacrifice," and so was Job when he said, "I will trust Him though He
slay me," and "I know that my redeemer lives!" Ezra was not standing on low
ground when "he prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it,"
or when he said, "The hand of our God is upon all of them for good that seek
Him, and His power and His wrath is against all them that forsake Him." The same
was true of Nehemiah, when, in building up the wall that was broken down, he
said, "I am doing a great work." From "under the sun" it would have looked very
small. David was looking from higher than the sun, or he could never have said,
"The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth
them. O taste, and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man that trusteth
in Him!" And Daniel had a vision that swept far higher than the sun when he went
to the lions den with no more anxiety than you and I would go to dinner.
Stephen's viewpoint was from much higher than anywhere "under the sun," when he
cried out, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing, on
the right hand of God!" and then went to his cruel death with the light of
heaven on his face. And Paul was looking from higher than the stars, or he could
never have said, "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were
dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in
the heavens!" And so it was also with John the beloved, when near the close of
his long and busy life he took up the much worn pen with which he had written so
much that will still be bright when the stars are dim, and wrote the precious
words that have been shining down the centuries ever since, "Behold what manner
of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of
God; therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not. Beloved, now
are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know
that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is!"
And then still later, when a white-haired prisoner on the Isle of Patmos, and
just before he left the world to be forever with the Lord, John again had a
vision of things infinitely higher than the sun, and once more took up the
stylus and wrote, "And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and He
that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He doth
judge and make war. . . . And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood; and
His name is called the Word of God. . . . And He hath on His vesture and on His
thigh a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords!" Jude also was looking
from very much higher than the sun when he declared with unhesitating
confidence, "That He is able to keep you from falling, and to present you
faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy." And O how much
higher than the sun was Jesus looking from when He said, "Let not your heart be
troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many
mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for
you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you
unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." And then, when after the
shame of the cross and the grave, He stood on resurrection ground, how
infinitely far above the sun was His eye fixed when He said to the eleven
faithful ones, "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth; go ye
therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end
of the world." And thank God the time will surely come, when in our vision we
shall not be confined to the low plane described as "under the sun," but when
with Him in whom we have believed we shall be lifted "far above all principality
and power, and might and dominion," and be with Him forever in heavenly places,
where we shall no more see as through a glass darkly, but face to face, and
where we shall know as we are known.


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  CHAPTER 7: WHAT SHALL I DO THEN WITH JESUS
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What Shall I Do Then With Jesus? by Billy Sunday "What shall I do then with
Jesus which is called Christ?" Matthew 27:22

Nineteen hundred years ago a star poised above a lowly manger in Bethlehem and
above the moonlit hills of Judaea the angels heralded the beginning of the life
of Jesus Christ upon this earth--He who came to teach us the religion of human
kindness, brotherly love and salvation through repentance and faith in His shed
blood. No matter what He said or did, the Jews refused to acknowledge His claims
as the Messiah. Their enmity finally culminated in the greatest tragedy that the
brutality of man ever committed, or the eye of God ever witnessed--the murder of
Jesus Christ under false testimony. Jealous of His popularity and rejecting His
divinity, they resolved at all hazards to kill Him. Not having the power of life
and of death in their own hands, or tribunals, they renounced Him before Pilate,
the Roman governor. To stir up his enmity, they said that He was an impostor,
that He had stirred up sedition and that He was an enemy of the government.

Pilate examined these charges made against Him but, being unable to prove Him
guilty of any offense worthy of death, proposed that they release Him. But the
rabble shrieked and screamed: "No! Away with Him! Give us Barabbas!"

Next to Jesus, Pilate is the scene, and from his lips fall the words I have
taken for my text. When they cried, "Barabbas!" he turned to them and said:
'Well, then, what will I do with Jesus which is called the Christ? I got rid of
Barabbas at your suggestion, but I still have Jesus on my hands.'

Pilate was very near the line. He tried to reason with them. Then he arose from
the throne, took Jesus by the hand, led Him out in front of them and asked,
"What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ?" So I lead Him out
before this audience tonight and ask you the same question Pilate asked the
crowd that surged around the throne that day. Pilate was confronted, my friends,
with difficulties. He had many things to encourage him. He had his wife's dream.
The story of Mrs. Pilate is very briefly told in the Bible, in one verse of
Scripture. It is no evidence of her worth and character as a woman that God
condescended to reveal Himself in a dream to her. He revealed Himself in a dream
to Pharaoh, to Nebuchadnezzar. Yet for all we know, Mrs. Pilate might have been
a very reverent, devout woman, constantly on the alert to save her husband from
the difficulties into which she knew his miserable, pliable temper would lead
him. Somehow, while she slept, God worried her by a dream. What He revealed, I
do not know. Presumably it was about Jesus and the part her husband was to play
in this tragedy. (They couldn't put Him on the cross without the consent of
Pilate.)

She sent a messenger to Pilate with the plea: 'Have thou nothing to do with this
just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.
Have nothing to do with him.' So we have the personality of Jesus. Never had
such a personality appeared before Pilate for sentence. There He stood in His
calmness, in His purity, in His power--more beautiful than a dream of Pericles.

I am frank to tell you that if I were on a jury, the personality of the man
would have a big drag with me--almost as much as what the man on the witness
stand would say. If I were called upon to try a man like Bryan, or Roosevelt, I
am frank to tell you that his personality would have a tremendous drag with your
Uncle Fuller.

Pilate had the personality of Jesus. He had the miracles of Jesus. I do not know
that Pilate had ever witnessed Christ's performing a miracle. I do not know that
Pilate had ever seen a man or woman who had been a recipient of the power of
Jesus. Positive am I that he knew about the miracles, for they were current
conversation. There was no section of the country where he could not find
somebody whom Jesus Christ had benefited, either by opening their eyes or curing
their lameness. So while certain things influenced Pilate for Jesus, other
things discouraged him. And while God is trying to bring influence to bear
toward making you a Christian, the Devil is bringing influence to bear toward
keeping you away from Jesus. So Pilate had these things to consider: first, what
would the Jews say? The Jews were at this time under the control of the Romans,
who were severe in their exactions; and Pilate was the very triple essence of
severity. So harsh was he that some of the influential Jews had gone to Rome to
intercede with Caesar to have Pilate recalled and a more kind and humane man
placed over them in Jerusalem.

Pilate knew that these Jews had no use for Jesus. He also knew that if they
heard that he had thrown his influence on the side of Jesus, it would only
increase their enmity and their hatred and they would bring stronger influence
to bear. Pilate figured: "These Jews up at Jerusalem have no use for Jesus. They
say He is a fraud. If they hear that I say He is not a fraud, then they will
have no use for me. But if they hear that I have denounced Him, I will win their
friendship, they will withdraw their opposition and I will hold my job."

Pilate was willing to let that gang nail Jesus Christ to the cross in order to
keep their friendship and hold his job. All over the land today there are people
who are willing to do the same thing for a trifling reason. Pilate, my friends,
asked himself: "What would the Jews say about it?"

Pilate should not have yielded to their clamor, but should have been willing to
sacrifice his office and his life to avoid convicting Jesus Christ, an innocent
Person. It was that Jewish hierarchy that threatened old Pilate as an
officeholder.

Pilate was a stand-pat, free-lunch, pie-counter, pliable, plastic, lickspittle,
rat-hole, tin-horn, weasel-eyed, wardheeling, grafting politician of his day,
pure and simple. Old Pilate was a direct product of the political system of
Rome. He was a typical machine politician. And there is no more low-down
scoundrel on earth than a mere typical machine politician.

So, "What will the Jews say?"

Listen, "What will Caesar say?" (Caesar's word was law.)

Pilate says: 'If Caesar at Rome hears that I have let Jesus go, and by that act
admitted that I believe His claims are just, he won't stand for it; so off will
come my head; I will surely lose my job. But if Caesar hears that I say this man
Jesus is a fraud and that I let them put Him on the cross,, he will know that I
am at my job, working for the interests of Rome. I will win Caesar's favor and
keep my job.'

Oh, he was willing to sacrifice Jesus Christ to please old Caesar and to please
the gang that had no use for Jesus Christ. I despise a man like that. But, hold
on! I don't have to go back to old Pilate--I don't have to go out of this city
to find people of the same low-down type as was old Pilate.

Pilate often heard of Jesus; no doubt he was prejudiced against Him, and was
longing for the chance to pass sentence against Jesus. I have imagined the look
of wonder that must have swept over the face of Pilate as Jesus was ushered into
his presence. Pilate turned to Him and said: 'Art thou the Son of God?' Jesus
answered: 'I am.'

He was either the Son of God, conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin
Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried; or He was a
bastard, for He was born out of wedlock. He was either conceived by the Holy
Ghost or He was an illegitimate offspring of a Jewish harlot.

Away with your damnable Unitarian theory that makes Jesus a bastard! My mother
taught me that the Good Book didn't lie. And if Jesus Christ wasn't the Son of
God, it does lie. My mother taught me that a good man didn't lie. And if Jesus
Christ wasn't the Son of God, He was a liar, and all the teachings of the Bible
are false.

I have often tried to imagine how different the early history might have been
had there been in Jerusalem at that time a great Jewish daily, a string of
popular newspapers down through Asia Minor--a Hebrew Lord Northcliffe, or a Jim
Keeley of the Chicago Tribune, or a Pulitzer or a Hearst. Just imagine what a
hard time those high priests would have had, had there been a syndicate of
newspapers playing upon the front page a three-column display headline about the
villainy of that little crowd of religious bigots and crooked politicians who
were intent on murdering Jesus Christ, the One who stood for the common people
as no other man in history had stood and no other man in history ever will
stand. So old Pilate called for a basin of water, walked out before the crowd,
washed his hands and said: 'I wash my hands of His blood. I find no fault in
Him.' If he had washed his old black heart at the same time, he would have been
a clean man.

There has come from across the seas a book bearing the strange title, Letters
From Hell. The introduction was written by George McDonald. In that book Pilate
is represented in the lost world bending over a stream of water. (I think the
author must have gotten his wires crossed. A stream of water in Hell would be
the limit, according to my idea. That is just like the average fool novel writer
anyway.) Pilate is represented bending over, dipping his hands in the water.
Some one touches him on the shoulder and says: "Will they never be clean?" And
with a shriek of agony that rang through the lost world he cried: "Oh, will they
never be clean! No!"

Poor Pilate! The blood of Jesus has been on you for nineteen hundred years in
Hell. It will be on you through an unending eternity. You had your chance that
day in front of the gang in Jerusalem, but you were willing to let them nail Him
to the cross rather than stand by the side of Jesus Christ and His truth.

"What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ?"

He didn't have the courage of his convictions. He was convinced that Jesus was
right. Oh, if Pilate had bared his back and said, "This Man is on the level; you
can take me and crucify me, but you can't touch one hair of His head"-he would
have taken his stand in the same company with Joseph of Arimathaea and other
famous men. We would have been glad to name our children after him. But tonight
we speak his name with ignominy and repulsion. He had his chance. He was a
miserable, white-livered coward.

Now, when old Pilate heard that Herod was in town he was glad to get rid of
Jesus. So he shoved Him over to Herod. Herod thought that Jesus was sort of a
sleight-of-hand performer- -legerdemain, Chautauqua entertainer and had a bunch
of high rollers; so he asked Jesus to come up and perform a few miracles just to
entertain the crowd. Jesus answered the old fox never a word. So they secured
Him and sent Him back to old Pilate. Herod had heard John the Baptist preach.
John had said: 'It isn't right for you to have your brother Philip's wife.'
Herod wanted Jesus and his brother Philip's wife, too; but he could not have
both. So he turned down Jesus and kept his brother Philip's wife, which was
against the law. Is William Jennings Bryan a fool? Is he a believer in Jesus
Christ as the Son of God? What are you going to do with the Christ of these
Christian men? Was the late William McKinley a fool? When the assassin's bullet
struck him down at Buffalo, fondly and reverently did he pray that he would be
spared. When they gave him the anesthetic and the doctors bent over him to catch
what might have been his last words, he was muttering the Lord's Prayer. We
smiled, dried our tears, shook hands and forgot our political differences.

Then the relapse came and we were informed that he was growing worse. They sent
for his wife. He looked up and said: "It's God's will. His way, not ours, be
done." McKinley started to repeat, "Nearer, My God to Thee, Nearer to Thee," and
the lamp of life flickered and went out forever. Down the streets of Buffalo
went the funeral procession and the band played, "Nearer, My God to Thee." The
railroad track from Buffalo to Washington was lined with people who stood with
bowed, uncovered heads and tear-stained cheeks as they sang, "Nearer, My God to
Thee."

I journeyed to Canton that I might be present at the funeral. Five hours I stood
on the street corner, opposite the Stark County Courthouse where his body was to
lie in state. The booming cannon told us that the funeral train had arrived.
Down the funeral procession came, and bands, with muffled drum, played, "Nearer,
My God to Thee." The hearse stopped opposite to where I stood, and the
detachment of sailors from the battleship Indiana and soldiers from the regular
army drew out the coffin and carried it into the courthouse where it was to lie
in state.

Up dashed a carriage. Out leaned that giant of the west, Theodore Roosevelt. By
his side was Elihu Root. By his side was Doctor Ritchie. I stood and watched
Admiral Croinshield and Admiral Farquhar. Then I saw General Otis, just returned
from the Philippines, and General Gillespie, both Roman Catholics, but both
earnest, devout Christians who believed in Jesus Christ. By their side walked
the finest specimen of manhood I have ever looked upon- -Lieutenant General
Nelson A. Miles.

Up the steps hobbled my friend, General David B. Henderson, of Dubuque, Iowa,
then speaker of the House of Representatives. By his side was William B.
Ellison. I stood and gazed upon men from the North and men from the South;
Democrats and Republicans of all classes. Then they were given the privilege to
walk through, and I was among the first two hundred to go through. When I looked
at the dead president's pale, upturned face, my eyes were blinded with tears and
I groped my way out of the north door.

I stood there bathed in the perfect sunlight of a perfect September day, and as
I stood there I said to myself: "Hail to God! I stand with the best men of this
nation when I stand beneath the cross of Jesus Christ, the Son of God."

What are you to do with the Christ when from the north, the south, the east and
the west the trumpet of Gabriel sounds and the unsaved dead come out of their
graves to the last judgment?

Lost! What will you do then? You can sit out there now and sneer at me. You can
damn me, call me crude, and illiterate; but old man, I have you beat.

Now, our acceptance with God is going to depend on what we do with Jesus. The
vilest sinner on earth, if he accepts Jesus Christ, will be accepted; and the
very moment you accept Jesus Christ your sins are forgiven. If you reject Jesus,
God will spurn and reject you. In the Bank of England is a machine--a marvelous
mechanism. It is used to weigh gold sovereigns. The Bank of England never takes
gold for its face value, as our banks do. They always weigh gold because gold
will wear off by circulation.

I had a friend out in Illinois who had some $45,000 in gold. He sent it to the
First National Bank of Chicago for deposit. They weighed it for him and it was
$1,500 shy on weight. The Bank of England always weighs gold. A man sits at the
machine there, the gold is dropped through a little slit and falls on a pan. If
it is standard weight it tips to the right; if it is a fraction short it tips to
the left. It never makes a mistake. Never! It saves the Bank of England hundreds
of pounds of sterling every year. That is nothing compared with the scrutiny
that we will lave to pass through when we stand before God. We can't muster
because of our wealth or intellectual standing. It is because of our acceptance
or rejection of Jesus Christ; then our becoming children of God depends on what
becomes of Jesus.

There is an insidious heresy: the teaching about the universal Fatherhood of God
and brotherhood of man, the teaching that we are all one flesh. But if you are
not a child of God, you are a creature of God. We are all creatures of God.
(Nobody is a child of God but a Christian.) You are my brother in the flesh;
that is, you are human and I am human. But you are not my brother in the spirit
unless you are a Christian. God is the Creator of us all, but God is the Father
of none but those who believe in Jesus Christ.

There was one way you came into the world--you were born. There is one way you
will get into Heaven--you must be born again. You have had a physical birth. You
must have a spiritual birth and that must come through Jesus Christ as the Son
of God. Does Jesus Christ lack anything in your esteem? Wherein does He fail to
measure up to your ideal? Where could He improve? What could you suggest that
would improve Jesus Christ? I would be very glad to know. A man said: "If you
can find me an absolutely flawless character, I will worship Him." I challenge
all the infidels on earth or in Hell to find one flaw in the character of Jesus
Christ.

Oh, the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Morgans, Vanderbilts, Armours, Astors are all
powerful in the commercial and the financial world. Kelvin, Agassiz, Newton,
Spencer are all prominent in the scientific world.

Caesar, Alexander, Hannibal, Napoleon, Wellington, Washington, Grant, Lee are
all powerful in military warfare.

Mightier in England than the king; mightier in Germany than the emperor;
mightier in America than Washington or Lincoln or Roosevelt or Bryan or
Jefferson is the name of Jesus Christ. That is the name that unhorsed Saul of
Tarsus. That is the name that knocked him blind on the highway. That is the name
that knocked Newton to the deck of the ship. That is the name that holds 500,
000, 000 of the world's population in its magic grip and power.

It is an encouraging name. Go to the cemetery, to the graves and read the
epitaphs on the tombstones of the people who used to rule twenty-five or forty
years ago. Oh, none so poor as to do them honor today.

Mighty names of earth will perish. All the great-Caesar, Cleopatra, Nero,
Charlemagne, Gregory VI, Catherine de Medici, Catherine of Russia, Louis XIV,
Louis XV, Louis XVI, Madam du Barry, Madam Pompadour--are gone.

We will perpetuate it in art. There will be other Raphaels, there will be other
Michelangelos, there will be other Murillos, there will be other da Vincis,
there will be other Rubens, there will be other Corots, other Millets, other
Munkacsy's to paint "Christ Before Pilate." We will perpetuate the name of Jesus
in art, in literature and in song.

There will be other Cowpers who will write, "God moves in a mysterious way His
wonders to perform: He plants His footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the
storm."

There will be other Topladys who will write, "The Rock of Ages." There will be
other Blisses who will write, "Almost Persuaded." There will be other Fanny
Crosbys who will write, "Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross"; "Pass Me Not, 0 Gentle
Saviour"; "Once I Was Blind--Now I Can See." There will be other Charles Wesleys
who will write, "Jesus, Lover of My Soul, Let Me to Thy Bosom Fly."

We will perpetuate it in architecture, Catholicism and Protestantism. There will
be other St. Pauls; there will be other St. Peters; there will be other St.
Johns, St. Johns the Divine; there will be other Kremlins at Moscow; there will
be other Cathedrals at Cologne; there will be other Madeleines at Paris.

Oh, you can cut, burn and crucify if you will, but if he who thus dies stands
for some immortal truth, his soul will merge from his mutilated casket and go
sweeping triumphantly down the halls of time.

Look at the love the pure and holy bear Him. See what an object of love He is
with them in Heaven. Look at Him when He got ready to come to this old earth.
The angels had to come down to sing to the shepherds, "For unto you is born this
day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord" (Luke 2:11).

Look at Him in His baptism of John, when God the Father stopped making worlds
and leaned over the battlements of Heaven and said: "This is my beloved Son, in
whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17).

Herschel the astronomer was a Christian. So were Jonathan Edwards, Blackstone,
Gladstone, Washington, Lincoln, Lee, Queen Victoria, Grant--honored in his tour
around the world as no man has ever been honored before. When Grant reached
Jerusalem a feast was proposed for him, and he said: "No, not in this city where
my Saviour bled and died. Let me get alone; I want to weep."

Look at the love the pure and holy bear Him.

"What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ?"

I am not worshipping a sleeping Christ in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathaea, but
a living, ruling reigning Christ, at the right hand of God, the Christ who is
coming to judge the quick and the dead.

"What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ?" You ought to have to
do because of the sacrifice He made for you.

If Shakespeare should enter this tabernacle, we would all stand up and bow. If
Jesus Christ should sweep down that aisle, we would all kneel and bow our heads
in humility as He swept by in all His regal splendor.

"What shall I do?" In the battle of San Juan Hill, in the Spanish American War,
a roughrider was wounded on an eminence. He was supposed dead, when he was seen
to wave his bloodstained handkerchief as the Krag-Jorgensen and the Mauser
bullets were singing their death song back and forth. One of his friends, a
cowboy from Arizona, turned to his colonel and said: "Colonel, I will go and
save him ."

"Oh, Jack," the colonel said, "you couldn't live out in that zone. You would be
cut to pieces. I guess he is gone." But presently they saw the wounded American
soldier wave his bloodstained handkerchief again. The cowboy said: "Look, he
isn't dead! I will go and save him."

He threw down his Krag-Jorgensen, and throwing his arms to his face as if to
protect himself from the bullets, he dashed out into the zone. But what
protection would flesh and bones have against steel bullets that could go three
miles and pierce through thirty-two inches of solid wood? He ran out, grabbed
his comrade and dragged him over the brow of the hill; then a bullet from a
Spanish sharpshooter struck him just above the heart. It went through him as if
he were made of papier-mache. He dropped his comrade and a crimson tide spurted
from his nose, eyes and lips. He said, "Tom, pard, I'm hit hard. It's all up
with me. I wish you well," and he reeled and fell dead. The man crept back into
the ranks to tell the story.

Oh, if Jesus could come down here, I wouldn't let Him get all the way here. I
would jump from the platform and go to meet Him. He saved me and my wife and
children, and I'll go where He commands me to go, I'll go where He wants me to
go. We ought to do that for Him because of the sacrifice He made for us.

Savonarola stood speaking in the square at Florence. The people surged around
God's lionhearted preacher who told that gang of ecclesiastical crooks and thugs
where to head in. He hurled the anathemas of God at them until they incinerated
him to ashes because he dared rebuke their crookedness and their infamy.
Savonarola stood preaching. He knew that these were the questions uppermost in
the minds of the Italians: What sort of government will emerge from all this?
Will it be a Republican form or will it continue the monarchy with the king? The
second question was, What will be our religion? Will it be the star and the
crescent of the Mohammedan, or will it be the cross of Jesus Christ?

Those were the questions, and as they all surged to hear him, he climbed on top
of his pulpit where the great crowd could see him and cried out, "Jesu Christo
al nostero sino salvatoro" --Jesus Christ, our King and Saviour.

Down the streets of Florence they surged. Through every building and every alley
they met the oncoming crowd, and they caught the spirit. Out into the country
they went until it seemed to leap as by magic from mountain peak to mountain
peak, until all Italy rang with the cry: "Jesus Christ is our King and Saviour."
Tonight the cross of Jesus Christ waves over Italy instead of the star and
crescent of the Mohammedan.

Oh, Jesus Christ waits to be your King. What is your answer? Are you ready to
crown Him? Are you ready to say, "Christ is ours"? Or will you dip the cross of
Jesus into the forces of evil? What is your answer?

Get up and let me look at you. Come on, whoever you are. I don't give a rap
where you came from or who you are in the world, come on! Come on! Don't sit
down; come on. You wouldn't sit down if we played the "Star Spangled Banner."
Come on! The cross of Jesus Christ is waving over the crowd. Come on, and give
me your hand and stand with me.


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  CHAPTER 8: WONDERFUL
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Wonderful by Billy Sunday "His name shall be called Wonderful..." Isaiah 9:6 IN
olden times all names meant something, and this is still the case among Indians
and all other people who are living in a primitive way. Whenever you know an
Indian's name and the meaning of it, you know something about the Indian. Such
names as Kill Deer, Eagle Eye, Buffalo Face and Sitting Bull tell us something
about the men who possessed them. This tendency to use names that are expressive
still crops out in camp life, and whenever men are thrown together in an
unconventional way. In mining, military and lumber camps nearly every man has a
nickname that indicates some peculiarity or trait of character. Usually a man's
nickname is nearer the real man than his right name.

All of our family names today had their origin in something that meant
something. All Bible names have a meaning, and when you read the Scriptures it
will always help you to a better understanding of their meaning to look up the
definition of all proper names.

There are two hundred and fifty-six names given in the Bible for the Lord Jesus
Christ, and I suppose this was because He was infinitely beyond all that any one
name could express. Of the many names given to Christ it is my purpose at this
time to briefly consider this one: "His name shall be called Wonderful." Let us
look into it somewhat and see whether He was true to the name given Him in a
prophecy eight hundred years before He was born. Does the name fit Him? Is it
such a name as He ought to have?

Wonderful means something that is transcendently beyond the common; something
that is away beyond the ordinary. It means something that is altogether unlike
anything else. We say that Yellowstone Park, Niagara Falls and the Grand Canon
of the Colorado are wonderful because there is nothing else like them. When
David killed Goliath with his sling he did a wonderful thing, because nobody
else ever did anything like it. It was wonderful that the Red Sea should open to
make a highway for Israel, and wonderful that the sun should stand still for
Joshua. Let us see whether Jesus was true to His name. His birth was wonderful,
for no other ever occurred that was like it. It was wonderful in that He had but
one human parent, and so inherited the nature of man and the nature of God. He
came to be the Prince of princes, and the King of kings, and yet His birth was
not looked forward to in glad expectation, as the birth of a prince usually is
in the royal palace, and celebrated with marked expressions of joy all over the
country, as has repeatedly happened within the recollection of many who are
here.

There was no room for Him at the inn, and He had to be born in a stable, and
cradled in a manger, and yet angels proclaimed His birth with joy from the sky,
to a few humble shepherds in sheepskin coats, who were watching their flocks by
night.

Mark how He might have come with all the pomp and glory of the upper world. It
would have been a great condescension for Him to have been born in a palace,
rocked in a golden cradle and fed with golden spoons, and to have had the angels
come down and be His nurses. But He gave up all the glory of that world, and was
born of a poor woman, and His cradle was a manger.

Think what He had come for. He had come to bless, and not to curse; to lift up,
and not to cast down. He had come to seek and to save that which was lost. To
give sight to the blind; to open prison doors and set captives free; to reveal
the Father's love; to give rest to the weary; to be a blessing to the whole
world, and yet there was no room for Him. He came to do that, and yet many of
you have no room for Him in your hearts. His birth was also wonderful in this,
that the wise men of the East were guided from far across the desert to His
birthplace by a star. Nothing like this ever announced the coming of any one
else into this world. As soon as His birth was known the king of the country
sought His life, and ordered the slaughter of the Innocents at Bethlehem. The
babies were the first Christian martyrs. His character was wonderful, for no
other has ever approached it in perfection. It is wonderful that the greatest
character ever known should have come out of such obscurity, to become the most
famous in all history. That such a time and such a country and such a people
should have produced Jesus Christ can be accounted for on no other ground than
His divinity. On his return from a trip to the Holy Land a minister was asked
what had made the greatest impression upon him while there. " Nazareth," he
answered, and for this reason: "The same kind of people are living there today
as in the time of Jesus, and they are about the worst specimens of humanity I
have seen anywhere. Lazy, lustful, ignorant and unspeakably wicked, and to think
of His coming out from such a people is to me a sure proof of His divinity. Had
I not been a believer in His divinity before going there, I should have to
believe in it now." His life was wonderful. Wonderful for its unselfishness, its
sinlessness and its usefulness. Even His enemies could not bring against Him any
graver charge than that He claimed God for His Father, and that He would do good
on the Sabbath day. Not the slightest evidence of selfishness or self-interest
can be found in the story of His life. He was always helping others, but not
once did He do anything to help Himself. He had the power to turn stones into
bread, but went hungry forty days without doing it.

While escaping from enemies who were determined to put Him to death He saw a man
who had been blind from birth, and stopped to give him sight, doing so at the
risk of His life. He never sought His own in any way, but lived for others every
day of His life. His first miracle was performed, not before a multitude to
spread His own fame, but in a far-away hamlet, to save a peasant's wife from
humiliation. He had compassion on the hungry multitude and wept over Jerusalem,
but He never had any mercy on Himself. His teaching was wonderful. It was
wonderful for the way in which He taught; for its simplicity and clearness, and
adaptation to the individual. Nowhere do you find Him seeking the multitude, but
He never avoided the individual. And His teaching was always adapted to the
comprehension of those whom He taught. It is said that the common people heard
Him gladly, and this shows that they understood what He said. He put the cookies
on the lower shelf. No man had to take a dictionary with him when he went to
hear the Sermon on the Mount. He illustrated His thought and made plain His
meaning by the most wonderful word-pictures. The preacher who would reach the
people must have something to say, and know how to say it so that those who hear
will know just what he means.

Jesus made His meaning clear by using plenty of illustrations. He didn't care a
rap what the scribes and Pharisees thought about it, or said about it. He wanted
the people to know what He meant, and that is why He was always so interesting.
The preacher who can't make his preaching interesting has no business in the
pulpit. If he can't talk over ten minutes without making people begin to snap
their watches and go to yawning all over the house, he has misunderstood the
Lord about his call to preach.

Jesus was interesting because He could put the truth before people in an
interesting way. We are told that without a parable He spake not to any man. He
made people see things, and see them clearly. It is wonderful that this humble
Galilean peasant, who may never have gone to school a day in His life, should
have made Himself a Teacher of teachers for all time. The pedagogy of today is
modeling after the manner of Christ closer and closer every day.

He was wonderful in His originality. The originality of Jesus is a proof of His
divinity. The human mind cannot create anything in an absolute sense. It can
build out of almost any kind of material, but it cannot create. There is no such
thing as out-and-out originality belonging to man. You cannot imagine anything
that does not resemble something you have previously seen or heard of.

I grant that you can take a cow and a horse and a dog and a sheep and from them
make animals enough to fill Noah's ark, but you must have the cow and the horse
and the dog and the sheep for a beginning. Everything you make will simply be a
modification of the various forms and properties of them.

There is said to be nothing new under the sun, and there is a sense in which it
is true. Everything is the outgrowth of something else. The first railway cars
looked like the old stagecoaches, and the first automobiles looked like
carriages. It is that way about everything. No man ever made a book, or even a
story, that was altogether unlike all others. The stories we hear today on the
Irish and Dutch are older than the Irish and Dutch. You can find stories like
them in the earliest literature, but you can't find any stories anywhere in any
literature that even in the remotest way resemble the parables of Jesus. Such
parables as the prodigal son and the Good Samaritan are absolutely new
creations, and so proclaim Jesus as divine, because He could create. His
teaching was wonderful, not only in the way He taught, but in what He taught. He
taught that He was greater than Moses. Think of the audacity of it! Making such
claims as that to the Jews, who regarded Moses as being almost divine. Think of
the audacity of some man of obscure and humble parentage standing before us
Americans and trying to make us think he was greater than George Washington.

Jesus also declared that He fulfilled the prophecies and the law of Moses, and
the only effort He ever made to prove His claim was to point to the works that
He did. The first thing an impostor always does is to over-prove his case. Jesus
never turned His hand over to try to convince His enemies that He was the
Christ. You have to explain a coal-oil lamp, but you don't need to waste any
breath in giving information about the power of the sun. The springtime will do
that by making all nature burst into bud, flower and leaf, and the power of
Christ is shown just as convincingly in the changed lives of men and women who
believe in Him.

Jesus taught that all would be lost who did not believe on Him. I have seen
multitudes of saved people, but I have yet to see one who did not get his
salvation by believing on Christ. Find the place in this world that comes the
nearest to being like hell itself, and you will find it filled with those who
are haters of Jesus Christ. You can't argue it. Go into saloons, gambling hells,
and such places, and the people you find there are all haters of Jesus Christ,
and the more of them you find the more the place in which you find them will be
like hell itself.

Jesus taught that He was equal to God. He said, "He that hateth Me hateth My
Father also" (John 15:23). Did you ever know of anybody else making such claims?
He said, "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest." Offering to bear the burden of the whole world. Think of it! He said,
"I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more
abundantly." And He said, "I am the resurrection and the life; and he that
believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth
and believeth in Me shall never die." Surely He was wonderful in what He taught.

It is not surprising that He so stirred them in the Capernaum synagogue, where
He taught them not as the scribes, but as one having authority. Is it any wonder
that they were right after Him for heresy? Let any one today begin to teach in
our churches something as entirely new as the teachings of Jesus were, and see
what will happen.

He was wonderful in what He prophesied of Himself. He foretold how He would die,
and when He would die. It was wonderful that He should have been betrayed into
the hands of those who sought His life, by one of His own trusted disciples, and
wonderful that He should have been sold for so low a price.

Wonderful, too, that He should have been condemned to death in the way in which
He was, by both the religious and civil authorities, and on the testimony of
false witnesses, in the name of God, when all the laws of God were defied in the
trial. It was wonderful that He was tormented and tortured so cruelly before
being sent to the cross, and that He should have been put to death in the brutal
manner in which He was. The time of His death was also wonderful; on the day of
the Passover, thus Himself becoming the real Passover, to which the passover
lamb had so long pointed. The great publicity of His death was also wonderful.
It is doubtful if any other death was ever witnessed by so many people. Hundreds
of thousands of people were in Jerusalem, who had come from everywhere to attend
the Passover. The sky was darkened, and the sun hid his face from the awful
scene. A great earthquake shook the city; the dead came out of their graves, and
went into the city, appearing unto many, and the veil of the temple was rent
from top to bottom. And remember that up to that time no eye had been allowed to
look behind that veil, except that of the high priest, and then only once a
year, on the great Day of Atonement. His resurrection was wonderful. He had
foretold it to His disciples, and had done so frequently, always saying,
whenever He spoke of His death, that He would rise again on the third day, and
yet every one of them appeared to forget all about it, and not one of them was
expecting it. None of them thought of going to the sepulcher on the morning of
the third day, except the women, and they only to prepare His body more fully
for the grave. Womanhood has always been on the firing line. This shows how
fully they had abandoned all hope when they saw Him dead. Some left the city,
for we are told of two who went to Emmaus. The manner of His resurrection was
godlike. No human mind could ever have imagined such a scene. Had some man
described it in the way in which he thought it should have occurred, he would
have had earthquakes and thunders and a great commotion in the heavens. A sound
like that of the last trump would have proclaimed to all the terrified
inhabitants of Jerusalem that He was risen. But see how far different it was. An
angel rolled away the stone from the mouth of the sepulcher as quietly as the
opening of the buds in May, and the women, who were early there, found no
disorder in the grave, but the linen clothes with which they had tenderly robed
His body were neatly folded and tidily placed. And then how wonderful are the
recorded appearances after the resurrection, again so different from what man
would have had them. He appeared to every one of His friends, and to His best
friends, but not a single one of His enemies got to see Him. I know that this
story of the resurrection is true, because none but God would have had things
happen in the order that they did, and in the way in which they occurred. Had
the story been false the record would have made Jesus go to Pilate and the high
priest, and to the others who had put Him to death, to prove that He was risen.
The effect of His teaching upon the world has been wonderful. Remember that He
left no great colleges to promulgate His doctrines, but committed them to a few
humble fishermen, whose names are now the most illustrious in all history.
Looked at from the human side alone, how great was the probability that
everything He had said would be forgotten within a few years. He never wrote a
sermon. He published no books. Not a thing He said was engraved upon stone or
scrolled upon brass, and yet His doctrines have endured for two thousand years.
They have gone to the ends of the earth, and have wrought miracles wherever they
have gone. They have lifted nations out of darkness and degradation and sin, and
have made the wilderness to blossom as the rose. When Jesus began His ministry
Rome ruled the world, and her invincible legions were everywhere, but now
through the teachings of the humble Galilean peasant, whom her minions put to
death, her power and her religion are gone. The great temple of Diana of the
Ephesians is in ruins, and no worshipper of her can be found. When Jesus fed the
five thousand with a few loaves and fishes, and healed the poor woman who
touched the hem of His garment, there wasn't a church, or a hospital, or an
insane asylum, or other poor house in the world, and now they are nearly as
countless as the sands upon the seashore. When the bright cloud hid Him from the
gaze of those who loved Him with a devotion that took them to martyrdom, the
only record of His sayings was graven upon their hearts, but now libraries are
devoted to the consideration of them. No words were ever so weighty or so
weighed as those of Him who was so poor that He had not where to lay His head.
The scholarship of the world has sat at His feet with bared head, and has been
compelled to say again and again, "Never man spake as He spake." His utterances
have been translated into every known tongue, and have carried healing on their
wings wherever they have gone. No other book has ever had a tithe of the
circulation of that which contains His words, and not only that, but His
thoughts and the story of His life are so interwoven in all literature that if a
man should never read a line in the Bible, and yet be a reader at all he could
not remain ignorant of the Christ.

He is true to His name because He is a wonderful Savior now. You have only to
lift your eyes and look about you to see that His wonderful salvation is going
on everywhere today. This vast audience throws the lie back into your teeth when
you say the religion of Jesus Christ is dying out. There has never been a time
when the love of Christ gripped the hearts of humanity as it does today. When
John the Baptist, in prison, sent two of his disciples to Jesus, saying: "Art
thou He that should come, or do we look for another?" Jesus sent this answer to
John: "The blind receive their sight; the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed,
and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached
unto them"; and that test of His power is as apparent in nearly every part of
the world today as it was in Galilee. If you have eyes to see the works of God,
you will always find them going on. The heavens declare the glory of God, but
there are people so blind they can't see anything but a spell of weather in the
rainbow.

Jerry McAuley in prison, a man who had lived by crime, and who had never heard
the name of God outside of profanity; as blind and dead to anything good as a
stone, one Sunday in the prison chapel heard a verse of Scripture quoted that
took hold of his attention. He thought he would like to see it and read it for
himself. So he took the Bible in his cell and began to search for it. He didn't
know but one sure way to find it, and that was to begin at the first verse in
the Bible and read straight on until he came to it. The verse he wanted was in
Hebrews, away over in the back part of the New Testament.

Jerry read on, chapter after chapter, and day after day, looking for that verse,
but long before he found it he found Jesus Christ-just as some of you would do
if you would only be honest with God, and give Him a chance at you by reading
His word. From that time on everybody who came near Jerry McAuley knew that the
eyes of the man born blind had been opened in him. He started the Water Street
Mission in New York, where I don't believe a service was ever held in which
somebody was not converted.

Any number of men who were headed straight for the devil are preaching the
gospel today because they were stopped by the light of God and the voice of His
Christ as suddenly at St. Paul was. Yes, He is a wonderful Savior because He is
able to save to the uttermost now. A man would be a great surgeon who could save
ninety per cent, of those upon whom he operated, but mark this: Jesus Christ
never lost a case. He never found a case that was too hard for Him. His
disciples were continually finding cases they thought were hopeless, and this
shows how little they knew Him while He was with them. Jesus never sent anybody
away who came honestly and earnestly seeking His help. They brought to Him all
kinds of desperate cases, but at a word or a touch from Him their troubles were
all gone. The hardest cases were no more difficult for Him than the easiest, and
the same is true today, for there is no change in Him. He is the same yesterday,
today and forever. He can save the scarlet sinner-the man who commits murder-as
easily as He can the woman who cheats at cards.

He is a wonderful Savior, too, because He can save so quickly. Quicker than
thought He can give you life. It is only, look and live. As quick as you can
come He receives you, and as quickly as you could receive a present you had been
wanting for years, you can have salvation. "Him that cometh to Me I will in
nowise cast out." "To as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become
the sons of God." No need of taking very much time about that. In a meeting
Thomas Harrison was holding, a railroad engineer came forward with his watch in
his hand and said, "Mr. Harrison, can I be saved in ten minutes? I must leave
here to take my train out then."

"Yes," replied Harrison, "you can be saved in ten seconds." The man dropped on
his knees, was quickly saved and had seven minutes to spare. A conductor on a
fast Pennsylvania train, in Ohio, was converted while crossing a bridge fifty
feet long, when going at the rate of a mile a minute. Yes, indeed, He is a
wonderful Savior because He can save so quickly.

Moody used to tell of a banker in San Francisco, who was awakened in the night
by a burglar at his bedside. The robber held a revolver almost against his face,
and said, "If you move I'll kill you!" The banker said, "God have mercy on my
soul!" and knocked the burglar down before he could pull the trigger, and was
soundly converted before the man struck the floor, as his life afterward proved.
And now I come to the last evidence I will give you that He is true to His name,
and that is-He is a wonderful Savior because He saved me. There is nothing that
can be so convincing to a man as his own experience. I do not know that I am the
son of my mother any more certainly than I know that I am a child of God, and I
do not know that I have been born in a natural way any more convincingly than I
know that I have been born of the Spirit. And now let me ask you this: Has this
wonderful Savior saved you? Do you know Him as your Savior? Have you ever given
Him your case? When the proof is so overwhelming that He does save, and has been
saving for centuries, and that none have ever been saved or ever can be saved
except through Him, is it not wonderful that any one can be indifferent to the
claims of Jesus Christ?


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Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/billy-sunday-collection/
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