Glorying in the Cross
It's Jesus Christ or nothing.--BILLY SUNDAY.
Pauline in more than one characteristic is Billy Sunday. But in none so
much as in his devotion to the cross of Jesus Christ. His life motto
may well be Paul's, "I am resolved to know nothing among you, save
Jesus Christ and him crucified." His preaching is entirely founded
on the message that "the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all
sin." There are no modern theories of the atonement in his utterances.
To the learned of the world, as to the Greeks of old, the Cross may
seem foolishness, but Sunday knows and preaches it as the power of
God unto salvation. As his closing and most characteristic message
to the readers of this book we commend his sermon on "Christ and him
crucified."
"ATONEMENT"
"For if the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of an heifer
sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the
flesh"--Paul argued in his letter to the Hebrews--"how much more shall
the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself
without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the
living God."
No more of this turtle-dove business, no more offering the blood of
bullocks and heifers to cleanse from sin.
The atoning blood of Jesus Christ--that is the thing about which
all else centers. I believe that more logical, illogical, idiotic,
religious and irreligious arguments have been fought over this than all
others. Now and then when a man gets a new idea of it he goes out and
starts a new denomination. He has a perfect right to do this under
the thirteenth amendment, but he doesn't stop here. He makes war on
all of the other denominations that do not interpret as he does. Our
denominations have multiplied by this method until it would give one
brain fever to try to count them all.
The atoning blood! And as I think it over I am reminded of a man who
goes to England and advertises that he will throw pictures on the
screen of the Atlantic coast of America. So he gets a crowd and throws
pictures on the screen of high bluffs and rocky coasts and waves
dashing against them until a man comes out of the audience and brands
him a liar and says that he is obtaining money under false pretense,
as he has seen America and the Atlantic coast and what the other man
is showing is not America at all. The men almost come to blows and
then the other man says that if the people will come tomorrow he will
show them real pictures of the coast. So the audience comes back to
see what he will show, and he flashes on the screen pictures of a low
coast line, with palmetto trees and banana trees and tropical foliage
and he apologizes to the audience, but says these are the pictures of
America. The first man calls him a liar and the people don't know which
to believe. What was the matter with them?
They were both right and they were both wrong, paradoxical as it may
seem. They were both right as far as they went, but neither went far
enough. The first showed the coast line from New England to Cape
Hatteras, while the second showed the coast line from Hatteras to
Yucatan. They neither could show it all in one panoramic view, for it
is so varied it could not be taken in one picture. God never intended
to give you a picture of the world in one panoramic view. From the time
of Adam and Eve down to the time Jesus Christ hung on the cross he was
unfolding his views. When I see Moses leading the people out of bondage
where they for years had bared their backs to the taskmaster's lash;
when I see the lowing herds and the high priest standing before the
altar severing the jugular vein of the rams and the bullocks on until
Christ cried out from the cross, "It is finished," God was preparing
the picture for the consummation of it in the atoning blood of Jesus
Christ.
A sinner has no standing with God. He forfeits his standing when he
commits sin and the only way he can get back is to repent and accept
the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.
I have sometimes thought that Adam and Eve didn't understand as fully
as we do when the Lord said, "Eat and you shall surely die." They
had never seen any one die. They might have thought it simply meant
a separation from God. But no sooner had they eaten and seen their
nakedness than they sought to cover themselves, and it is the same
today. When man sees himself in his sins, uncovered, he tries to cover
himself in philosophy or some fake. But God looked through the fig
leaves and the foliage and God walked out in the field and slew the
beasts and took their skins and wrapped them around Adam and Eve, and
from that day to this when a man has been a sinner and has covered
himself it has been by and through faith in the shed blood of Jesus
Christ. Every Jew covered his sins and received pardon through the
blood of the rams and bullocks and the doves.
An old infidel said to me once, "But I don't believe in atonement by
blood. It doesn't come up to my ideas of what is right."
I said, "To perdition with your ideas of what is right. Do you think
God is coming down here to consult you with your great intellect and
wonderful brain, and find out what you think is right before he does
it?" My, but you make me sick. You think that because you don't believe
it that it isn't true.
I have read a great deal--not everything, mind you, for a man would
go crazy if he tried to read everything--but I have read a great
deal that has been written against the atonement from the infidel
standpoint--Voltaire, Huxley, Spencer, Diderot, Bradlaugh, Paine, on
down to Bob Ingersoll--and I have never found an argument that would
stand the test of common sense and common reasoning. And if anyone
tells me he has tossed on the scrap heap the plan of atonement by blood
I say, "What have you to offer that is better?" and until he can show
me something that is better I'll nail my hopes to the cross.
Suffering for the Guilty
You say you don't believe in the innocent suffering for the guilty.
Then I say to you, you haven't seen life as I have seen it up and down
the country. The innocent suffer with the guilty, by the guilty and for
the guilty. Look at that old mother waiting with trembling heart for
the son she has brought into the world. And see him come staggering
in and reeling and staggering to bed while his mother prays and weeps
and soaks the pillow with her tears over her godless boy. Who suffers
most? The mother or that godless, maudlin bum? You have only to be the
mother of a boy like that to know who suffers most. Then you won't say
anything about the plan of redemption and of Jesus Christ suffering for
the guilty.
Look at that young wife, waiting for the man whose name she bears, and
whose face is woven in the fiber of her heart, the man she loves. She
waits for him in fright and when he comes, reeking from the stench of
the breaking of his marriage vows, from the arms of infamy, who suffers
most? That poor, dirty, triple extract of vice and sin? You have only
to be the wife of a husband like that to know whether the innocent
suffers for the guilty or not. I have the sympathy of those who know
right now.
This happened in Chicago in a police court. A letter was introduced as
evidence for a criminal there for vagrancy. It read, "I hope you won't
have to hunt long to find work. Tom is sick and baby is sick. Lucy has
no shoes and we have no money for the doctor or to buy any clothes. I
manage to make a little taking in washing, but we are living in one
room in a basement. I hope you won't have to look long for work," and
so on, just the kind of a letter a wife would write to her husband.
And before it was finished men cried and policemen with hearts of
adamant were crying and fled from the room. The judge wiped the tears
from his eyes and said: "You see, no man lives to himself alone. If he
sins others suffer. I have no alternative. I sympathize with them, as
does every one of you, but I have no alternative. I must send this man
to Bridewell." Who suffers most, that woman manicuring her nails over
a washboard to keep the little brood together or that drunken bum in
Bridewell getting his just deserts from his acts? You have only to be
the wife of a man like that to know whether or not the innocent suffer
with the guilty.
So when you don't like the plan of redemption because the innocent
suffer with the guilty, I say you don't know what is going on. It's the
plan of life everywhere.
From the fall of Adam and Eve till now it has always been the rule that
the innocent suffer with the guilty. It's the plan of all and unless
you are an idiot, an imbecile and a jackass, and gross flatterer at
that, you'll see it.
Jesus' Atoning Blood
Jesus gave his life on the cross for any who will believe. We're not
redeemed by silver or gold. Jesus paid for it with his blood. When some
one tells you that your religion is a bloody religion and the Bible
is a bloody book, tell them yes, Christianity is a bloody religion,
the gospel is a bloody gospel, the Bible is a bloody book, the plan of
redemption is bloody. It is. You take the blood of Jesus Christ out of
Christianity and that book isn't worth the paper it is written on. It
would be worth no more than your body with the blood taken out. Take
the blood of Jesus Christ out and it would be a meaningless jargon and
jumble of words.
If it weren't for the atoning blood you might as well rip the roofs off
the churches and burn them down. They aren't worth anything. But as
long as the blood is on the mercy seat the sinner can return, and by
no other way. There is nothing else. It stands for the redemption. You
are not redeemed by silver or gold, but by the blood of Jesus Christ.
Though a man says to read good books, do good deeds, live a good life
and you'll be saved, you'll be damned. That's what you will. All the
books in the world won't keep you out of hell without the atoning blood
of Jesus Christ. It's Jesus Christ or nothing for every sinner on God's
earth.
[Illustration: "SAY, BOSS, WHY DIDN'T YOU CHUCK THAT NICKEL IN THE
SEWER?"]
Without it not a sinner will ever be saved. Jesus has paid for your
sins with his blood. The doctrine of universal salvation is a lie. I
wish every one would be saved, but they won't. You will never be saved
if you reject the blood.
I remember when I was in the Y. M. C. A. in Chicago I was going down
Madison Street and had just crossed Dearborn Street when I saw a
newsboy with a young sparrow in his hand. I said: "Let that little bird
go."
He said, "Aw, g'wan with you, you big mutt."
I said, "I'll give you a penny for it," and he answered, "Not on your
tintype."
"I'll give you a nickel for it," and he answered, "Boss, I'm from
Missouri; come across with the dough."
I offered it to him, but he said, "Give it to that guy there," and I
gave it to the boy he indicated and took the sparrow.
I held it for a moment and then it fluttered and struggled and finally
reached the window ledge in a second story across the street. And
other birds fluttered around over my head and seemed to say in bird
language, "Thank you, Bill."
The kid looked at me in wonder and said: "Say, boss, why didn't you
chuck that nickel in the sewer?"
I told him that he was just like that bird. He was in the grip of the
devil, and the devil was too strong for him just as he was too strong
for the sparrow, and just as I could do with the sparrow what I wanted
to after I had paid for it because it was mine. God paid a price for
him far greater than I had for the sparrow, for he had paid it with the
blood of his Son and he wanted to set him free.
No Argument Against Sin
So, my friend, if I had paid for some property from you with a price,
I could command you, and if you wouldn't give it to me I could go into
court and make you yield. Why do you want to be a sinner and refuse to
yield? You are withholding from God what he paid for on the cross. When
you refuse you are not giving God a square deal.
I'll tell you another. It stands for God's hatred of sin. Sin is
something you can't deny. You can't argue against sin. A skilful
man can frame an argument against the validity of religion, but he
can't frame an argument against sin. I'll tell you something that may
surprise you. If I hadn't had four years of instruction in the Bible
from Genesis to Revelation, before I saw Bob Ingersoll's book, and I
don't want to take any credit from that big intelligent brain of his, I
would be preaching infidelity instead of Christianity. Thank the Lord I
saw the Bible first. I have taken his lectures and placed them by the
side of the Bible, and said, "You didn't say it from your knowledge of
the Bible." And I have never considered him honest, for he could not
have been so wise in other things and such a fool about the plan of
redemption. So I say I don't think he was entirely honest.
But you can't argue against the existence of sin, simply because it is
an open fact, the word of God. You can argue against Jesus being the
Son of God. You can argue about there being a heaven and a hell, but
you can't argue against sin. It is in the world and men and women are
blighted and mildewed by it.
Some years ago I turned a corner in Chicago and stood in front of
a police station. As I stood there a patrol dashed up and three
women were taken from some drunken debauch, and they were dirty
and blear-eyed, and as they were taken out they started a flood of
profanity that seemed to turn the very air blue. I said, "There is
sin." And as I stood there up dashed another patrol and out of it they
took four men, drunken and ragged and bloated, and I said, "There is
sin." You can't argue against the fact of sin. It is in the world and
blights men and women. But Jesus came to the world to save all who
accept him.
"How Long, O God?"
It was out in the Y. M. C. A. in Chicago. "What is your name and what
do you want?" I asked.
"I'm from Cork, Ireland," said he, "and my name is James O'Toole. Here
is a letter of introduction." I read it and it said he was a good
Christian young man and an energetic young fellow.
I said, "Well, Jim, my name is Mr. Sunday. I'll tell you where there
are some good Christian boarding houses and you let me know which one
you pick out." He told me afterwards that he had one on the North
Side. I sent him an invitation to a meeting to be held at the Y. M.
C. A., and he had it when he and some companions went bathing in Lake
Michigan. He dived from the pier just as the water receded unexpectedly
and he struck the bottom and broke his neck. He was taken to the morgue
and the police found my letter in his clothes, and told me to come and
claim it or it would be sent to a medical college. I went and they had
the body on a slab, but I told them I would send a cablegram to his
folks and asked them to hold it. They put it in a glass case and turned
on the cold air, by which they freeze bodies by chemical processes,
as they freeze ice, and said they would save it for two months, and if
I wanted it longer they would stretch the rules a little and keep it
three.
I was just thinking of what sorrow that cablegram would cause his old
mother in Cork when they brought in the body of a woman. She would have
been a fit model of Phidias, she had such symmetry of form. Her fingers
were manicured. She was dressed in the height of fashion and her hands
were covered with jewels and as I looked at her, the water trickling
down her face, I saw the mute evidence of illicit affection. I did
not say lust, I did not say passion, I did not say brute instincts. I
said, "Sin." Sin had caused her to throw herself from that bridge and
seek repose in a suicide's grave. And as I looked, from the saloon,
the fan-tan rooms, the gambling hells, the opium dens, the red lights,
there arose one endless cry of "How long, O God, how long shall hell
prevail?"
You can't argue against sin. It's here. Then listen to me as I try to
help you.
When the Standard Oil Company was trying to refine petroleum there was
a substance that they couldn't dispose of. It was a dark, black, sticky
substance and they couldn't bury it, couldn't burn it because it made
such a stench; they couldn't run it in the river because it killed the
fish, so they offered a big reward to any chemist who would solve the
problem. Chemists took it and worked long over the problem, and one day
there walked into the office of John D. Rockefeller, a chemist and laid
down a pure white substance which we since know as paraffine.
You can be as black as that substance and yet Jesus Christ can make you
white as snow. "Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white
as snow."
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.
Base ball, base-ball and baseball have been variously used throughout
the original, these have been standardised to baseball. Other
variations in hyphenation have been standardised, but variations in
punctuation and spelling remain.
Italics are represented thus _italic_ and bold thus =bold=.