The Whosoever Gospel
By Aaron Hills
Chapter 4
THE TWO GREAT NECESSITIES
These passages of Scripture tell us of two things that are absolutely necessary to eternal life and admission to heaven. This is not my gospel; I am not called upon to make a Bible. It is my business to preach it. The Bible is made; and all that is included in my call is to preach it and live it. These passages show us that we must be born again, and we must be sanctified, or we can not enter into heaven; and they also tell us how we can be born again. "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth may in Him have eternal life." A great many people do not like to hear this gospel preached. Multitudes do not like to hear anything about regeneration, and a great many more people still do not like to hear that anything is necessary beyond regeneration. They would like to have sanctification put out of the Bible. They deny all necessity of holiness. They even go so far as to deny the possibility of leading a sanctified and holy life in this world; and it seems to me that when they do that, they come perilously near incurring that curse brought upon the man that takes anything from the Word of life, recorded over there in the last verses of the Bible. I did not make the Bible; the Bible is given me by the Lord; and I am glad that I am not so afloat that I have to make a Bible to suit myself. I take the one God has made, and that is what I preach unto you tonight. Some people call this double gospel of conversion or regeneration and sanctification a new-fangled doctrine. Well, beloved, it is not as new as those people think it is. Let me show you it is not. Over in the fifteenth chapter of Genesis, the sixth verse, you read : "And Abram believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness." There was Abram's justification, the first blessing. He was converted, he was born again. But over in the seventeenth chapter of Genesis, the first verse, you read God says to Abram, "I am God Almighty; walk before me and be thou perfect," and there Abram got his call to the second blessing, which he accepted, and had his name changed, representing a change in the innermost character of his soul. His name was changed from Abram to Abraham; and, moreover, he had the rite of circumcision given to him, typical of the inbred cleansing of his heart. You turn over to the story of Jacob, and you find Jacob met God at Bethel, and there he saw the angels of God ascending and descending the ladder, and there Jacob made his vow and gave himself to God. That was the beginning of his spiritual life. He called it Bethel, "none other than the house of God and the gate of heaven." But twenty or more years afterwards you find Jacob wrestling at Peniel. He meets God again, and he wrestles with the angel all night until break of day, and will not let him go until he gets the blessing. And he gets the second blessing, and his name is changed from Jacob the Supplanter to Israel, a Prince of God. You turn over to Isaiah, and you find Isaiah was a beautiful servant of God, a lovely man in his religious life; a man whose bosom glowed with the fervors of piety. Cod's mouthpiece he was to a whole nation; and yet in the sixth chapter we read that one day he got a vision of God, and the cherubim and seraphim bowing before him, and veiling their faces with their wings, and crying out, "Holy! holy! holy is the Lord God Almighty; the whole earth is full of His glory." And Isaiah was so profoundly impressed by that vision, that he fell before God and cried: "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." He was so profoundly impressed with the holiness of heaven and its Sovereign that he said to himself: "I am not fit for that place. I am not holy. Woe, woe is me!" And then an angel came with a live coal from off the altar, and touched his lips and said, "Thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin is purged." That live coal of fire was a type of the Holy Spirit that came to Isaiah; and Isaiah's iniquity was taken away, and his sin was purged. His heart was cleansed, and then God said to him, "Whom shall I send?" and Isaiah replies, ""Here am I, send me." He is ready now to go on God's mission. He is ready to speak God's messages. He felt, as we sing nowadays, whether we feel it or not:
Isaiah was ready, because his heart had got the second blessing. You turn over to the New Testament, and you find that Jesus had some disciples. They had followed Him three and a half years; they had forsaken all to follow Him. They had been commissioned to preach His gospel, and work miracles in His name. Do you tell me that God ever called a child of the devil to preach His gospel? I tell you, nay, nay. They were Christian men; they had given their hearts to God; they had turned from sin; they were followers of Jesus. Jesus said Himself that all had followed Him in the regeneration. He also said, "Your names are written in heaven;" and He also said in His intercessory prayer, "These are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." We have infallible testimony that they were children of God; and yet they are not what God wants them to be. He wants them to have the second blessing; and so He tells them to tarry in Jerusalem until they are endued with power from on high, "The promise of the Father, which, says he, ye shall receive not many days hence." We read in Acts, second chapter, that the Holy Ghost did come upon them, and they were new men in Christ Jesus. Their hearts were changed, for all inbred sin was taken out of them. You turn over to Acts, eighth chapter, and you find that Deacon Philip went down to Samaria and preached to the people; and there were a great many converts, and they were baptized and joined the Church. Were they not Christians? But as soon as the apostles at Jerusalem heard of it, what did they do? They immediately sent Peter and John over to Samaria, post-haste, that they might go and instruct them about receiving the second blessing, the baptism of the Holy Ghost There is the second blessing again. You turn over to Acts, tenth chapter, and you find there was Cornelius, a Centurion, a devout mar who feared God, who prayed always, who gave alms, and Peter himself testified, and said, "I perceive that whosoever feareth God and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him." Here was Cornelius, then, a man with all these characteristics. Why, if you had such a man in the Presbyterian Church, or Baptist Church, or Methodist Church here in the city, you would want to make him an elder, a deacon, a Sabbath School Superintendent, or something or other. You would put him in the best office in the Church. Such a grand man, walking with God, and giving alms and praying and fasting and fearing God! You would say, "What more do you want?' Well, God wanted him to have something more; and He took the pains to give Cornelius a vision; and He gave Peter a vision, so that he would not hesitate about. going to a Gentile's house. And Peter goes and speaks to Cornelius; and while he is speaking the Holy Ghost falls; and we find Peter telling this wondrous incident years afterward in Jersusalem, saying that "God gave them the Holy Ghost even as He did unto us ... cleansing their hearts by faith." You turn over to Acts, nineteenth chapter, and you find out that Apollos, a noted orator, has come to Ephesus and preached his best, and has organized a Church with twelve men. I suppose there were twenty-four women, if it was then as the Church is now, two women to one man. But we will assume that there were twenty-four women, twelve men anyway; and by and by Paul comes along, and the first question Paul asked was, "Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?" "The what?" "The Holy Ghost; have ye received the Holy Ghost?" "Why, we have not as much as heard whether there is a Holy Ghost or not." That is what is the trouble with the Churches today. Plenty of Churches today do not know that there is any Holy Ghost, and that they need to be sanctified by Him, and do need the second blessing. But some Churches are finding out so much, that they think they do not need the first blessing. However, the first thing Paul did was to instruct them, and see to it that they were baptized with the Holy Ghost. So you see, beloved, that I am not preaching a newfangled doctrine. I am preaching a gospel as old as the days of the apostles; I am preaching a gospel as old as the days of Isaiah; I am preaching a gospel as old as the days of Father Jacob; and yea, two generations back of him, as old as Father Abram. This is no new gospel; but it is the living gospel of the infinite God, that fills the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. People do not like to hear it. I was talking one time with a banker's wife, and she said to me: "Mr. Hills, I think the time will come when you ministers will give up preaching the necessity of conversion, or regeneration, or the new birth, or whatever you call it. I do not see anything in it." Give it up? Yes, we will when we give up Jesus as the ultimate authority in matters of morals and religion. Give it up? Yes, we will, when we get too big and too conceited to preach the message which God Almighty has given us to preach. Give it up? Yes, we will, when we get so contemptible that we will fawn on bankers and bankers' wives for what such fawning will bring; but I want to say to you that as long as we are honest souls, sincere and manly men in the pulpit, we will preach the gospel as God has given it to us, whether men like to hear it or not. It is not my business to preach a gospel that every one wants to hear. It is my business to preach what people need to hear, and what they ought to hear, and what God has given me to preach; and that I propose to preach. Now, I want to show you reasons why it is necessary to be born again and sanctified, and how the two blessings may be received. First, I remark, man must be born again and cleansed by the sanctifying power of the Holy Ghost, because of what man is. Man, by nature, is not like God. He does not know God. He does not enjoy God. He does not enjoy God's truth; he does not enjoy God's people or God's Church. "What!" you say. "Those are pretty hard charges." I know it; and the worst thing about it is they are so awfully true. Why, beloved, do you not know if men liked God's Church all you would have to do would be to build churches and throw open the doors, and invite the public to come in, and they would throng in and crowd the churches. Do they do it? Do they do it? You go around to the churches of your city, and the mission halls tonight or tomorrow night, and see how large the audience is where God is preached, and do the same Sunday night; and then just ask yourself how crowded would the theaters be with the people, if they were free as the churches? Why is it that the theaters would be filled, and the churches of your city two-thirds empty? The reason is, people do not like God's truth, and they do not like God's people, and they do not like God's Church; but they do like sin, and to sinful places and sinful amusements they go. If people liked the Bible by nature, all you would have to do would be to print Bibles and throw them out broadcast over the earth, and people would read that Book as they would no novel that was ever printed; and as the truth unfolded to them, they would bow right down and worship the God that the Bible reveals. Do they do it? Plenty of families in the city have no Bible; and multitudes of people do not read the Book if they have one. The dust of neglect covers it so you could write your name on it. They read everything else -- the novel, the slush of the daily papers, good, bad, and indifferent; but the Bible is the neglected Book of books. God help us to understand that people do not enjoy the Bible by nature! As I said a moment ago, people do not love God by nature. You think that is an awful charge; but is it not true? If they loved God, all you would have to do would be to make known God to the people, and at once they would fall down on their faces, as the angels do, and prayers would rise as sweet incense before the throne of God. Is that the way people treat God? Why, the city is full of people who have hurled their blasphemous oaths into God's ears all day; and they use the very breath God has given them to blaspheme His name. Multitudes would banish God from the universe, if they could do it. O, the world is bad, and men do not love God, and they are never going to love God until they are born again of the Holy Spirit! I sometimes illustrate this truth in this way. There is in the British Museum a little vase about ten inches high, called the Portland vase. It is made of blue glass, and covered with transparent enamel, and carved to represent the marriage of the father of Achilles to the goddess Thetis. It was found by Alexander Severus in an Etruscan tomb; was taken out and emptied of the ashes of the dead, for that is what it contained, and it was refilled with the ashes of one of his dead, and sealed up in a magnificent sarcophagus, and there it was found in the sixteenth century, perfect as it was when it was made, one thousand years before Christ was born. It is one of the priceless gems of antiquity. No money would buy it today. In 1845 a group of people stood admiring that vase and talking about it, and a poor drunken wretch came along and hurled a rock at it, and shattered it into a number of pieces. He was hustled off to prison with the execrations of the civil authorities, and the best artists of the realm were brought together to see if they could restore that vase. They took transparent cement, and experimented by putting bit by bit together, and they believe they have restored it as it was. Now, that gives you my illustration. The human race was intended by God Almighty to bear His image, and reflect His likeness and His glory; and every one of us is expected to reflect back into God's face a perfect image of a perfect man. But Satan, drunk with envy at the Son of God, hurled his temptation at our race, and shattered the image of God in every human soul. There is just one Artist in the universe that can take the broken fragments of our sin-cursed, ruined nature, and restore it to the likeness of God; and that Artist is the Holy Ghost. Therefore God says, "Ye must be born of the Spirit and ye must be sanctified by the Spirit." Second. I remark that we must be born again by the Spirit and sanctified by the Spirit before we can enjoy the kingdom of God because of what the kingdom is. If the kingdom of God were meat and drink, savage gluttons would be just fitted for it. That is what they would like. If it were a business realm, a schooling in Paris or New York or Chicago Stock Exchange would just fit a man for it. He would be trained by business to enjoy the kingdom. If it were a realm of art, then studying in the Vatican gallery amidst the masterpieces of the world would just fit a man for it. If it were a realm of science, then sitting at the feet of Darwin or Tyndall or Huxley would fit a man for it. But the apostle Paul says it is not meat or drink, and he might have added, nor business, nor art, nor science. What is it? "The kingdom of heaven is not meat and drink; but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost;" and until the soul is spiritual enough to enjoy righteousness and enjoy the Holy Ghost himself, he is not fit for heaven, and he could not by any possibility enjoy heaven. Do you ever ask yourself what a gambler's heaven would be like? Why, a gambler's heaven would be a Monte Carlo or a Saratoga or a New Orleans gambling house, where men could ever play with loaded dice or marked cards, and fleece their victims, and gratify the gambler's passion. For that he will turn away from his manhood and his family and his home and all that man ought to hold dear and precious. He will leave it all to gratify that passion. Did you ever ask yourself what a drunkard's heaven would be like? It would be one of your infernal saloons, where the man could forever hear the jingle of the saloon furnishings; where he could drink and drink and drink, and forever gratify the drunkard's quenchless thirst. For that he will take the food from his hungry children s stomachs. He will take the clothes from his wife's back, and the roof that shelters them from the winter's storm, and he will add to that his own manhood and health and wealth and reputation. He will stake it all on that appetite for drink. An infernal saloon is the heaven that man is fitting for. Did you ever ask yourself what an impure man's heaven would be like? An Oriental harem infinitely prolonged. That is all the vile leper is fitting for. But O, because our heaven that God reveals to us is not like these, but is a holy place for a holy people, therefore men full of impurity and the taint and curse of sin must be born anew, and made holy by the Holy Spirit, or they can never enter the heaven of God. I remark, third, that man must have these changes that my text tells about before he can enter or see or enjoy the kingdom of God because of what God is. Because of what God is. Most people have a very low idea of heaven. They think heaven is a place, just a place; and the greatest joy in heaven will be meeting Mary or John who has gone over on the other side; but O, I told you a moment ago that heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people: and the greatest joy of heaven will not be meeting our loved ones over there, precious as that is; but it will be God himself. He is the glory of heaven, and He is the chief joy of heaven, and unless a soul can enjoy God himself, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Let me make this plain by some illustrations. I remember the last time my old grandfather visited my childhood home in Western Michigan, where I was born. He was a godly old man, a deacon of a Congregational Church in New York. He liked to talk about religious things. He was more spiritual than my father, and his favorite theme of conversation was God and Jesus and heaven and things of that kind. I remember one day my father asked him, "Well, father, what are you going to do when you get to heaven?" I shall never forget how the old man jumped from his chair, his white locks streaming back like a halo of glory, and he lifted his hands with his characteristic gesture, and looked up and said, "My son, my son, I will spend the first thousand years of eternity looking at the face of Jesus." There was a man getting ripe for heaven. It would be just heaven for him to stand and look at that face down which the blood-drops trickled from the thorn crown, a thousand years. Do you know what that means? If you do not, you need the work of the Holy Ghost on your heart. When President Finney was holding revival-meetings in Central New York, at the time of his greatest usefulness, he was one night awakened from his sleep in the dead of the night. He rose up on his bed, and listened to see what it was that had awakened him. It was a godly woman praying in the next room, and he heard her say, ""O, the holiness of God!" and a second time, "O, the holiness of God!" and then a third time, "O, the holiness of God!" Her very soul was ravished in contemplation of the holiness of God. She was getting ready for heaven. Twenty-five years ago a godly preacher by the name of Dr. Hawes, pastor for many years of the First Congregational Church of Hartford, Connecticut, lay dying. The ministers of the city gathered in to visit him; and as they stood around his bedside, one of them said to him, "Well, doctor, you are almost home; how does it seem to you now?" The dear old man looked up, the blessed old warrior of Israel, and said with blazing eyes: "O brethren, if there is anything in God's universe I love, it is the government and character of God; and whoever loves them is safe anywhere in God's universe." That old man was ready for glory. Some few years ago, Charles Kingsley, a famous preacher and writer of England, lay dying. It was after midnight. The daughter was watching in the next room, the door open between, so that she could hear anything her father did, and know if he wanted anything. Along in the small hours of the morning she heard him say, "O, how beautiful is God!" She stepped on tiptoe softly into the other room to the bedside, and, lo, he was gone! On the border line between the two worlds he had caught a glimpse of the God whom he had loved so long; and his last exclamation of earth, and his first of heaven, was, "O, how beautiful is God!" Do you know what these things mean? Beloved, as sure as you sit in those seats, if you do not know, the reason is your hearts have not yet been prepared by sovereign grace for the glories of the eternal world. God help you to search your hearts and know where you are tonight! Why, you can see it is as plain as can be, why we must have these changes. You could not put a soul in such a place of misery anywhere in the universe, as to put him near God when he is not ready to meet Him. I will show you that by a simple illustration. When Wilberforce, the great philanthropist of England, who agitated for the suppression of the slave business, and finally stopped it throughout the British Empire, was living, he called with a friend one day on a sick and dying man. He noticed, as he was talking, that the sick man was very strangely agitated. He did not know why, and thinking it might perhaps be his presence, he said a few more words to him, and left the house. After he went away the dying man said, "O, I am so glad Wilberforce is gone; he told me I was going straight to hell." "Why," says the friend, "he did not say anything of the kind to you. He was very gentle in his speech all the time. "I know he did not say it to me with his lips; but his life, his beautiful life, told me I was going straight to hell!" Friends, if that wicked man could not bear the presence of Wilberforce this side of death, how could he bear the presence of God on the other side? Why, there would be no hell so hot for that wicked man as to put him right up on the sea of glass before the great White Throne, in the blazing light of the Son of God. To my mind the most awful punishment of the doomed given in that Book is not "the lake of fire and brimstone," or ""the smoke of the torment that ascendeth for ever and ever," or "the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth;" that is all figurative language. The most awful picture of punishment, to my mind, is where the sinners are calling on the rocks and mountains to fall on them and hide them from the face of Him that sitteth upon the Throne and from the Lamb. Beloved, no man can enjoy the sight of God and live, until his nature is fitted by grace to do it. Now, you can see the meaning of my text. You can see why God has said it. These changes must take place in our souls, or we are not fit for heaven, and we never could enjoy it. Now, notice, fourthly, how radical that change is. Birth is the starting point, and because we were started wrong we must all be started over again. We were conceived in iniquity and born in sin, and we have all got to be started over again. Some one asks, "Will not culture do?" Culture! culture! and some people spell it, or pronounce it as if it were spelled "culchab." Is it not enough to tone a man up a little here, and fix him up there? Will not that make him all right for heaven? There are thousands of people who think they are ready for heaven, because they are so sweetly "culchahed." And many people think if they were born in Boston, they are good enough and do not need to be born again! Is that the meaning of God's Word? O beloved, let me show you how utterly futile that hope is. Darwin tells us that our pet cats are only little leopards, transformed by thousands of years of culture; but you see they have the carnivorous teeth, and the appetite for blood, and the same leopard nature yet; and all the generations of culture have not changed that a particle. I saw one day on the shore of Lake Michigan an eagle sitting near me in the edge of a town. I suppose it was a cultured eagle; but I noticed that the bird had the same curved beak and cruel talons. It was not a dove, if it was cultured; the eagle was there still, and culture did not change the inbred nature at all. And so, beloved, you can culture and culture the old man of depravity; but you will simply have cultured carnality as the result. You have not got a saint. This truth is illustrated by the young men in our colleges. I know, from living seven years within college walls, that many college-bred men are as vile-hearted devils as ever walked the earth. They can read several languages, and swear and lie in several more; but yet they are as black as they need to be to sink into the infernal pit. Look at ancient Greece and Rome: were they not cultured? Their languages were so perfect that we send our children to college for years to study them. The old Greeks were so cultured that they had in some respects the best language that was ever spoken on the globe. Their very thought was philosophy, and their speech was poetry and eloquence; and yet, with all their culture they went down under the burden of their sins. Old Rome was outwardly imposing, and ruled the earth and was filled with orators and poets and historians and scholars; and yet, as one historian writes, "Rome, so outwardly imposing, was inwardly rotten to the core." Are not the aristocrats in the West End of London cultured? They have all that Cambridge and Oxford and noble birth and foreign travel can give them. But some years ago, Mr. Stead, of the Pall Mall Gazette, got on the track of their wickedness, and published it in his paper. The story was so awful that all England began to rock and tremble as in the throes of a great earthquake. The very throne began to totter, for it was touching the princes of the blood-royal. Spurgeon went into his pulpit, and said, "If this wickedness is not stopped, the Lord will destroy modem London as he destroyed ancient Sodom." But what did they do? They simply imprisoned Mr. Stead for publishing it, and the wickedness still goes on. And yet I call your attention to this startling fact, that those people were Churchmen. They had been baptized and joined the Church, and they had partaken of the communion, and they were members of the fashionable Churches; but their hearts were as black as hell, which shows how little baptism and communion and Church membership can do to fit anybody for heaven. I do not ask you tonight whether you have been confirmed or not; I do not ask you it you have been baptized; I do not ask you if you are a member of the Church; but I do ask you in God's name, have you been regenerated and made clean by the Holy Ghost and by the blood of Christ? That is the vital question; for nothing else will meet the needs of the soul. O culture! how utterly futile it is to take out of the soul that polluted current of life that has flowed in the human race from Adam's day until now. No tribe, no race, no people on the globe have ever been changed by culture. Nothing but God's grace can do the work. Several years ago there was an Englishman who came into possession of a little baby boa-constrictor seven inches long. He fondled it and fed it and caressed it and held it in his bosom, and it grew and grew and grew until it became a monster of its species, thirty-seven feet long. Then he performed with it night after night in the theaters of London. It would be the last and most thrilling act of every night's performance. The scenery would represent an Indian jungle, and the orchestra would strike up the weird strains of Indian music. A rustle would be heard behind the scenery, and this awful creature would stretch its huge length out on the platform. The master would step up to it, and it would perform, and at the last the great beast would coil around him, coil upon coil, and rear his horrid head above him, when the curtain would drop amid thunders of applause. This went on night after night, until the last night came, as last nights always will come to earthly things. The beast came out as usual, performed as usual. The master stepped up as usual, and it coiled around as usual; but the master was heard to utter a shriek, and the audience thought it was a part of the performance, and applauded louder than ever. But pretty soon their faces were blanched with horror, for the great beast was tightening his coil and crushing the master's bones one by one right before their eyes. The cultured beast was master at last. Beloved, you can sport with this old beast of depravity, and try your culture, and reject the Son of God, and fight Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit in your heart; but the day will come when that old beast of depravity will crush out of you every likeness to God and every hope of heaven. "Ye must be born again." God help you to see it! I hasten on to remark, last, this precious truth in closing, that you not only must be born again, but you MAY be. O, if God had only told us we must be born again, we would have lost all hope of salvation! If he had just told us we must, and had not told us how we could be, it would have brought black despair to the race. But, glory to God! He told us how. Jesus looked at that cultured, rich, refined ruler, and said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus threw up his hands and cried out, "How can these things be !" Jesus did not take it back; but He repeated it again, driving it home, and making him feel the mighty necessity of this new birth; and after that Jesus told him how he might be born again. ""And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth may in Him have eternal life." Glory to God! There is that blessed "WHOSOEVER" again that I have been preaching. The blessed ""WHOSOEVER," that takes in poor me, and gives me a chance with the rest of the world. I am so glad, and O, beloved, it is easy to get this new birth and this heart-cleansing, if you really want it. It does not take long if you really want it. One time in New York City a burglar was going up Fifth Avenue to break into a house, and he passed by a religious meeting, heard the words of sacred song coming out. He stopped and listened. The Spirit of God came upon him, and before that service was out he walked up to the front, and astonished the audience by taking the burglar's tools out of his pocket, and laying them down on the altar. He said: "Friends, I came in here a burglar; but I go out of here to be a child of God and an honest man. O, it does not take long, when you want to get saved. During Mr. Moody's first series of meetings in St. Louis, there was a man who got angry at a fellow-man, and swore he would shoot him at sight. He purchased a revolver, and started out to find him and shoot him. He went to all the man's usual places of resort and inquired for him, and found he had gone to the Moody meeting. He started for the Moody meeting, and glared around over the audience looking to see where that man was. The Spirit prompted him to listen to the truth; and before the meeting was over his heart was changed, and he walked up to Mr. Moody and took his revolver and gave it to him, and said, ""Mr. Moody, I came in here to kill a brother; but I have found my Elder Brother, Jesus Christ." Every night after that he brought, instead of a revolver, a New Testament, and went to the inquiry-room to lead others to Christ. O, it does not take long! Do you suppose if a man really wants God, and is willing to receive God, it would take five years to find Him? He may not live five years. Five months? You may not live five months. Five weeks? Who is certain of five weeks? Five hours? No. Five minutes? If a man really wants this blessing of God, it would not take five seconds to get it, and I will prove it to you by an illustration. Dr. Josiah Strong told me this in his own study. He said: "I began my ministry in Cheyenne, Wyoming. There was a young man in my congregation, the son of a Presbyterian minister, who had been instructed in the ways of religion, but had never given his heart to God. A wealthy gentleman moved into the town, and invited this young man to his house to the evening meal. He sat down and talked with him in the study until time for the meal. They were invited out, and sat down at the table; and the man, supposing him to be a Christian, turned to him and said, "Will you please ask a blessing, sir?" Well, quick as a lightning-flash, the thought swept through his soul, "I always intended giving my heart to Christ some time, and why not now?" and, without a moment's hesitation, he dropped his head and asked the blessing -- a Christian man. You say, How do you know he was a Christian? From that hour, said his pastor, he was the most active lay Christian I ever knew. O, when a man's will yields to God, when he says, "Yes, dear Savior," he can have life and light. God intends salvation shall be accessible to any soul. Just another incident now, and I close. Bear with me a moment. After the battle of Pittsburgh Landing, Moody was nursing dying soldiers. He had been at work all day until midnight, and had retired for a little sleep. As he was sleeping, some one awakened him, and said, "There is a poor, dying soldier that wants to see you. He rose up and went to the side of the cot of the poor, dying man, and said to him, "What is it you want?" He said, "I sent for you to help me die." "I can not help you to die," said Moody. "O, I thought you were a minister." "No, I am not; but if I were, I could not help you to die." "O, who can help me to die?" "No one but Jesus." "Then there is no hope for me, for I have been an awfully wicked man." Mr. Moody gave him some passages of Scripture, and knelt down and prayed with him; but still he did not get any light. Then he gave him some more passages of Scripture, and prayed with him a second time; but still he received no help. Then he bethought him, and put his hand in his pocket and drew out his Testament, and read to him that wonderful third chapter of John about the new birth. When he came along to the fourteenth verse, "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth may in him have eternal life." he said, "Is that there?" "Yes, sir." "Will you please read that again?" He read it a second time. The poor fellow said, "Pardon me, sir; but please read that once more." He read it a third time. "There that will do. That is enough." He shut his eyes. Pretty soon a smile came over his face, and his lips began to move, and Mr. Moody stooped down to listen, and he was repeating in a whisper, "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so -- must -- the -- Son -- of -- man -- be lifted up, that whosoever believeth may in Him have eternal life. "Lord, I believe, I believe," and a soul was gone to God. Have you not heard enough tonight? Will you not believe on the blood? Beloved, believe in the atoning Savior. Will you not take the Spirit for what you need tonight? O, if you want to be born again, ask God to be your Savior, and if you are a Christian and want to be sanctified, open
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