"Base things
of the world hath God chosen." - 1 Corinthians 1:28
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Walk the streets by moonlight, if you
dare, and you will see sinners then. Watch when the night is
dark, and the wind is howling, and the picklock is grating in
the door, and you will see sinners then. Go to yon jail, and
walk through the wards, and mark the men with heavy
over-hanging brows, men whom you would not like to meet at
night, and there are sinners there.
Go to the
Reformatories, and note those who have betrayed a rampant
juvenile depravity, and you will see sinners there. Go across
the seas to the place where a man will gnaw a bone upon which
is reeking human flesh, and there is a sinner there. Go where
you will, you need not ransack earth to find sinners, for they
are common enough; you may find them in every lane and street
of every city, and town, and village, and hamlet.
It
is for such that Jesus died. If you will select me the
grossest specimen of humanity, if he be but born of woman, I
will have hope of him yet, because Jesus Christ is come to
seek and to save sinners. Electing love has selected some of
the worst to be made the best.
Pebbles of the brook
grace turns into jewels for the crown-royal. Worthless dross
he transforms into pure gold. Redeeming love has set apart
many of the worst of mankind to be the reward of the Saviour's
passion. Effectual grace calls forth many of the vilest of the
vile to sit at the table of mercy, and therefore let none
despair.
Reader, by that love looking out of Jesus'
tearful eyes, by that love streaming from those bleeding
wounds, by that faithful love, that strong love, that pure,
disinterested, and abiding love; by the heart and by the
bowels of the Saviour's compassion, we conjure you turn not
away as though it were nothing to you; but believe on him and
you shall be saved. Trust your soul with him and he will bring
you to his Father's right hand in glory everlasting.
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"I am made all
things to all men, that I might by all means save some." -
1 Corinthians 9:22 |
Paul's great object was not merely to
instruct and to improve, but to save. Anything short of this
would have disappointed him; he would have men renewed in
heart, forgiven, sanctified, in fact, saved. Have our
Christian labours been aimed at anything below this great
point? Then let us amend our ways, for of what avail will it
be at the last great day to have taught and moralized men if
they appear before God unsaved? Blood-red will our skirts be
if through life we have sought inferior objects, and forgotten
that men needed to be saved.
Paul knew the ruin of
man's natural state, and did not try to educate him, but to
save him; he saw men sinking to hell, and did not talk of
refining them, but of saving from the wrath to come. To
compass their salvation, he gave himself up with untiring zeal
to telling abroad the gospel, to warning and beseeching men to
be reconciled to God. His prayers were importunate and his
labours incessant.
To save souls was his consuming
passion, his ambition, his calling. He became a servant to all
men, toiling for his race, feeling a woe within him if he
preached not the gospel. He laid aside his preferences to
prevent prejudice; he submitted his will in things
indifferent, and if men would but receive the gospel, he
raised no questions about forms or ceremonies: the gospel was
the one all-important business with him.
If he might
save some he would be content. This was the crown for which he
strove, the sole and sufficient reward of all his labours and
self-denials. Dear reader, have you and I lived to win souls
at this noble rate? Are we possessed with the same
all-absorbing desire? If not, why not? Jesus died for sinners,
cannot we live for them? Where is our tenderness? Where our
love to Christ, if we seek not his honour in the salvation of
men? O that the Lord would saturate us through and through
with an undying zeal for the souls of men.
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