The Four Installments

Your friend takes you through his valuable house. You examine the arches, the fresco, the grass plots, the fish ponds, the conservatories, the parks of deer, and you say within your-self, or you say aloud: "What did all this cost?" You see a costly diamond flashing in an earring, or you hear a costly dress rus­tling across the drawing-room, or you see a high-mettled span of horses harnessed with silver and gold, and you begin to make an estimate of the value. The man who owns a large estate cannot instantly tell you what it is all worth. He says: "I will estimate so much for the house, so much for the furniture, so much for laying out the grounds, so much for the stock, so much for the barn, so much for the equipage—adding up in all making this aggregate."

Well, my friends, I hear so much about our mansion in heaven, about its furniture and the grand surroundings, that I want to know how much it is all worth and what has actually been paid for it. I cannot complete in a month or a year the magnificent calculation; but before I get through tonight, I hope to give you the figures. "Ye are bought with a price."

With some friends, I went into London Tower to look at the crown jewels of England. We walked around, caught one glimpse of them, and being in the procession were compelled to pass out. I wish that tonight I could take this audience into the tower of God's mercy and strength, that you might walk around just once, at least, and see the crown jewels of eternity, behold their brilliance, and estimate their value. "Ye are bought with a price." Now, if you have a large amount of money to pay, you do not pay it all at once, but you pay it by installments—so much the first of January, so much the first of April, so much the first of July, so much the first of October, until the entire amount is paid. And I have to tell this audi­ence that "you have been bought with a price," and that that price was paid in different installments.

The first installment paid for the clearance of our souls was the ignominious birth of Christ in Bethlehem. Though we may never be carefully looked after afterward, our advent into the world is carefully guarded. We come into the world amid kindly attentions. Privacy and silence are afforded when God launches an immortal soul into the world. Even the roughest of men know enough to stand back. But I have to tell you that in the village on the side of the hill, there was a very bedlam of uproar when Jesus was born. In a village capable of accom­modating only a few hundred people, many thousand people were crowded; and amid ostlers, and muleteers, and camel drivers yelling at stupid beasts of burden, the Messiah ap­peared. No silence. No privacy. A better adapted place hath the eaglet in the eyrie—hath the whelp in the lion's lair. The exile of heaven lieth down upon the straw. The first night out from the palace of heaven spent in an outhouse. One hour after laying aside the robes of heaven, dressed in a wrapper of coarse linen. One would have supposed that Christ would have made a more gradual descent, coming from heaven first to a half-way world of great magnitude, then to Cxsar's palace, then to a merchant's castle in Galilee, then to a private home in Bethany, then to a fisherman's hut, and last of all, to the stable. No, it was one leap from the top to the bottom!

Let us open the door of the caravansary in Bethlehem and drive away the camels. Press on through the group of idlers and loungers. What, Mary, no light? "No light," she says, "save that which comes through the door." What, Mary, no food? "None," she says, "except that which is brought in the sack on the journey." Let the Bethlehem woman who has come in here with kindly affections put back the covering from the Babe that we may look upon it. Look! Look! Uncover the head. Let us kneel. Let all voices be hushed. Son of Mary! Son of God! Child of a day—Monarch of eternity! In that eye the glance of a God. Omnipotence sheathed in that Babe's arm. That voice to be changed from the feeble plaint to the tone that shall wake the dead.

Hosanna! Hosanna! Glory be to God that Jesus came from throne to manger that we might rise from manger to throne, and that all the gates are open, and that the door of heaven, that once swung this way to let Jesus out, now swings the other way to let us in. Let all the bell-men of heaven lay hold of the rope and ring out the news: "Behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy which shall be to all people; for today is born, in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord!"

The second installment paid for our soul's clearance was the scene in Quarantania, a mountainous region full of caverns, where there are to this day panthers and wild beasts of all sorts, so that you must now, the traveler says, go there armed with knife, or gun, or pistol. It was there that Jesus went to think and to pray, and it was there that this monster of hell—more sly, more terrific than anything that prowled in that country—Satan himself, met Christ. The rose in the cheek of Christ—that Publius Lentullus, in his letter to the Roman Senate, ascribed to Jesus—that rose had scattered its petals. Abstinence from food had thrown Him into emaciation. The longest ab­stinence from food recorded in profane history is that of the crew of the ship Juno; for twenty-three days they had nothing to eat. But this sufferer had fasted a month and ten days before He broke fast.

Hunger must have agonized every fiber of the body, and gnawed on the stomach with teeth of death. The thought of a morsel of bread or meat must have thrilled the body with something like ferocity. Turn out a pack of men hungry as Christ was ahungered, and if they had strength, with one yell they would devour you as a lion a kid. It was in that pang of hunger that Jesus was accosted, and Satan said: "Now change those stones which look like bread into an actual supply of bread." Had the temptation come to you and me, under those circumstances, we would have cried: "Bread it shall be!" and been almost impatient at the time taken for mastication; but Christ with one hand beat back the hunger, and with the other hand beat back the monarch of darkness. Oh, ye tempted ones, Christ was tempted. We are told that Napoleon ordered a coat of mail made; but he was not quite certain that it was im­penetrable, so he said to the manufacturer of that coat of mail: "Put it on now yourself and let us try it"; and with shot after shot from his own pistol, the emperor found out that it was just what it pretended to be—a good coat of mail. Then the man received a large reward. I bless God that the same coat of mail that struck back the weapons of temptation from the heart of Christ we may now all wear; for Jesus comes and says: "I have been tempted, and T know what it is to be tempted. Take this robe that defended me, and wear it for yourselves. I shall see you through all trials and I shall see you through all temptation."

"But," says Satan still further to Jesus, "come, and I will show you something worth looking at," and after a half-day's journey they came to Jerusalem, and to the top of the Temple. Just as one might go up in the tower of Antwerp and look off upon Belgium, so Satan brought Christ to the top of the Tem­ple. Some people at a great height feel dizzy, and have a strange disposition to jump; so Satan comes to Christ with a powerful temptation in that very crisis. Standing there at the top of the Temple they look off. A magnificent reach of coun­try. Grain fields, vineyards, olive groves, forests, and streams, cattle in the valley, flocks on the hills, and villages, and cities, and realms. "Now,^" says Satan, "I'll make a bargain. Just jump off. I know it is a great way from the top of the Temple to the valley, but if you are divine you can fly. Jump off. It won't hurt you. Angels will catch you. Your Father will hold you. Besides, I'll make you a large present if you will. I'll give you Asia Minor, I'll give you India, I'll give you China, I'll give you Ethiopia, I'll give you Italy, I'll give you Spain, I'll give you Germany, I'll give you Britain, I'll give you all the world." What a temptation it must have been!

Go tomorrow morning and get in an altercation with some wretch crawling up froth a gin cellar in the fourth ward, New York. "No," you say, "I would not bemean myself by getting in such a contest." Then think of what the King of heaven and earth endured when He came down and fought that great wretch of hell, and fought him in the wilderness and on top of the Temple. But I bless God that in that triumph over temptation Christ gives us the assurance that we also shall triumph. Having Himself been tempted, He is able to succor all those who are tempted. In a violent storm at sea, the mate told a boy—for the rigging had become entangled at the mast—to go up and right it. A gentleman standing on the deck said: "Don't send that boy up; he will be dashed to death." The mate said: "I know what I am about." The boy raised his hat in recognition of the order, and then rose hand over hand and went to work; and as he swung in the storm the passengers wrung their hands and expected to see him fall. The work done, he came down in safety; and a Christian man said to him: "Why did you go down in the forecastle before you went up?" "Ah," said the boy, "I went down to pray. My mother always taught me before I undertook anything great to pray." ^"What is that you have in your vest?" said the man. "Oh, that is the New Testament," he said, "I thought I would carry it with me if I really did go overboard." How well that boy was protected. I care not how great the height or how vast the depth, with Christ within us, and Christ beneath us, and Christ above us, and Christ all around us, nothing shall befall us in the way of harm. Christ Himself having been in the tempest, will deliver all those who put their trust in Him. Blessed be His glorious name forever.

The third installment paid for our redemption was the Saviour's sham trial. I call it a sham trial—there has never been anything so indecent or unfair in the Tombs Court of New York as was witnessed at the trial of Christ. Why, they hustled Him into the courtroom at two o'clock in the morning. They gave Him no time for counsel. They gave Him no opportunity for subpoenaing witnesses. The ruffians who were wandering around through the midnight of course saw the arrest and went into the courtroom. But Jesus' friends were sober men, were respectable men, and at that hour, two o'clock in the morning, of course they were at home asleep. Consequently, Christ en­tered the courtroom with the ruffians.

No one to speak a word for Him. I lift the lantern until I can look into His face, and as my heart beats in sympathy for this, the best friend the world ever had, Himself now utterly friendless, an officer of the court comes up and smites Him in the mouth, and I see the blood stealing from gum and lip. Oh, it was a farce of a trial, lasting only perhaps an hour, and then the judge rises for the sentence. Stop! It is against the law to give sentence unless there has been an adjournment of the court between condemnation and sentence; but what cares the judge for the law? "The man has no friends—let Him die," says the judge, and the ruffians outside the rail cry: "Aha! aha! that's what we want. Pass Him out here to us. Away with Him, away with Him." Oh, I bless God that amid all the in-justice that may be inflicted upon us in this world we have a Divine sympathizer. The world cannot lie about you nor abuse you as much as they did Christ, and Jesus stands today in every courtroom, in every home, in every store, and says: "Courage! By all my hours of maltreatment and abuse I will protect those who are trampled on." And when Christ forgets that two o'clock morning scene, and the stroke of the ruffian on the mouth, and the howling of the unwashed crowd, then He will forget you and me in the injustices of life that may be inflicted upon us.

Further, I remark, the last great installment paid for our redemption was the demise of Christ. Three or four summers ago there was a very dark day when the sun was eclipsed. The fowl at noonday went to their perch, and we felt a gloom as we looked at the astronomical wonder. It was a dark day in London when the plague was at its height, and the dead, with uncovered faces, were taken in open carts and dumped in the trenches. It was a dark day when the earth opened and Lisbon sank; but the darkest day since the creation of the world was when the carnage of Calvary was enacted. It was about noon when the curtain began to be drawn. It was not the coming-on of a night that soothes and refreshes; it was the swinging of a great gloom all around the heavens. God hung it. As when there is a dead one in the house you close the shutters or turn the lattice, so God in the afternoon shut the windows of the world. As it is appropriate to throw a black pall upon the cof­fin as it passes along, so it was appropriate that everything should be somber that day as the great hearse of the earth rolled on, bearing the corpse of the King.

A man's last hours are ordinarily kept sacred. However you may have hated or caricatured a man, when,you hear he is dying, silence puts its hand on your lips, and you would have a loathing for the man who could stand by a deathbed making faces and scoffing. But Christ in His last hour cannot be left alone. What, pursuing Him yet, after so long a pursuit? You have been drinking His tears. Do you want to drink His blood? They come up closely, so that notwithstanding the darkness they can glut their revenge with the contortions of His coun­tenance. They examine His feet. They want to feel for them-selves whether those feet are really spiked. They put out their hands, and touch the spikes, and bring them back wet with blood, and wipe them on their garments.

Women stand there and weep, but can do no good. It is no place for tender-hearted women. It wants a heart that crime has turned into granite. The waves of man's hatred and of hell's vengeance dash up against the mangled feet, and the hands of sin and pain and torture clutch for His holy heart. Had He not been thoroughly fastened to the cross they would have torn Him down and trampled Him with both feet. How the cavalry horses arched their necks, and champed their bits and reared, and snuffed at the blood. Had a Roman officer called out for a light his voice would not have been heard in the tumult; but louder than the clash of the spears, and the wailing of womanhood, and the neighing of the chargers, and the bellowing of the crucifiers, there comes a voice crashing through, loud, clear, overwhelming, terrific. It is the groan of the dying Son of God! Look! What a scene! Look, oh, world, at what you have done. I lift the covering from that maltreated Christ to let you count the wounds and estimate the cost. Oh, when the nails went through Christ's right hand and through Christ's left hand—that bought both your hands with all their power to work, and lift, and write. When the nail went through Christ's right foot and Christ's left foot—that bought your feet, with all their power to walk, or run, or climb. When the thorn went into Christ's temple, that bought your brain with all its power to think and plan. When the spear cleft Christ's side, that bought your heart with all its power to love, and repent, and pray.

If a man is in no pain, if he is prospered, if he is well and he asks you to come, you take your time, and you say: "I can't come now. I'll come after a while. There is no haste." But if he is in want and trouble, you say: "I must go right away. I must go now." Tonight Jesus stretches out before you two wounded hands, and He begs you to come. Go, and you live. Stay away, and you die. Oh, that to Him who bought us we might give all our time, and all our prayers, and all our suc^­cesses. I would we could think of nothing else, that we could do nothing else but come to Christ. He is so fair, He is so loving, He is so sympathizing, He is so good, I wish we could put our arms around his neck and say: "Thine, Lord, will I be forever." Oh that tonight you would begin to love Him. Would that I could take this audience and wreathe it around the heart of my Lord Jesus Christ.

When in 1865 the Atlantic Cable was lost, do you remember that the Great Eastern and the Medway and the Albany went out to find it? Thirty times they sank the grapnel two-and-a­half miles deep in the water. After a while they found the cable and brought it to the surface. No sooner had it been brought to the surface than they lifted a shout of exultation, but the cable slipped back again into the water and was lost. Then for two weeks more they swept the sea with the grap­pling hooks, and at last they found the cable and they brought it up in silence. They fastened it this time. Then, with great excitement, they took one end of the cable to the electrician's room to see if there were really any life in it, and when they saw a spark and knew that a message could be sent, then every head was lifted, and the rockets flew, and the guns sounded, until all the vessels on the expedition knew the work was done and the continents were lashed together. Well, my friends, Sabbath after Sabbath we have come searching down for your soul. We have swept the sea with the grappling hook of Christ's Gospel. Again and again we have thought that you were at the surface, and we began to rejoice over your redemption; but at the moment of our gladness you sank back again into the world, and back again into sin. Tonight we come with this Gospel searching for your soul. We apply the cross of Christ first to see whether there is any life left in you, while all around the people stand, looking to see whether the work will be done, and the angels of God bend down and witness, and, oh, if now we could see only one spark of love, and hope, and faith, we would send up a shout that would be heard on the battle­ments of heaven, and two worlds would keep jubilee because communication is open between Christ and the soul, and your nature that has been sunk in sin has been lifted into the light and the joy of the Gospel.

I cannot put my head to the pillow tonight until I have once more invited you to Christ. I feel a burden like a moun­tain on my soul. Must I meet this audience at the judgment-seat of Christ? Must we all be there? They shall come from the East, and the West, and from the North, and from the South, host above host, gallery above gallery, ten thousand times ten thousand. And will I be there, and will you be there, and must we give an account for this night's confronting and this night's work? Oh, Lord Jesus, lay hold of their souls this moment by thy grace, and if I never preach again, now let me, call them to thyself, and implore them with tears to seek for the salvation of their souls. "This night thy soul may be required of thee, then whose shall these things be thou hast provided?" Oh, my brother, will you not now attend to the things of your soul? Shall not this be the moment when your salvation shall be reported in heaven? For many of you how many prayers have been offered? Father prayed for you. Mother prayed for you. Your Christian wives have been praying for you. Perhaps your Christian children have been praying for you, and yet you have not found the mercy of the Cross. Oh, Lord, save that man. Now is the accepted time. Now is the day of deliverance. Is there no charm in heaven? Is there no horror in hell? Is there no loveliness in the Cross? Is there no grandeur in the judgment, that your souls are not moved? "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come" and look at the fountain bursting from be­neath the Rock of Ages. Though you have been wandering a great way off, though during this past week you have been to a place of which you would not like to tell your best friend, though you have wasted your estate of blessing, though you have been wandering on these ten or fifteen years with your back turned to all early Christian influences, you may this night accept Christ and be saved.