Chapter VII: Part 7

Three leading thoughts are suggested thereby: _I. All men, like the inhabitants of Egypt, are exposed to the destruction and penalty of death._ _II. A means of escape has been supplied._ _III. One condition that connects with that escape._ And may God's Holy Spirit work enlightenment and conviction!

That man, to take up the first point, is exposed to destruction and death, is the clear and abundant testimony of Scripture, and it tells why. "All have sinned," it says, and, "The wages of sin is _death_." "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." And is there a single heart among the sons and daughters of Adam that dare offer remonstrance?

Since the time that the first human pair, smitten by the sense of guilt, hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden, and their first-born son, with his hands reddened by a brother's blood, declared that his punishment was greater than he could bear, down to the ignoble disciple who, after selling the life of his Master for filthy lucre, unable to bear the upbraidings of conscience, went and hanged himself, the consciousness of having broken God's Law and exposed one's self to the righteous displeasure of the great Lawgiver, has haunted and pained man everywhere and at all times, and filled him with a fear which all his own efforts and every human appliance is powerless to remove. Why go farther than our own selves? Is there a person here who can declare that never for a moment has his soul's surface been disturbed by feelings of regret, who can truthfully affirm that he has never known what it means to experience remorse for duty neglected, for wrong spoken or done? We have sought on previous Sundays to drive home to your conscience the terrors of the law on matters of the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Commandments; and do you mean to say that in a review of your past life you have no slightest pain of self-reproach along these lines? If not, then your spirit has been cast in a different mold from all others, or your memory and conscience are both fast asleep. I take it that all are ready to acknowledge not only that there is a law, a law written in God's Word, as well as in your own hearts, but that we have also broken that law time and again, and thereby--to quote the familiar words of our Catechism--"have we exposed ourselves to God's wrath and displeasure, temporal death, and eternal damnation."

This is the A B C of Christianity. And is there a way of escape, as in the case of Egypt's death and destruction? no possibility of its being said: "I will pass over you"? Ah, it is here that we come to the heart and center of our holy religion, its pith and core, its Holiest of Holy. Sprinkled upon the headpieces and the two posts of their doors was the blood, God's own sacred mark. A lamb, none over a year old, none with the slightest taint or blemish upon it, was made to yield up its life in sacrifice to secure that blood. Need I inform you what that typified, of whom that lamb was a type and shadow? That unblemished lamb of sacrifice referred to Christ, "the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world." That innocent blood which turned aside the angel of death foreshowed the blood of Christ, who through the Spirit offered Himself without spot to God. Yonder upon that post with its two beams, reddened by crimson drops, is the fulfillment, the realization, of it all. Simple, is it not?

God, by the application of a coat of blood upon its homes, could redeem Israel from the avenging stroke. It was not for any among them to speculate about it, to doubt and refuse it. To do so would have meant disaster. Only in that blood was security, safety, and deliverance.

There are many these days who are offended at the blood doctrine of the cross; they will have none of it; it's puerile to them. They know not whereof they speak. It reflects Heaven's profoundest wisdom; it was thus, and only thus, that the authority and dignity of God's Law could be maintained, and yet the transgressor pass unpunished.

The supreme, the perfect and sinless Lawgiver Himself, even the eternal Son, bearing the penalty in the room of those by whom it had been incurred, and on whom it must otherwise and most justly have fallen,--this is the only way in which peace could have been reinstated between God and man, deliverance made possible. And this, even this, is the great burden of the Gospel message, the only balm of peace to the troubled soul, the only solid ground of hope for another life,--without which all in this world would be darkness, disorder, and despair. Imagine a prisoner under sentence of death in his lonely cell; the last morning sun he ever expects to gaze on streaming through his grated window, and the sound of busy hammers erecting his gallows ringing in his ears, and, then, unbar the bolts of his prison, and instead of leading him out to execution, put into his hands the Governor's pardon, and bid him go forth and enjoy till life's latest time the best and sweetest it can offer. Or think of a crew of voyagers on a dark and stormy sea, a fearful hurricane above, all around perilous rocks and quicksand, and the vessel threatening every moment to part asunder below,--think of them wafted all at once into a peaceful harbor and landed on a hospitable shore. Figure yourselves placed in such and kindred perilous circumstances, and followed by a like happy deliverance, and you will still have only a dim shadow of the glorious and blessed reality to which our text points. Far more terrible than bodily bondage, more appalling than death of the body, is the terror and the doom that attends a soul exposed to the extent of God's wrath and destruction, and from that--deliverance, safety, and escape through the blood of the Lamb.

There is, however, one point still that practically and to each of us is the most important of all. It is not said simply: "I will pass over you," but, "When I see the blood, I will pass over you." It was not enough that the paschal lamb had been slain. Nor was it sufficient that the Most High Lamb merely purpose to spare them as His chosen people. If they would escape the calamity that was to fall upon their heathen oppressors, they must sprinkle the blood of that lamb openly on the posts of their doors. And even so it is not enough that God will have all men to be saved and come unto the knowledge of the truth; not enough that the Lamb of God was slain to take away the sins of a guilty world, unless that blood is sprinkled by faith on the heart, unless, in other words, Christ is taken by each separately and individually as his or her Savior. It is faith which forms the grand connecting link between the priceless blessings of redemption and the perishing sinner's soul. What avails it to the wretch who is being borne down by a rapid current nearer and nearer to the fatal cataract to throw him a rope if he will not grasp it? Or what to him whose dwelling is in flames, to place a ladder for his rescue, if he will not so much as step upon it? Even so, what will it serve any of us, but only fearfully to heighten our condemnation, to be told of the great salvation, and have that salvation pressed on us in almost every form of persuasive appeal, as the only means of escape from death and destruction, if we still refuse to it the homage of our hearts, and deem ourselves perfectly safe without, and treat it as an idle tale?

Christ's blood has been shed, but before it can work its wonders, can stay the arm of divine Justice uplifted to smite, that blood must be sprinkled, too; and the reason why it is not sprinkled on some, why it is not sprinkled on all who have heard of it, why all such do not feel in their hearts and display in their lives its cleansing, sanctifying power, is, and can only be, their willful, stubborn unbelief. How it is with you whom I am now addressing it is not for me to say.

Those only who are thus marked have any right to count themselves to the Lord's people, and to set themselves at the Savior's table. Let us hold, not as a dry doctrine, but as a blessed truth, that apart from Christ's blood there is no salvation. Let us fix our hearts with deeper and more prayerful love on Him; let it be ours with a glow of spiritual fervor, a joy with which nothing else will compare, to confess:

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness.

Amen.

PALM SUNDAY.

And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell
there, and make there an altar unto God that appeared unto thee
when thou fleddest from the face of Esau, thy brother. Then
Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him,
Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and
change your garments. And let us arise, and go up to Bethel; and
I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day
of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went.--_Gen.
35, 1-3._

The passage before us refers to a very interesting part in the history of Jacob. To escape the fury of his brother, Esau, whom he had deprived of the patriarchal blessing, Jacob, at the proposal of his mother, Rebecca, flees to the house of his uncle, Laban. On the first night of his journey he dreamed he saw a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, angels ascending and descending upon it, God standing at the top; and God also speaks to the poor pilgrim resting on a stone beneath. He assures Jacob that He was the Lord God "of Abraham, thy father, and the God of Isaac." He promises to give the land of Canaan to his seed, to render his offspring illustrious and innumerable as the stars of heaven, and finally, in one of his descendants, to bless all the families of the earth; and to accommodate Himself still more to the condition in which Jacob then was, He added: "And behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of."

Deeply impressed with this vision of God's presence, Jacob arose. But before he proceeded upon his journey, he vowed a vow, saying: "If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God, and this stone which I have set for a pillar shall be God's house, and of all that Thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto Thee."

Twenty years had passed since that occasion, years of hard service and vexation, when Jacob resolves to return home. He crosses the Ford of Jabbok, where he wrestled with the Angel, and comes to Shalem. Here he buys a piece of ground, builds an altar, and lingers for seven or eight years; he was now enjoying the delights, the comforts of home and of plenty. God had fulfilled His engagement with him to the letter,--He had been with him and defended him, led him back to his country in peace and prospered him, who had had nothing but a staff in his hand when he fled before the face of his brother, until he was now two bands. But where is now his vow, where his altar, where the tenth of all his possessions, as he had promised? Nor does he show the least disposition to redeem, to perform it; and so it becomes necessary for God Himself to stir him up; and thus reads the first verse of the text: "And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there, and make there an altar unto God that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau, thy brother."

From this little piece of history let us seek to derive some instructive observations, and pertinent with this Sunday, the character of which is well known to you.

First, we may note how soon the influence of impressive scenes wears away, how quickly we lose the sense of God's mercies, and the religious feelings they produce. If a person had seen Jacob on the morning after his vision, when he was leaving the spot made sacred by his experience there, and had said to him: "God will accomplish all thy desires; He will guide and keep thee, and bring thee back enriched and multiplied, but thou wilt live year after year unmindful of thy vow," he would have exclaimed, "What! is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?" How were the Israelites affected when God appeared at the Red Sea? They sang His praise, they resolved to distrust Him no more. They said, "All that the Lord commandeth us will we do." But they soon forgot His words and the wonders He had shown them. They murmured, and they rebelled time and again; all their vows and promises were written in the sand, and the first returning wave of trouble washed them out. If some kind of spiritual device, after the manner of our present day, could be invented to secure our feelings in certain periods and conditions of life, so that we might afterwards review them and compare ourselves, what revelations it would disclose! Like a sieve, full while lowered, but, when raised up, empty and dripping, or like water, which has a natural tendency to be cold, if it has not a perpetual fire below to keep it warm, so do we constantly need means and helps; so necessary is it to have our minds stirred up by way of remembrance; and as we learn from our text, God also does that. He reminds His people of forgotten duties. Various are His ways of doing so. One of His principal designs are afflictions. When difficulties are upon us, it is then that we remember former deliverances and vows, and our ingratitude in not keeping them.

Another such witness and monitor is man's conscience, which accuses the transgressor, and often presses a thorn into man's side. Ministers of the Gospel are also God's remembrancers. Their business is, not to bring strange things to your ears, to entertain you with novelties or speculation, but their calling is to remind you of things you already know. As St. Peter writes: "I will therefore put you in remembrance of these things, though ye once knew them," and St. Paul says: "If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ." And our text furthermore shows us that good and pious characters give heed to these reminders. There is where we perceive a difference between Christians and others. Christians, it is true, are encompassed with faults and infirmities, they may err; they may fall, but there is in them a principle which secures their rising again. A man who is only asleep is easily distinguished from one who is dead; the difference will appear as soon as you try to wake them; the one remains motionless, the other stirs and springs up. The branch of a tree may bend down to the earth under a pressure, but remove the load, and it is upright again. When our Lord looked only upon Peter, "he went out and wept bitterly." Jacob here does not argue the matter with the Lord. He does not seek to excuse himself.

Thus reads the second verse: "Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments." Here we may stop a moment to emphasize the truth that there may be wickedness in a religious family. We find "strange gods" even in Jacob's, the patriarch's, household, and we may view such a condition in two ways,--first, as a good man's affliction, and also as a good man's own fault. An affliction it certainly is to behold wickedness in one's family. It is bad enough to have bodily sickness and ailment in the house, but it is immensely worse to have sin, the plague and pestilence of the soul.

But, could we see things as God sees them, could we trace back effects to their cause, we would ofttimes not be surprised at the disorder and wickedness which prevails. How many masters of families resemble Eli, whose "sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not,"--or David, "who had never displeased Adonijah at any time in saying, Why hast thou done so?"

Others, again, have provoked them to anger, till they are discouraged; while they preach humility and meekness in words, they practice pride and passion by example; while they send them to receive the nurture and admonition of the Lord at the hands of others, they rarely or ever recommend religion by their own personal behavior,--and they then wonder at irregularities in their households. Rather ought they wonder at their own folly in seeking "to gather grapes of thorns and figs of thistles." Observe Jacob here, he would not go alone, but calls upon his family, and all that are with him; everybody must attend. And thus our religious interest should not be confined to ourselves alone, we must bring our families along with us to the exercise of devotion.

In our own families we possess authority and influence, and this authority and influence we are to employ for religious as well as civil purposes. God holds us answerable for it. There is nothing more lovely than the members of a family going to the house of God in company. Such families are nurseries of their churches, and it is with delight that a minister addresses a hopeful audience made up of a number of amiable, orderly, serious-minded families. But oh! how it pains one to see you separated, and coming in alone,--the wife without the husband, the father without the son, the mother without the daughter.

Reflect on these things, my beloved. It is sometimes said that so few of those who make their confirmation vow remain loyal. To me it is inspiring that so many do remain loyal when you consider the influence and the atmosphere in the homes they come from. Never a Christian word escapes the lips of the mother; all kinds of political, secular newspapers and books are daily read, never a line of God's Word or a church-paper. All sorts of time set aside for visits and trivialities on God's day, never for divine service.

There remains yet the third and last verse: "And let us arise and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went." Jacob arrives at Bethel, he looks around, he discovers the stone, now covered with moss, which, twenty-eight years ago, had served as his pillow. What feelings must have throbbed through his soul! what shame! what joy! And he fulfills his vow, erects an altar, does God honor and service, and gives the tenth to Him of all he possesses.

The application of all this? To you who have this day laid down upon God's altar your vow of allegiance, let Jacob be to you an example of warning. God greatly disapproved of Jacob's delay, his forgetting and breaking of promise, and, as we heard, he himself suffered by it,--wickedness, strange gods, had gotten into his household. Vastly more noble than his conduct was that of the woman who one day appeared in the temple leading by the hand a lad, and, presenting him to the high priest, said: "For this child I prayed, and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of Him. Therefore, also, I have lent him to the Lord; as long as he liveth, he shall be lent to the Lord." You know who he was--Samuel, afterwards Israel's high priest and judge. May you prove to be Samuels brought hither to the temple, become useful members. It is only thus you may glorify God. Or, those who, perchance like Jacob, have neglected their vows, who blush to recall them, let them take this episode to heart, strive with the aid of that God who called Jacob's vow to remembrance to fulfill their engagements; following the patriarch, may they say: "Let us go up to Bethel," that means, to the house of God. The Lord grant you Christian courage and determination! Amen.

EASTER.

Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming in the which all that
are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth;
they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they
that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation.--_John
5, 28. 29._

"Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in hope of the resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ." These solemn words, pronounced at the most solemn time, at the close of man's earthly career, are familiar words, and each Lord's day do we confess in words equally as familiar: "I believe in the resurrection of the body." In that committal and confession we say much. We voice a belief that is peculiarly, distinctively Christian. Natural reason, assisted by some light lingering in tradition and borrowed from the Jews, was able to spell out the immortality of the soul; but that the body should rise again, that there should be another life for this corporeal frame, was a hope which has been brought to light by revelation only. When natural man hears the doctrine the first time, the mere natural mind marvels. The next thing it does, as the philosophers at Athens, when Paul preached it unto them,--it mocks.

"Can these dry bones live?" is still the unbeliever's sneer. The doctrine of the resurrection is a lamp kindled by a hand which once was pierced. It is linked with the resurrection of our blessed Lord, and is one of the brightest gems in His crown. Throughout the writings of the holy apostles do we find them giving great prominence to this truth. The Apostle Paul, as he describes the Gospel by which true believers are saved, says: "I deliver unto you first of all that which I received,--how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures," and argues that, "if Christ be not raised," both your faith and our preaching are "in vain." In the early Church the doctrine of the resurrection was the main battle-ax and weapon of war. Wherever the first missionaries went, they made this prominent that the dead would rise again to be judged by the Man Christ, according to the Gospel. It is, indeed, the keystone of the Christian arch. Let us, then, to the honor of Christ Jesus, the Risen One, regard this article of our faith so prominent in the Easter thought of man, observing _I. The certainty of the resurrection_, _II. its results_.

"The hour is coming," saith the Savior. Those words spoken by the Mouth of Truth express certainty. There are some events which may or may not be. Kingdoms and the great powers of the earth may stand or they may fall, their throne broken into dust and their might wither like autumn leaves. Events which we suppose inevitable may never come to pass, another wheel in the machinery of Providence may make things revolve in quite another fashion from what our puny wisdom would foretell. There is nothing certain on this earth, in fact, but uncertainty. But the resurrection is certain, whatever else may be contingent or doubtful. "The hour cometh," it surely cometh. In the divine decree it has been so unchangeably fixed. "The hour," saith Christ. I suppose He calls it an hour to intimate how very near it is in His esteem, since we do not begin to look at an exact hour of an event when it is extremely remote. An event which will not occur for hundreds of years is at first looked for and noted by the year, and only when we are reasonably near it, do men talk of the day of the month, and we are coming very near it when we look for the precise hour. Christ intimates to us that, whether we think so or not, in God's thoughts the day of resurrection is very near. He would have us think _God's_ thought about it, not reckon any time too distantly and the event far away.

This, too, is practical wisdom, to bring close up to us that which is inevitable, and to act towards it after a manner as though it were but to-morrow when the trumpet might sound. And most significantly does our Lord speak of that "hour." He calls it "the hour." We read of hours that have been big with the fate of nations; hours in which the welfare of millions trembled in the balances; hours in which the die was cast for peace or for war; hours that have been called "crises" in history. But here is the culminating crisis of all, the master, the royal, the august hour that is coming. Every second, every swing of the pendulum, every beat of the heart of time is bringing it nearer; silently, surely, we are drifting along the river of time to the ocean of eternity, and there is nothing to stop the constant flight.

We pass on. "Marvel not at this; for the hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice." "All that are in the graves,"--by this term is meant, not only all whose bodies are actually in the grave at this time, but all who ever were buried, though their bones may have mingled with the elements, been scattered by the winds, dissolved in the waves, or merged into vegetable forms, all who have lived and have died--all these. All! What a numberless number! Think of the inhabitants of this world at the time of the flood, more numerous then than now when men's numbers are so terribly thinned out by death! Think from the time of the flood onward, of Adam's vast offspring! Nineveh, Babylon, and Chaldea, and Persia, and Greece, and Rome were enormous empires of antiquity. The Parthians and Scythians, and Tartars, and Goths, and Huns in the Middle Ages, what teeming hives of humanity; and our present communities and nations, what a numberless band! Think of Ethiopia and the whole continent of Africa; remember India and Japan and the land of the setting sun; in all lands great tribes of men have come and have gone to rest in their sepulchers. What millions upon millions lie buried in China this day, a country of 400 millions. What innumerable hosts are slumbering in the land of the pyramids, embalmed in Egypt of old. And every one, all who have ever lived of woman born,--not one shall be left in the tomb. _All_,--all the righteous and the wicked; all that were engulfed in the sea; all that slumber in the lap of the earth; all the great and the humble, all the children of luxury and the sons of toil; all the wise and all the foolish; all the beloved and the despised. There shall not be one single individual omitted, nor you, my dear hearer. As surely as you sit here this morning, so surely shall you stand before the Son of Man. You shall not be forgotten; your departed spirit shall have its appointed place, and your body, which once contained it, shall have its place, till, by the power of God, it shall be restored to your spirit again at the sounding of the last trumpet. It is a wondrous truth, and yet, as the Savior directs, "marvel not at this," so as to doubt it, though you may marvel at it and adore the Lord, who shall bring it to pass.

And so it continues: "All that are in the graves shall hear His voice." Yes, that ear that was buried a thousand years ago, and of which there was not the slightest relic left, that ear so long lost in silence, it shall hear--hear the almighty voice of that God who made man's ear at the beginning, who makes the ear of the newborn babe now, and is able, according to the working whereby He is able to do all things, to renew and refashion the ear, and hearing it shall start up, as the next words say, "shall come forth." It is not in the power of man's speech or imagination to conceive what a spectacle it shall be when, as the heavens are passing with a great noise, and the elements are burning with furnace heat, the angels are sounding the arrival of the great day of Judgment, we shall see the multitudes in the valleys of the dead rising up from land and sea, from mountain top and deep ravines, swarming up a great and countless number before the bar of their Judge. Ah, what a sight it will be! What a wonder!

And how will they look? you may naturally inquire. In answer I would say on the basis of God's Word: Like themselves. To each one will be given "his own body." Our resurrected body, whatever it may exactly be and however different and superior it will undoubtedly be to our present body, will yet in some way be identical with our present body, and it will so far retain the appearance and individuality of our present body that in that future resurrected body we shall easily be recognized by those who knew us, and will be known as the same distinct personalities which we are now known to be in our present body. "Though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God."

We pass on to weigh the results. The text goes on to say: "And shall come forth, they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation." From this we gather that the whole family will be divided as it is even now, indeed, into two, and only two, classes of characters: "They that have done good," and "they that have done evil." Who are those who have done good? By nature no one is "good." We are all sinners. There is none righteous, no, not one. The best of us are unprofitable servants. We can only be "good" in our way, and that is by having the goodness of another, the goodness of Christ set down to our account. Then, when we are thus joined to Christ by faith in Him, we shall, from principle, strive to do good. Good, my beloved, is a word that may be measured according to those who use it. The "evil man," the unpardoned sinner, may "do good" in his sense and the sense of the world,--good to you, to his child, his wife, his friend, but he has no care for God, no reverence, no esteem for the great Lawgiver. Therefore, that which may be good to you may be ill to God, because done for no right motive, even perhaps done with a wrong motive. It depends upon what position I occupy towards my God and Christ that determines on the Day of Resurrection, and that position is either for or against Him; there is no middle, mixed, or mingled character. I am either a pardoned sinner or an unpardoned sinner, and my destiny will be accordingly. And what will that destiny be? Either "life" or "damnation."

"Life" does not mean here mere existence; for both will exist, and exist forever, the "evil" and the "good." But "life" means happiness, joy, rapture, bliss; in fact, it is a term so comprehensive that it needs no small time to express all that it means. As for the other, theirs shall be a resurrection to damnation; their bodies and souls will come under the condemnation of God,--to use our Savior's word, "shall be damned." We are shocked at the very sound of the word. We may well be so; we should be ten thousand-fold more shocked, if we really knew what the word fully means. It is vain for us to describe it, and we are loath to describe it. It were better for such that they had never been born, never awakened. From so terrible a portion, from Thy wrath and from evil damnation, good Lord, deliver us! We have thus seen, first, the certainty of resurrection, and secondly, the results. It remains, in conclusion, to draw one or two lessons from the text.

The first is a lesson of consolation. We are frequently called upon to stand beside opened graves; some of you have stood there lately. What comfort for our wounded spirits is such meditation: to never mourn with regard to the souls of the righteous because they are forever with the Lord. The only mourning that we permit among Christians concerns the body, and here God's Word offers us the assurance: Weep not as though you had cast your treasure into the sea, where you will never find it again. You have only laid it by in a casket, whence you shall receive it again brighter and more beautiful than before. Thou shalt look again with thine own eyes into those eyes which have spoken love to thee so often. Thy child shall see thee again. That departed friend and father and mother, having loved his Lord as thou dost, shall once rejoice with thee in the land where they die no more. It is but a short parting; it will be an eternal meeting. Forever with the Lord, we shall also be forever with each other. "Let us comfort one another," says the apostle, "with these words."

The other lesson is that of self-examination. If we are to rise, some to rewards and some to punishments, what--let each conscience ask--what shall be my position? Where shall I stand? That depends upon what your life and your life's principles have been. What has it been? To amass wealth? To procure honor? To provide for your family? If so, it has been deficient. Life's object and duty is to prepare for life, for the resurrection unto life. And to prepare for that, you must undergo a resurrection right now. There is as great a difference between men now as there will be hereafter. At present we have all living bodies, but in those living bodies, what is the state of the soul? There are in some living bodies living souls. There are in other living bodies souls that are dead. And that dead soul must be resurrected to life, or salvation is out of question; and that resurrection must take place _now_; it is too late hereafter. It takes place when you now give heed to that same divine voice that shall start the dead into life, the voice of Christ Jesus in His Gospel and Church. "He that believeth on Him hath life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life."

Easter calls for a rising up to spiritual life now, that it may be a resurrection unto eternal life, when all the dead shall come forth from the grave at the voice of Him who this day so gloriously arose from the tomb. May we be partakers of both! Amen.

FIRST SUNDAY AFTER EASTER.

But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore; but
the disciples knew not that it was Jesus.--_John 21, 4._

The last chapter of the Gospel of St. John takes us back to some of the scenes and circumstances of Christ after His resurrection. The immediate text portrays to us how seven men come slowly and thoughtfully down to the narrow beach, enter a boat, and push out a little way from the land. They are clad in the coarse garb of Galilean fishermen. Their faces are bronzed by exposure to the wind and the sun; their hands calloused from dragging the dripping net and pulling the laboring oar. But they are men destined to hold the highest mark among the great teachers of mankind. Foremost among them is Simon Peter, fiery soul, as ready to smite with the sword as to weep in sorrow at a look from his Lord. After him follows John, the gentle and loving, who leaned on His Master's bosom at the Passover. Then comes Thomas, the slow and distrustful, so honest in his doubts and so yielding in his confession. Then James, who was the first to seal his faith with the blood of martyrdom. Lastly Nathanael is mentioned, the upright and guileless, whilst the names of two are withheld. Says Simon Peter to this number: "I go a-fishing." The rest join in, and soon the crew sets sail for the higher waters, but with no success. The long hours pass in fruitless toil; day creeps into evening, evening into night, night into morning, and still they cast and cast, and catch nothing. At earliest dawn a figure appears on the beach, and a voice is heard speaking to them. The text tells who it was.

For some reason, as our text states, they do not distinguish Him. Perhaps it is because they are not expecting Him, and it is still morning twilight, and they cannot see distinctly, or, what is more probable, because some change has come over His risen body like that which on Resurrection Sunday had prevented Mary Magdalene and the two disciples journeying to Emmaus from readily recognizing Him. Taking Him, quite probably, to be a fish-dealer, one of those who daily came out at dawn from the town to meet the boats and make their purchase, they hear a voice coming to them from the dim shore, saluting them,--to translate the question into our English idiomatic equivalent, Boys, what luck? "None," answer the weary fishermen. Again the voice sings out to them, "Cast." No sooner done than their net was filled with fishes. And then at once, by a spiritual instinct, rather than by the vision of his eyes, John knew who this stranger was, and said to the rest, "It is the Lord." Whereupon, "When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher's coat unto him, (for he was naked,) and did cast himself into the sea."

It is this beautiful incident that we shall regard in a few phases, in accordance with this season and practical life.

In the first place, let us note that the resurrected Lord revealed Himself, and still reveals Himself to us in the midst of our daily work. The Lord came to these men while occupied with the toils and duties of their trade. Many are the instances in which it has pleased God to show His special favor to persons while earnestly occupied with their ordinary callings. David was summoned from the care of his father's flock to be Israel's king. Elisha was following the plow when called to be Elijah's successor. It was to faithful shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night that the angel choirs were sent to announce the birth of the Prince of Peace, and here, while the disciples were busily engaged in their familiar toils, it was that Jesus came and manifested Himself to them. Was there not something very instructive in this appearance at such a time? It showed that Jesus ratified their decision to be up and doing. It showed that He was present with them in the midst of all their work. It showed, too, that upon His presence depended entirely the success of their labors, for before His arrival they had caught nothing; their nets were only filled with seaweeds. It was through His direction and through His direction alone, that their nets at last were filled with fish. What a lesson this for all faithful toilers, whether on sea or on shore, the lesson that Jesus is with us in our daily tasks, whatever these tasks may be.

We know that Jesus Himself once stood in the ranks of the world's toil. Many a day, for many a year, He wrought in the sweat of His brow in the carpenter shop at Nazareth. He thus stamped with the approval of His own example the work of every toiler, and showed the high dignity that belongs to all honest labor. By this manifestation of the risen Jesus to those fishermen of Galilee He sanctified and glorified the work of His children. Like that dim figure on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias, Jesus stands over against us, watching us with eyes of sympathy, and waiting to bless us with His counsel and help. He has not changed. He is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. Let us not forget this glorious truth as we bend over our desks, or machines, stand behind sale counters, or move in household duties; the thought: Jesus is looking on, will shed its hallowed light upon the "common task," as it is styled, fill us with courage and cheerfulness, though our own work be irksome and hard, and enable us to do it faithfully, to quote the words of the apostle, "not with eye-service as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, as unto the Lord," who looketh on.

Again, we note, Jesus revealed Himself to His disciples on this occasion, not only in the midst of their daily work, but in the _hour of their failure and disappointment_. They had gone forth to catch fish; but they had caught nothing. They were wet and cold, weary and hungry. And it was to these tired and disappointed men that the Lord appeared. He filled their nets with fish; He filled their hearts with the joy of His presence, nor did He forget their bodily comfort and needs, He kindled a fire upon the shore, and provided for them a welcome meal of fish and bread. And Christ's methods, my beloved, have not altered with the years. That scene on Lake Gennesaret is an allegory with a deep meaning for ourselves. It reminds us that our schemes and plans and endeavors, toil however hard we may, not infrequently meet with disappointment. We have perhaps all of us experienced what the poet says:

Oh! it is hard to work for God,
To rise and take His part;
Upon this battle-field of earth,
And not sometimes lose heart.
He hides Himself so wondrously
As though there were no God,
He is least seen when all the powers
Of ill are most abroad.
Or, He deserts us at the hour;
The light is all but lost,
And seems to leave us to ourselves
Just when we need Him most.

And yet, to speak with the text, though we may recognize Him not, He is tenderly watching us from the shore. He has long since passed over to His glory. But while His disciples are yet on these waters, He keeps Himself near the margin, and looks down upon them in their toil. His great heart is with us all in our disappointments, difficulties, and disheartening endeavors, and in some way, at the right time, He will come, just as yonder on the Sea of Galilee, to help us. Let us believe that, and go ahead with our present duties, steadily, bravely, hopefully. Hopefully, I repeat; there is all the difference in the world between working with hope and without it.

The sailor on the raft sinks into despair as long as there is no vessel in sight, but let a ship appear on the far horizon, and immediately he is alert, and seeks by every means in his power to attract the attention of those on board, if, haply, he may be saved. In the same way, if we lose the hope of Christ's help, we shall give up and break down. Let us hold on, no matter what we are required to contend against in the battle of life, in the Lord's cause, and rest assured that at length Christ will come to us with such strength and supply as will abundantly compensate us for the toil and worry. Let us believe that, or we shall fail in our undertakings.

Nor only, to follow our text, in the midst of work and disappointment, but in the time of spiritual doubt and difficulty does Jesus reveal Himself. In those days the hearts of the disciples were burdened with many regrets and uncertainties and fears. In that stern of that very boat perchance their Master had often reclined, upon those same waters, and as they sat throughout those long and weary hours with the sails idly flapping, or plying the long, heavy oars, the waves splashing against the side of the boat, how these various sights and sounds must have reminded them irresistibly of One who used to be beside them constantly, and of the vanished happiness when they had been His pupils and His friends. That life of close companionship was ended now. Their beloved Master had been taken from them by wicked hands and crucified and slain. And, though since He had already appeared to them after His resurrection, and assured them of His living presence and power, yet He had appeared only to vanish away, and they did not know exactly how they were to think of Jesus, or what He would have them do. They were in a state of spiritual doubt and uncertainty, full of regrets for the vanished past, and with no clear outlook for the years to come.

Jesus appears to them on this morning. They learn more fully who He was, and also what He would have them do. Immediately following this description is the interview He had with Peter, three times directing him, "Feed my lambs, feed my sheep." He was teaching them all the while a valuable lesson. Up to this time they had been in visible companionship with the Lord; He was now educating them into the thought that, though His visible form should be withdrawn, His personal presence would be with them still. In short, He was preparing them to believe the great truth, on which the very existence of the Christian Church depends, and which He announced to them in the words of His parting promise: "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the ends of the world."

It is quite similar with believers now. Our faith is often sorely tried, we are "tossed about with many a conflict, many a doubt." We need those things; the Lord is thereby educating us, teaching us some lesson or lessons, so that our faith may become stronger, purer, and better. "Doubt," one has said who lived long ago, "doubt is the daughter of the devil." There is that kind of a doubt which is the sign of an enlarging faith. Of that sort was Thomas. How gloriously it was removed, and he the better for it! So with these men here, and so with us. Not seldom do we find a soul must be tossed all night upon a dark, tempestuous sea of doubt and misgiving before Jesus comes with the morning light to speak His word of peace, and to make all things plain.

This leads to the last thought, _viz._, that Jesus reveals Himself to the eyes of those who love Him. We must not think that work, or disappointment, or religious doubt, in themselves, insure the vision of the Lord. On the contrary, it may be these things precisely that veil Him from our sight. Sometimes a man's work so absorbs his heart that he has no thoughts left for spiritual things. And sometimes worldly disappointments only make a man hard, bitter, and cynical, while spiritual doubt drives him into sheer unbelief and black despair. A certain condition of heart is needful in order that these things become blessings, the occasion of fresh revelations of the Lord. This narrative suggests which it is. It was John who saw Jesus first in the figure that stood on the shore, and John, as we know, was the disciple who loved Jesus most and best, and there was a real connection between these two facts. It was the love of John's heart, rather than the sharpness of his eyes, that enabled him to say, "It is the Lord"; for love detects the loved one afar off, and where others see only the indistinguishable figure of a man, it cries: "Nay, it is he himself." And love, my beloved, is still and always a great condition of spiritual knowledge. "He that loveth me," said Jesus, "shall be loved of my Father, and I will love Him and will manifest Myself to him." Often, like those fishermen of Galilee, we have to face life's duties and burdens with a dull and heavy heart; if there is love to Christ, He will appear to our faith, if not to our sight, filling our hearts with the joy of His presence and compelling us to say in wonder and delight: "It is the Lord."

God grant that we may know Him in this life, so that when the morning of eternity dawns upon us, we may see Christ standing on the shore of heaven and hear His words of welcome. Amen.

SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EASTER.

So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son
of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto Him,
Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee. He saith unto him,
Feed my lambs. He saith to him the second time, Simon, son
of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord, Thou
knowest that I love Thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He
saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou
me? Peter was grieved because He said unto him the third time,
Lovest thou me? And he said unto Him, Lord, Thou knowest all
things; Thou knowest that I love Thee. Jesus saith unto him,
Feed my sheep.--_John 21, 15-17._

It was on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. The first pale shafts of the rising sun were shooting across the eastern sky, revealing seven fishermen out upon the water in a little boat. All night they had been toiling, rowing and letting down their nets, but nothing had they caught. Disheartened by their fruitless toil, they were just about to give up further attempt when a once familiar form is seen standing upon the beach, and they hear a voice telling them to cast the net on the right side of the ship. They heed the direction, and the success which follows--a draught of one hundred and fifty-three fishes--confirms them in their belief that it was their risen Master who had given the command. Thereupon they drag the boats to shore, and find a fire of coals, and fish laid thereon and bread, whilst He whom all know to be the Lord, but whom none from holy awe dares ask, "Who art Thou?" bids them, "Come and eat."