THE THROBBING HEART

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life." -- John 3:16

I suppose as many people can repeat that verse as any other verse in the Word of God. I heard a gentleman say in a city in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where I was holding revival meetings some years ago, that that verse was the throbbing heart of the Bible. If one limb of a compass was put on that verse, and a circle was drawn around it, it would take in the whole Bible. Martin Luther said that verse was so important that it ought, if possible, to be written across the face of the skies in letters of gold, and be repeated by every believer every day of his life.

I. In discussing this marvelous and exceedingly well-known passage of Scripture to-night, I want to call your attention, in the first place, to the occasion which led to this gift. It was the sight of a world lost in trespasses and sin, alienated from God, and pouring like a Niagara tide into an abyss of ruin, that led God to give that wonderful gift -- a world hopelessly doomed and damned, without the infinite grace of God. There are people who look upon sin as if it was a trifle. They speak of sin as a little incidental thing like the whooping cough or measles that a child has to pass through; and when it gets through it will be the better off for it. But a profound thinker says: "Sin is the most expensive thing in the universe, either atoned for or unatoned for. If it is not atoned for, the expense of it must fall upon the sinner's head in his eternal damnation. If it is atoned for, the expense of it must fall upon God, the Governor of the universe. In any event, sin must make this universe forever serious.

II. Let us notice the gift and Giver. "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." We can not illustrate this by anything we know in history. There is nothing like it. If Queen Victoria had given her son, Prince Albert, as an atonement for the Irish assassins who committed the cowardly Phoenix Park murder in Ireland, it would have been but a faint illustration. For Queen Victoria and Albert are not one, as God the Father and God the Son are One; and, besides, queens are not around doing that kind of thing. We do not find any perfect illustration, because no two human beings sustain the relationship to each other that God the Father and God the Son do in that mysterious unity of the Trinity. You see, in giving Jesus, God gave Himself. He took upon Himself the suffering and the atoning work, that He might meet the claims of public justice, and pave the way for an offer of salvation to guilty men.

There is one little illustration that comes down to us from ancient history that does throw some light on this theme. We read that Zalencus, the king of the Locrians, found that his government was being destroyed by adultery; and he made a law that if any one again committed adultery they should have both their eyes put out. His own son was the first man to break the law. Now, what should he do? His fatherly heart pleaded for mercy nor his boy. His kingly heart said, No, stand by the law and stand by the interests of the people, and by the virtue of the family and the home, and protect the interests committed to your trust. Now, he reflected, if I put out the eyes of my boy, they may call me cruel. And on the other hand, if I do not inflict the penalty, they will say I made a law without first considering its bearings. If I spare my boy, they will say I am partial, because it was my own son who broke the law; that I ignore the claims of justice; that I am false to my trust. What should he do? Well, this is what he did do. He first had one of his own eyes put out. Now he has made a half of an atonement, and he can turn around and offer to his boy a half of a pardon. Then he put one of his boy's eyes out. Now the claim of justice has been met. He has stood by the virtue of society; he has shown that he has the well-being of the Government at stake, and after the claims of the law have been fully met, he has had a chance to make an offer of partial pardon to his boy. Now, Jesus made a COMPLETE atonement. He took our place. He fully honored the public justice of the universe, as much as the infliction of the penalty on us would have done. And now he is free to turn around and offer pardon to all mankind. As the apostle Paul says in the third chapter of Romans, "God can now be just and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus." It was a wondrous atonement that removed the difficulties that stood in the way of our salvation.

III. Notice the motive that led to this. It was LOVE. "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." And let me here say to you, beloved, that all love is measured by just one thing; and it is the only thing that can measure love in this universe. Love is measured by the sacrifice it will make. Dr. Joseph Parker, of London, says, "If love were represented by a straight line, sacrifice would be the last point in the line." No one loves you who will not sacrifice for you. While you were prosperous and well and everything was going your way, and you were riding on the top wave, people came around and patted you and called you a friend; but you had not the slightest evidence that they were friends to you. Let the tide turn; let prosperity leave you, and fortune take wings and fly away; let sickness come; let dishonor smite your name and blast your reputation, and then see who will stand by you and help you and put themselves out to do it. Then you will find out who loves you. That is the only test there is of love. Suppose some one should say to you, "Your mother does not love you;" what would you say about it? If you have such a mother as I had, you would say, "What, sir, my mother not love me! You do not know my mother. My mother cheerfully went down into the valley of the shadow of death to bring me into being; and when I was born she hovered over my cradle like a guardian angel. She let the roses fade from her cheek, and the hand of care drive the furrows across her brow; and there never was a day, if necessary, that my mother would not pour out her heart's blood for me. I tell you, my mother loves me." How do I know it? Because of the sacrifice a mother makes for her child. Now, make the application. Are you ever tempted to think that God does not love you? When things are not going as you would like to have them, or health fades away, or your home is bereaved and your heart is stricken and lonely, do you feel as if God had forsaken you, and does not love you? If that temptation ever assails you, come to this text, and stand upon Calvary's summit and look upon the tragedy enacted there, and say to yourself: "0, this is the measure of the love of God. God so loved my poor sinful soul that He gave His richest treasure, His only begotten Son, for me."

IV. Now, let us notice to whom this gift was given. There are people who like to narrow the plan of salvation to make it fit the measure of their little narrow minds. There are people who talk about provision being made in God's infinite love and grace for some few favored mortals, who, without any reason in themselves, had some special gift bestowed upon them to please an arbitrary God. They tell us that God gave His Son to die only for the elect. Can you believe that? Do you not know that that idea would paralyze faith itself, and defeat the very scheme of salvation? Suppose that the richest citizen in this city, whoever he may be, should will all his millions to some elect souls in Hamilton County, Ohio. Could you put in a claim at the Probate Court here under such a will as that? You could not prove that you were some of the elect souls, and if no other heirs could be found that could put in a better claim than that, the whole will would be null and void, and the property would revert to the State.

Suppose my text read, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that some elect souls might not perish." Do you not know there is not one of us that would dare to put in a claim on such a will as that? Such a text as that would paralyze the hope of the sinner, and defeat redemption by making faith impossible, and would consign us all to a hopeless doom. O, I thank God for that word "world" in the text, for it means all humanity. And again, I thank God for that precious word "whosoever" in my text. That means me.

Martin Luther said he would rather have that word "whosoever" in that text, than have his own name in it.

I certainly would. I will tell you why. If my name was in that text, how would I know I was that fellow? There may be a good many people by the name of A. M. Hills in the world somewhere. You know there are a good many Hills in the world. Hill is a very common name; but our family has carried the s. Some time ago I was raising money to build a church in Allegheny City. I was up in Connecticut, and I was getting letters with hundred-dollar checks in them, fine sums of money. One day I went to the post-office and called for my mail, and a letter was handed out to me for A. M. Hills, my initials exactly, and that characteristic s. Yet I opened that letter, and lo! and behold! it was for the advance agent of a theater! It was not for me at all. So, do you not see, if my name was in that text there would be no certainty at all that I was the man that might be saved. But when God says, "Whosoever believeth," I shout "Hallelujah to God! that gives me a chance to be saved." I put in my claim.

O, beloved, do not measure God's mercy and grace by some of these narrow, belittling creeds. Do not measure the infinite, transcendent, matchless ocean of God's love by some creed-maker's conception of it. God says, "Whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life."

V. That brings me to the fifth truth in my text, and that is this: Notice the effect of this atoning work of Jesus. It was not what a great many people think it was. I was talking with a Universalist once, and he said, "Jesus died for everybody, did he not?" "Yes, sir." "Well, then, why should not every one be saved?" I said, "O, that does not follow at all." That is the rash conclusion some people come to. But it does not follow at all that every one will be saved. My text does not say that God gave His only begotten Son that every son and daughter of Adam shall be saved. It says that God gave His only begotten Son that whosoever BELIEVETH." Now, this is what the atoning work of God did. It gave God a chance to offer salvation to every one. But the atoning work in itself did not save any one. I remark again, I want you to remember it, that the atoning work in itself did not save any one. "What!" you say. No, it did not. What did it do? It simply removed and set aside the difficulty that arose in the nature of God's law and government, and made it possible for God to OFFER SALVATION to every one. He makes the offer on conditions that are proper, and that seem wise to Him. The conditions are repentance from sin, faith in Jesus, and dedication of your life to God and His service. Those are the conditions; but if nobody complied with them, then nobody would be saved, even though Christ has died. Now, He says, "Whosoever complies with the conditions shall not perish, but have everlasting life." I charge you before God, do not insert some of your human notions into this text; but let it stand, let it stand as God puts it. Let us have no loose thinking here. It is, "Whosoever believeth," with all the things that accompany a heart belief, which certainly are repentance of sin and a hearty, cheerful entering into the service of the living God. That saves you from the fundamental and awful error of Universalism, and keeps you from that presumptuous hope that will be the doom of many a soul.

Now, I want to give you a few remarks in closing this discussion.

I. I want you to notice what is not the sinner s ground for hope. He can not claim any salvation, or have any hope of salvation in what he does, or ever did do, or ever can do. He is not saved by his works, or by his goodness, or his morality, or by his character, or rank, or strength, or social position. None of these things weigh an atom with God, and none of these things can, by any means, set aside the condemnation that is hanging over souls. So you see these things are not the ground of salvation.

2. What is the ground of salvation? Why, it is the atoning work of Jesus Christ that makes it possible for God to save a soul that will comply with His divinely-appointed conditions. Jesus has taken our place. He has honored the law in our stead; and now God sees fit to make the offer that "whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish." Therefore, whether you and I are saved or not, depends on whether we believe or not. O, I wish I could make that plain, and could drive it into the heart and thought and memory until it would never be taken from you. So many people are measuring their salvation by their feelings! "Well, brother, how are you today?" "I do not feel very good." Suppose you don't, what of it? That has nothing to do with salvation. You do not read in the Bible that you are saved by feeling. You are saved by Jesus Christ through faith, not feeling. Do you not know that feelings will vibrate and change. If the barometer is heavy, down go your feelings. It the sun rises bright and clear, and the air is health-giving, your feelings will go up. You are no better than you were the day before; because your feelings have gone up. that has nothing to do with your goodness. If you have some cooking in the morning that is not skillfully done. and the breakfast does not quite agree with you, down go your feelings. Have you, therefore, lost your salvation? No, not at all; but your feelings have gone down. There are people who are just going by their feelings, day after day, instead of walking with God by faith; and plenty of sanctified people are doing the same thing. They think, when the feeling has gone, that the Holy Ghost has left them, and they must have fallen out somewhere, and lost sanctification. This is a trick of the devil to cheat you out of salvation; but God says, "Whosoever BELIEVETH shall not perish, but have everlasting life."

One time during a battle Napoleon Bonaparte's horse took fright, and was running away, endangering his life. A private soldier in the ranks leaped out and caught the horse by the bridle, and held it until it was calmed. The great commander made the military salute, and said, "I thank you, Captain," and he was only a private soldier. But when Napoleon said, "I thank you, Captain," he took him at his word, and immediately asked, "Of what regiment?" Napoleon said, "Captain of the Guards." The soldier threw down his gun in faith, and went and joined himself to the Guards. Suppose some one had said to him, "What are you doing here?" and he had replied, "O, I feel like a captain, and that is why I am here." What would they have said? They would have said, "You would better feel like a private, and get back to the ranks, and be quick about it." But when they asked him what he was there for, he pointed to Napoleon, and said, "He said it;" and that settled it. How do you know you are a Christian tonight? Because you feel like it? That is no sign that you are. Tomorrow morning you may have no feeling at all; and then what? I know I am a Christian because HE SAID IT. He said that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH should not perish, but have everlasting life; and there are not men enough in earth, or devils enough in hell, to make me believe that I do not believe in Jesus. That is something I know, for he said it, and that settles it.

I will give you another illustration to show you the folly of going by feelings. I want to drive this home. I have found that a great many young converts -- pardon me if I say especially among the Methodists -- who ordinarily have a great deal of feeling about the altar, and during the times of revivals, are tempted to depend upon feeling. I have found that the devil makes it a snare; and when the revival is over, and their feelings have gone, they think their religion has gone. And I have found more Methodist converts ready to backslide right there than any other body of Christians I ever met. Now, I want to show you the foolishness of this. President Fairchild was once traveling in Palestine, riding in a cavalcade across the country, and he chanced to be riding that forenoon by the side of a lady who belonged to that branch of God's Church that is given to paying a great deal of attention to feeling (I will not name the denomination now). That lady, that morning, was physically depressed, and she said: "I am so disappointed in my trip. I thought when I came to this dear land that was pressed by the feet of the angels and the prophets and the apostles, and by the feet of the dear Son of God, that I would have a great spiritual uplift to my soul. But I have never been so cold and backslidden in my life as now." By and by noon came, and they sat down to dinner, and as that was a wine-drinking country she drank some wine for dinner. In the afternoon when the wine began to act up went her feelings; and she clapped her bands, and exclaimed, "O, I never was so near to God in my life!" But there was no religion about it; it was merely the fuddle of the wine.

Now, you never can forget that illustration, and I want it to remain in your memories as long as you live -- the unutterable foolishness of measuring your religion by involuntary feelings. Is your heart still fixed to glorify God, feeling or no feeling? Is your purpose inflexible to do His will, and does your faith still hold to the eternal commands and promises of an infinite God? That is the question; and that settles it, whether you are a Christian or not.

During the war, Mr. Lincoln made a proclamation to emancipate all the slaves, and wherever our armies went the soldiers posted up bills that the slaves were freed. Most of those slaves couldn't read, and they would get other people to read the proclamation to them; and sometimes the masters would say to the slaves, "The boys are fooling you. Those Yanks are fooling you. You are not free." One time an old black Dinah said to a soldier: "Now, Masser, I want you to tell me, honest now, be I free or been't I? These soldiers tells me I'se free, and ole Masser tells me I ain't; and now tell me, Be I free or been't I?" Do you not see, she did not believe that She was free, and until she believed it she wasn't free. She was going right along serving the old master, because she did not believe that she was free. It is just so with all the slaves of Satan. Until you take God Almighty's promises to your heart, and just walk out in faith on His Word, and declare you are free in Jesus Christ, you will walk right along in the old bondage, the slave of the devil. But when you dare to walk out on the promise in John 3:16, you find, glory to God, that the chains fall, and Jesus is your master, and whom Jesus makes free, is free indeed; and you know the joy of salvation. But when you begin to doubt that experience and to doubt your Savior, away goes your joy, and away goes your hope, and away goes your religion. We walk by faith, and not by sight; and I almost wish that the very word feeling could be for a while dropped out of your religious vocabulary.

Some years ago there was a pardon put into the hands of the chaplain of the State prison of Illinois, to announce to the prisoners at the next chapel service that Reuben Johnson was free. Reuben Johnson was serving a life sentence, and had been in the State prison nineteen years; and at the next chapel service the chaplain rose and read out the notice, "Reuben Johnson, you are pardoned." Reuben Johnson, sitting in the midst of the audience, looked all around to see who it could be. He did not know it was a pardon for him; he thought it must be for some other man. Why, he was in for life; it couldn't be him. So you would not know that you could be saved by your own name in my text. He thought it might be some other Reuben Johnson; but the chaplain said, 'You, Reuben, you right down there, you are the man; you are pardoned." And after the service was over, and the usual signal was given to take lock-step and go back to the prison cells, he rose up from force of habit, and got into step with the others, and was marching to his cell. Some one pulled him out, and said, "Reuben Johnson, you are pardoned;" and if he had not believed that, he would have gone right back to his cell, to the old grind of prison servitude for life, And I want to tell you that my text is Jesus' proclamation and offer of pardon to every soul. The man that believes it will find the chains drop off, the despair gone, and the darkness gone; the hopelessness gone; and the light and peace and joy or salvation will come sweeping into his soul. Bless the Lord!

3. I call your attention now to what I have been teaching all along -- the result of this atoning work. You see what it was on God's side. It first showed God's hatred of sin. It showed God's infinite love and respect for His law. It showed His care for His government, and it showed His infinite, amazing love for the sinner. That is what it did on the Divine side.

Now, what did it do on man's side? Remember it did not remove the sinner's blameworthiness. He was the same guilty sinner that he ever was. It did not remove his deserving the punishment. What did it do? Why, it gave the sinner a substitute for the penalty. The law was, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." "The wages of sin is death." The substitute was, "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses, and having committed unto us the word of reconciliation." Now, this great atoning work of Jesus laid on the sinner the solemn responsibility of choosing between the penalty and the substitute, and brought mighty motives to bear upon the heart. That is what it did, and that is all it does in itself. Suppose a sinner refuses to accept the substitute? Then he is the same old sinner against God. The same law still stands, and the same penalty still impends over him. He is still a subject of doom. He must be punished just the same as if Jesus had not died. O wondrous truth! Solemn thought, awful thought!

Years ago out in Missouri during the Civil War there was a great deal of bushwhacking in one part of the country. The people who had rebelled against the Government got beyond lawful warfare. They would hide behind fences and hedges and walls, and shoot peaceable Union people on the highway as they went along. This went on until the Government had to say, "We will put a stop to that thing;" and they sent out and gathered in a great lot of these bushwhackers, and tried them by court-martial, and they were condemned to death. A row of them were standing up surrounded by soldiers ready to shoot them at the signal, when a young man stepped up to the commanding officer, and said: "Say, let me take the place of that man yonder. He has a family, and he will be missed. I have no family. I will take his place." The commanding officer said, "You may do it," not dreaming there was a man in the world that would do such a thing. But that youth stepped up to the line and took hold of the man, and pushed him out and took his place. A moment later the command was given, and that youth was shot dead, and the other man was saved. There is a monument over there in Missouri, they tell me, that was erected in memory of this young man, with this inscription on it, "Sacred to the memory of Willie Lear. He took my place."

Suppose that after Willie Lear had died for that bushwhacker he had still stood there and said, "I do not care if Willie Lear did die for me, I am the same as ever; I am the same rebel against the Government ;" what do you suppose they would have done to him? The commanding officer would doubtless have said: "You do not accept your substitute. Stand up there, sir; we will make an end of you quick." What do you suppose God will do, if the sinner does not accept the substitute? In infinite love God gave His precious Son; and when His Son was dying in unutterable agony, God the Father and His face from the unutterable scene. I believe there was as much agony of soul in the Father's heart in heaven as there was in Jesus' heart on earth. Now, Suppose that, after Jesus has taken the sinner's place and has died, the sinner says: "I do not care if Jesus did die for me. I will not accept the substitute, and I am the same rebel against God that I ever was, and I am going to continue to be." Do you not see the consequence? God would be obliged to take note of such conduct, and the thunderbolts of God's condemnation would fall on such a sinner's head in his eternal undoing.

4. I call your attention to another fact: That the atoning work does not lessen the sinner's guilt; but, unless he falls in with the plan of salvation, it deepens it. With all his sinning against such knowledge, such opportunity, such blood-bought privileges, he is a worse sinner than he would have been if Jesus had never died, and the Word of God had never been given.

I remember when this truth was first vividly called to my attention. It was when I was in college. President Finney was preaching a sermon in Oberlin. It was the time when New York was full of riotous life. There had been several riots there. It was just after the war, and the people in New Orleans seemed to be bent on violence and murder. I remember President Finney saying one Sunday morning, as he stood before that cultured college audience: "The worst people in the world are not where people suppose they are. The worst sinners in the world are not the bloodthirsty savages. They are not the riotous people in the slums of New York City. They are not the people down there in New Orleans, I verily believe, before God" -- and there was an awful hush on the audience -- "that the worst sinners in the world are living right here in Oberlin. The sinners who have heard this preaching, and had all this light, and all this knowledge, and all this opportunity, and then reject the Son of God!"

That is what Jesus said: "Woe unto you, Bethsaida and Capernaum; for it will be better for Tyre and Sidon and Sodom in the day of judgment than for you." God help us to understand this! It is an awful thing to know the sixteenth verse of the third chapter of John, and then remain a rebel sinner against God. It is an awful thing! May God's wooing grace incline you to-night to yield allegiance to His Son!

5. I close by calling your attention to this wonderful comparison in the text. "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Can you measure those words? Can you tell what it means for a man to perish, PERISH, PERISH? To be shut out into outer darkness, away from God, away from the redeemed, away from heaven, away from hope, into endless despair, for ever and ever? You know the law of a falling body, that a stone will drop so many feet in one second, sixteen, I think; thirty-two the second; sixty-four the third; one hundred and twenty-eight the next, and so on, by a constant mathematical progression. Sometimes they measure depths in that way. They throw a stone, and then listen for the sound of its fall. They tell us there are chasms and abysses in Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, that people go to the edge of, and hurl a stone off into the Stygian darkness, and then listen, and listen, and listen, and hold their watch and count the seconds, -- ten depths. Cast thy plummet of your thought off into the black darkness of this awful word "perish." Can you tell me what it means? There is not a finite being in this universe that can tell what is before the soul that is eternally away from God. Take this other word, "eternal life!" Can you measure what that means? Can you look up into the glorious, towering heights of eternal joy, and love, and godliness, as the soul expands and grows and revels in the joys of the redeemed through the eternal ages, for ever and ever, and forever? There is not an angel before the throne that can tell what you and I may become in the growth of those eternal ages. But, O soul, you have got to have one or the other! One or the other! Soul, which shall it be? Will you reject the substitute and perish, or will you welcome Jesus to your heart as your Savior, and have eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord?

A single illustration, and I close. Mr. Moody tells us that he heard in England of a son who was an only child. He grew up to be a wayward man. This son, by his sin. broke his mother's heart, and took her to a premature grave. Yet every night, after his mother's burial, he went out to his sin and debauchery. One night the father asked him: "Son, will you not stay with me to-night? You have not stayed a night at home since your mother died, and you know your sin killed her." The son said, "No, I will not." "Well," said the dear father, "you are too old to be forcibly restrained; but I will throw myself down before the door, and if you go out tonight, you will have to walk over the prostrate form of your pleading, loving father." That son cursed him brutally, and trod right over him, and went out to his debauchery and sin. Beloved, the man that has the Gospel of John in his hands, and reads the sixteenth verse of the third chapter, knows what he is doing. If he goes on in sin he is simply going on over prayers, and tears, and pleadings; aye, and over, as it were, the prostrate form of the Son of God. Do not do it! Do not do it; but tonight accept the substitute, believe and live.