_For the Young_
'… Believest then this? She saith unto Him, Yea, Lord.'—JOHN xi. 26,
27.
As each of these annual sermons which I have preached for so long comes
round, I feel more solemnly the growing probability that it may be the
last. Like a man nearing the end of his day's work, I want to make the
most of the remaining moments. Whether this is the last sermon of the
sort that I shall preach or not, it is certainly the last of the kind
that some of you will hear from me, or possibly from any one.
So, dear friends, I have felt that neither you nor I can afford to
waste this hour in considering subjects of secondary interest,
appropriate as some of them might be. I wish to come to the main point
at once, and to press upon you all, and especially on the younger
portion of this audience, the question of your own personal religion.
The words of my text, as you will probably remember, were addressed by
our Lord to Martha, as she was writhing in agony over her dead brother.
Christ proclaims, with singular calmness and majesty, His character and
work as the Resurrection and the Life, and then seeks to draw her from
her absorbing sorrow to an effort of faith which shall grasp the truths
He proclaims. He flashes out this sudden question, like the swift
thrust of a gleaming dagger. It is a demand for credence to His
assertion—on His bare word—tremendous as that assertion is. And nobly
was the demand met by the as swift, unfaltering answer, 'Yea, Lord,' I
believe in Thee, and so I believe in Thy word.
Now, friends, Jesus Christ is putting the same question to each of us.
And I pray that our answers may be Martha's.