Newspapers / Eastern Courier (Hertford, N.C.) / April 3, 1895, edition 1 / Page 6
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REV. DR. TALMAGE The Emiant Brooklyn Divine's Sun day Sermon. Subject: Tongues of Fire.' Tex: "Have ye received the Holy Ghost." AeU xix., 2. The word ghost, which mean3 a soul, or spirit, has been degraded in common par lance. We talk of ghosts as baneful and frigttful and in'a frivolous or superstitious way Bat my text speaks of a Ghost who i3 omnipotent and divine and everywhere pres- nf an A ninpfv-nnft times in th New Testa ment called the Holy Ghost. The only time I ever heard this text preaehei from was in the opening days of my ministry, when a glorious" ola 3 :otch minister came up to help mo in my village church. On the dayof my ordination and installation he said, "If you get into the corner of a Saturday night without enough sermons for Sunday, send for me, and I will come and preach for you." The fact ought to be known that the first three year3 of a pastor's life are appallingly arduous. No other profes sion makes the twentieth part of tha demand on a young man. If a secular preacher prepares one or two speeches for a politi cal campaign it is considered arduous. If a. lecturer prepares one lecture for a year, young pastor has two sermons to deliver every Sabbath before the same audience, be sides all his o'.her work, and the most of ministers never recover fron. tha awful ner vous strain of the first three years. Be sympathetic with aU young ministers and withhold your criticisms. My aged Scotch friend responded to my first "(Kill and came and preached from the text that I now announce. I remember noth ing but. the text. It was the last sermon he . ever preached. On the following Saturday he wa3 called to his heavenly reward. But I remember just how he appeared as, leaning over the pulpit, he looked into the face of the audience, and with earnestness and "pathos and electric force asked them, in the words of my text, "Have ya received the Holy Ghost?" The office of this present dis course is to open a door, to unveil a Person age, to introduce a force not sufficiently rec ognized. He is as great as God. He is God. The second verse of the first chapter of the Bible introduces Him Genesis i., 2. "The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters" that is, as an albatross or eagle spreads her wings over her young and warms them into life and teaches them to fly, so the Eternal Spirit spread His great, broad, radiant wings over this earth in its callow and unfle iged state and warmed it into life and fluttered over it and set it winging its way through immensity. It is the tip top of all beautiful and sublime suggesiiveness. Can you not almost see the outspread wings over the nest of young worlds? "The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Another appearance of the Holy Ghost was at Jerusalem during a great feast. Strangers speaking seventeen different languages were resent from many parts of the world. But n one house they heard what seemed like the coming of a cyclone or hurricane. It made the trees bend and- the houses quake. The cry was, "What is that?" And then a forked flame ot fire tipped each forehead, and what with the blast of wind and the dropping fire a panic took place, until Peter explained that it wa3 neither cyclone nor conflagration, but the brilliance aud anointing and baptismal power oi tna uo.y Ghost. That scene was partially repeated in a forest when Rev. John Easton-was preach ing. There was the sound - of a rushing, mighty wind, and the people looted to the sky to see if there were any signs of a storm, but it was a clear sky, yet the sound of the wind was so great that horses, frightened, broka loose from their fastenings, and the whole assembly felt that the sound was su- fernatural and Pentecostal. Ob, what an nflnite and almighty and glorious "persori nge is the Holy Gaost! Hi brooded this planet into life, and now that through sin it has became a deal world Ho will brood it the second time into life. Periled-ait erupt would bo a comparison between the threa parsons of the Godhead. They are equal, but there is soma ' consideration ' which v.t tashes itself to the third oecsou of the Trin ity, tao HMy Ghost, that docs not attach itself to either God tha Father or Cod tha Son. We may grievu G d tha Father aad Kcieve God the Son' aud 13 forIvu, bat wa are directly told that th?r is a s'n against th Ily Gaosr, which shall never bo for giv?u.Jther in this world or in the world to c nn Aud it is v.on'l .vful that while on tha f.lreet you hear the nam of X od and Jesus Cari-t u-ed in. pro?aaity you u ver hear the words If !y GUot. T-m hour I speak of the 7.i : ly G.ioit as Biblical interpreter, as a hu ni '.a. usiruHor, m a solaa for the broker. L-nrijJ. an apra;her's ro-enloreoavjnt-' V t Jitttetea mi?3 of contradiction?, an a.':u-:n?.tioa of impossibilities, ' unlas is.a Holy Ghost heln3 us to unleiciaud it. Tao liiUo says of itsqlf that the S:dptUi.o is not lor "private interpretation," but "holy m -in r Gj spaka as they, were moved by the Holy .Gh-:-" that is. net private interpretation, 1 -t It Ly G'a ost i aiarpretatlon. Pile on your etu ly tibie all tli3 commentaries of the Bible- :ijtthiw H?hry andSjottani Ad am Clarke . r.ni A;)i-c Uvnies an 1 Bis:i a i l Alexander, ani all Sae arjhrj bogies, nrA all the Blbla ntjlioaaife;', r.al alt tha rears of Pales :ine, an l-V-l t:Ja iafrna:i.?:il serloi of Suulay v;i A id if that U all you will no: i:n i -.laVi the .ilseper a il grander mean ings of the B.bi-a s v.cil a Vaxi Clirlsti i i ivwar.ta'neer who, .Sunday momhig, a:?i "t.;vir,- 3hk?n down the fodder for th'. cst t' ""7,r s ' irt? biz :t?.d. tVwuplns v'l Yfo BiDle, aad with a prayer tutu (a u.4 heavens asks for the Holy Ghost to trufold the book. No more unreasonable would I be if I should take up The Novoe Vremya of St. Petersburg, all printod in Eassian, and say, "There is no sense in thl3 newspaper, for I cannot understand one Boa of all it3 col umns," than for any man to take up tha Bible, and without getting Hly Ghost il lumination a3 to its meaning say: "This Book insults my common sense. I cannot understand it. Away with theiincongruity!" No one but th3 Holy Ghost, who inspired the Scripjures, can expl in tha Scrip.ures. Fully realize thai, and you will be a 3 enthu siastic a lover of the old book a3 my vener able friend who told me in Philadelphia last week that he was reading the Bible through the fifty-ninth time, and it became more at tractive and thrilling every tima ha went through it. In the saddlebags that hnng across my horse's back as I rode from Jeru salem down to the Dead Sea and up to Da mascus I had all the books about Palestine that I could carry, but many a man on his knees, in the privacy of his room, has had flashed upon him more vivid .appreciation of the word of God than many! a man who has visited all the scenes of Christ's birth, and Paul's eloquence, and Peter's imprisonment, and Joshua'3 prpwes3, andEiijah's ascen sion. I do not depreciate any of the helps for Bible study, bat I do say that they all together come infinitely short without a di rect communication from the throne of God in response to prayerful solicitation. We. may find many interesting things about the Bible without especial illumination as how many horses Solomon had in his stables, or how long was Noah's ark. or who Was the only woman whesa full name is given in tha S 2riptures,or which is the middle versa of the Bible, and all thai will do you no more good than to be able to tell how many beanpoles there are in your neighbor's garden. The learned Earl of Chatham heard the famou3 Mr. Cecil preach about th.9 Holy Ghost and said to a friend on the way home from church: I could not understand it, and do you suppose anybody understood it?" "Ob, yes," said his Christian friend, "there were uneducated women and some little children present who understood it." I war rant you that the English soldier had under supernal influence read the book, for after the battle of Inkermann was over he was found dead with his hand glued to tha page of the open Bible by his own blood, and the words adhered to his hands a3 they buried him, "I am the resurrection and the life; he mat bebeveth in Me, though dead, yet shall he live." " I Next consider the Holy Ghost as a human reconstructor. We must be made over again. " Christ and Nicodemus talked about it. Theologians call it regeneration. I do n )t care what you call it, but we have to be re constructed by the Holy Ghost. We become new creatures, hating what. we onca loved and loving what we onca hated. If sin were a luxury, it must become a detestation. If we preferred bad associations, we must pre fer good associations. In most cases it is such a complete change that the world notices the difference and begins to askf "What has come over that man? Whom has he been with? WThat has so affeeted him? . What has ransacked his entire nature? What has turned him square about?" Take two pictures of Paul one on the road to Damascus to kill the disciples of Chriat, the other on the road to Ostia to die for Christ. Come nearer home and look at the man who found his chief delight in a low clas3 of club rooms, hiccoughing around a card table and then stumbling down the front steps after midnight and staggering home war J, and that same man, one week afterward, with hi.s family on tha way to a prayer meeting. What has done it? It must be something tremendous. It must' be God. It must be the Holy Ghost. Notice the Holy Ghost as tha sol&?ar. of broken hearts. Christ cails Him tha Comforter. Nothing does the world so much want as comfort. The most people have been abused, misrepresented, cheated, lied about, swindled, bereft. What i3 needed is balsam for the wounds, lantern for dark roads, rescue from maligning pursuers, a lift from the marblo slab of tombstones. Life to most has been a semifailure. They have not got what they wanted. They have not reached that which they started for. Frien ls betray. Change of business stand loses old custom and does not bring enough custom to make up for the loss. Health becomes precarious when ona most needs strong muscle and steady nerve an I clear brain. Out of this audience of thousands and thou sands, if I should ask all thosa who have -b6en -unhurt in the struggle of life to stand up, "or all standing to hold up their right hasds, not oue would move. Ob, how much wo need tha Holy Ghost as comforter! He reciie3 tha swe-t gospel promises to the hardly bestead. H : assures of mercy mingled with the saverlties. He consoles with thoughts of coming release. He telb of a haaven whera tear is never wept and burden is nov'e 'carried ad injustice is never suffered. Comfort for aii'the young people who are maltreated at horn?, or re ceive Insufficient income, or are rob'bad of their schooling, or kept b?.?k from positions they earned by the putting forward of others less worthy. Comfort for all thsse men aid women midway iu tha path of lire, worn out with what tb.3y hava already gone through, and with no "brightening future. C Din fort for thesa 'aged n?s amid .many infirmities an I who feei themselves to ba In the way in the home o? business which themselves es tablished with their own 'grit. Tho Holy Ghost comfort. I thinlr. general ly comes in the shaje cf a sotiloquv. Yo i find yourself styiug to yourself: "Wei.1, I orught not to go-on this way about my mother's death. She ha I sua"?red eivgj. She had borne t;vr '.pearia's bur lens long enough. I am gi-vl that father and mother are together in hrav tvi tha'v will b waltincto greet :t i v:l ; on-y a lit- takes." Or you soUloquiza, saying- "It ia hard to lose my property. I am sura I worked hard enough for it. But God will take care of us, and, a3 to the children, the monav might have spoiled them, and we find that tho3e who hava to struggle for themselves generally turnout best, and it will all ba well if this upsetting of our world ly resources leads U3 to lay up treasures in heaven." Or you soliloquize, saying: "It was hard to give up that boy when the Lord took him. I ex pected graat things of him, and, oh, how we miss him out of tha house, and 'there are so many things I come across that make one think of h'lm, and he waal such a splendid fellow! -Bat then what an escape he ha3 made from tha temptations and sorrows which com9 to all who grow up, and it is a grand thing to have him safe from all possible harm, and there are all thosa Bible promises ior parents ; who h&ve lost children, anl we shall resi a drawing haavaaward that wa could not hava otherwise experienced." Anl aftar you have aid that you gat that relief which come3 fro si an outburst of tears. I do not say to yoa, as some say, do not cry. God pity peo ple in troubla who hava tha parch ad eyeball and the dry eyelid and cannot shed a tear. That makes maniacs. To God's paople tears are the dews of the night dashed with sun rise. I am so glad you can weap. Bat you think these things you . say to yourself aro only soliloquies. No, no; they are tha Com forter, who is the Holy Ghost. Notice also tha Holy Ghost as tha preach er's reinforcement. You and I have known preachers eneyelopadie in knowledge, brill iant as an iceberg whan the sun smites it, and with Chastarfieldian address and rhetorical hand uplifted with diamond big enough to dazzle an assembly and so sur charged with. vocabulary that when they left thi3 life it might be said of each of them as Da Quinsey said of another that in the act of dying ha committed a robbery, absconding with a valuable polyglot dictionary, yet no awakening or converting or sanctifying re sult, while some plain man. with humblest phraseology, has seen audience3 whelmed with religious influence. It was the Holy Ghost. What a useful thing it would be if every minister would give the history of his sermons! Years ago at an outdoor, meeting In the State of New York I preached to many thousands. There had baen much prayer on the grounds for a great outpouring of the Holy Ghost at that service, and the awakening power exceeded anything I ever witnessed since I began to preach, with per haps tha exception of two or three ooeasions. Clergymen and Christian workers by tha score and hundreds express ad, themselves a3 having been blessad 'during tha service. That afternoon I took the train for an out door meeting in the State of Ohio, where I was to preach on the night of the next day. A3 the sarmon had proved so useful the day before and the thema was fresh in my mind, I re3olvad to reproduce it. and did reproduce it a3 far as I could, but taerasult was nothing at all. Never had I saamad to have any thing to do with a flatter failure. What waa the differenca between the two ' serv ices? Some will say, "I'ou were tired with a long journey." No, I wa3 not tired at all. Soma will say, "The temporal circumstances in the first casa ware more favorable than in the last." No, they were more favorable in the last. The differenca was in the power of the Holy Ghost mightily present at the first service, not saamingly present at all at the second. I call upon tha ministers of Ameri ca to give the history of sermons, for I be lieve it will illustrate as nothing elsa can the truth of that Scripture, "Not by might nor by ' power, out by my Spirit, saitn tne .Lord. On the Sabbath of the dedication of one of our churches in Brooklyn, at the morning service, 328 souls stood up to profess Christ. They were the converts in the Brooklyn 'Academy of Mu3ic, where we had been wor shiping. The reception of sj many mem bers and many of them baptized by immer sion had made it an arduous service, which continued from half past ten in the morning until half past two in the afternoon. From that service we went home exhausted, be cause there i3 nothing so exhausting as deep emotion. A messenger was sent out to obtain a preacher for that night, but the search was unsuccessful, as all- the ministers were engaged for ' some other place. With no preparation at all for the evening service, except the looking in Cruden's Concordance for a text and feeling almost too weary to stand up, I begun the service, saying audibly while the opening song was being sung, although because of the singing no one but God heard it: '0h. Lord, Thou knowest my insufficiency for this service! Come down in gracious power upon this people." The place was shaken with the divine presence. As far as we could fini oxit, over 400 persons were converted that night. Hear it, all young men enterine. the ministry; hear it, all Christian worker It was the Hjly Ghost. In the Second Reformed Church, of Somer Ville. N. J., in m v hrwhAnrt dsvs 7Tr nc borne, the evangelist, cams to hold a special service. I see him now as he stood in the pulnlt. Before he announced his text and before he had uttered a word of his sermon strong mea wept aloud, and it wa like the day of judgment. It was the Holy Ghost. In 1S57 the electric telegraph tore strango message?. One of them read, "Mv dear pa rents will rejoice to hear that I have found peace' with God." Another read. "Dear mother, the work eont imres, and I, too, have been converted." Another read, "At lat faith and roace.' In Vermont a religious meeting was singing the hvmn, "Waiting and Wat :;hing f f r Me." The song rolled out on tne r.ight air. and a man halted and said, "I wonder if there will be any one waiting and watehina: for me?" It started htm heaven ward. What was it? The Hoiv Ghot. In that 1S37 Ja-ncs's Hall. Philadelphia, and Fulton street prayer meeting. New York, 11- j saved and tho rising of the devotional tides !3?4Jf prayer, mtinjs were teli ia all tha cities. Ship3 came into hr-bor captain and all the sailora saved on"that voyage. Police and fire departments met in their rooms for .divine worship. A Albany the Legislature of the State of New York as sembled in the rooms of the Court of Apneak for religious services. Congressional imioa prayer meeting was opened at Washington. From whence came the power? From the Holy Ghost. That power shook New York That power shook America. That rower shook the Atlantic Ocean. That power shook the earth. That power could take 'this en tire audience into the peace of the gonei quicker than you could lift your eyes heaven ward. Come, Holy Ghost! Come, n0iy Ghost! Ha has come! Ha is here' I twi Him in my heart. There are thousands whd feel Him in their hearts, convicting some saving some, sanctifying some. 1 The difference iu j evangelical usefulness is not so much a difference in brain, in cchol arship or elocutionary gifts as in lloU Ghost power. You will not have much sur prise at the extraordinary career of Charles G. FinHey1 as a soul winner, if you know that soon after his conversion he ha I this expert- ence of the Paraclete. Ha says: "As I turned and! was about to take a seat ' by the fire I received a baptism of the Holy Ghost. Without any expectation of it, with out ever having the thought in my mind that there was any such thing for me. with out any recollection that I had ever heard the thing mentioned by any person in tha world, the Holy Ghost descended upon me in a manner that seamed to go through me body and soul. Indeed, it seemed to come in waves and waves of liquid love, for I conld not express it in any other way. It seemed like the very breath . of God. I can recollect distinctly that it seemed to fan me like im mense wings. No words can express the wonderful love that was shed abroai In my heart. I wept aloud with joy and love. These waves came over me and over me and over me, one after the other until, I recall!' cried out, 'I shall die if these waves continue to pass over me. I said, 'Lord, I cannot bear anymore.'" 'j Now, my hearers, let 500 of us, whether clerical or lay workers, get such a divine visitation as that, iand we could take this world for God before the clock of the next century strikes 1. ' How many marked instances of Holy Ghost power? When a blaektrum peter took His place in Whitefleld's audience proposing to blow the trumpet at ,a certain point in tha service and put everything into derision, somehow he could not get the trumpet to his lips, and at the close of the meeting he sought out the preacher and asked for his prayers. It was the Holy Ghost. What was tha matter with Hedley Vicars, ;the memora ble soldier, when he sat with his Bible before him in a tent, and his deriding comrades came in and jeered saying, "Turned Metho dist, eh?" And another sai4: "You hypo crite! Bad as you were I never thought you would coma to thisj old fellow." And then he became the soldier evangelist, and when a soldier in another regiment hundreds of miles away telegraphed his spiritual anxie ties to Hadley Yicars, saying, "What shall I do?" Vicars telegraphed as thrilling a mes sage as ever went oyer tha wires, "Believe on. the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." . j What power was being felt? It was the Holy Ghost. And Svhat more appropriate? For the Holy Ghost is a "tongue of fire," and the electricity that flies along the wires . is u tongue of fire. And that reminds me of what I might do now. From the place where J staad on this platform thera are invisible wires of lines or influence stretching to every heart in all the saats on tha main floor and up Into the boxes and galleries, and there are other innumerable wires or Unas of influence reaching out from this placa into the vast beyond and across continents and under the seas, for in my recent journey around tha world I did not find a country where 1 hai not been preaching this g03pel for many years through the printing press. So a telegraph operator; sits or stands at a given point aud sends messages in all directions, and you only hear the click, click, click of the electric apparatus, but tha telegrams go on their errand. God help ma now to touch tha right key and send tha right 1 message along tharight wires to the right places. Who shall we first call up? To' whom shall I send the message? i I guess I will sen! the first to all tha tired, wherever they are, for there ara so many tired soul3. Here goes theChristly message, "Come unto Me, all ye who ara weary, aud I will givo you rest." Misplaced Gratitude. I was told, the other day, air .amusing- child story, tlie utter simplicity of which redeems it from irreverence. A certain worthy woman had a family of small children, to whom siio. fw quently made edifying remarks. One day she sent her little boy for the? milk: he was away some time, then returned empty handed, with an apprehensive expression in his1 eye. Siding up to Li mother, he remarked; "Ma, one ought' to thank God for everything, oughtn't one? I thiuk I've heard you say so." 4 "Yes, that'r quite right," rcplk' 1 tj;f? unsuspect'ng parent; .whereupon t-:' child's face broadened witii a-relieved smile. ! ' "Well then, thank God I've hrcke:: ta ? jug," said he. j His position was unmistakably lo-i-ca!, and it took his gocd mother sc::i2 tima to explain to him that ' circr.ni-stances- altered cases," and thr.t if L -broke jugs again he wcuH I' isuu "
Eastern Courier (Hertford, N.C.)
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April 3, 1895, edition 1
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