"I may."
"We don't want you. We won't let you in."
"How are you going to keep me out?" I asked; "there is the
invitation."
"We will put a policeman at the door."
"What is the policeman going to do with that invitation?"
"We won't let you in."
"Well," I said, "I will be there."
I gave them a good scare, and then I said, "I will compromise the
matter; if you two men will get down here and let me pray with you,
I will let you off."
I got those two rumsellers down on their knees, one on one side of
me, and the other on the other side, and I prayed God to save their
souls and smite their business. One of them had a Christian mother,
and he seemed to have some conscience left. After I had prayed, I
said:
"How can you do this business? How can you throw this place open to
ruin young men of Chicago?"
Within three months the whole thing smashed up, and one of them was
converted some time after. I have never been invited to a saloon
since.
You won't have to give up the world, not by a good deal. If you go
to reunions, and there is drinking, get up and go away. Don't you be
party to it. That is the kind of men we want. When you find anything
that is ruining your fellow men, fight it to its bitter end.
Nehemiah said, "We will not have desecration of the Sabbath." Not
sell the Sunday paper? Not buy a Sunday paper? How many read the
Sunday newspapers?
I suppose that if you had Nehemiah as mayor of New York, he would
stop that sort of thing. Here we have boys who are kept away from
the Sunday school to sell papers on the streets--trains running in
order that the papers can be distributed. I don't believe a man is
in a fit state to hear a sermon whose mind is full of such trash as
the Sunday newspaper is filled with. Men break the Sabbath and
wonder why it is they have not spiritual power. The trouble nowadays
is that it doesn't mean anything to some people to be a Christian.
What we must have is a higher type of Christianity in this country.
We must have a Christianity that has in it the principle of self
-denial. We must deny ourselves. If we want power, we must be
separate.
The next thing they were to do--(and bear in mind this was a thing
they had to sign)--was to _give their land rest_.
For four hundred and ninety years they had not let their land rest,
so God took them away to Babylon for seventy years, and let the land
rest. A man that works seven days in the week right along is cut off
about five or ten years earlier. You cannot rob God. Why is it that
so many railroad superintendents and physicians die early? It is
because they work seven days in the week. So Nehemiah made them
covenant to keep the law of Moses. If the nations of the earth had
kept that law, the truth would have gone to the four corners of the
earth before this time.
Then he made them sign a covenant that _they would not charge
usury_.
They were just grinding the poor down. I believe that the reason we
are in such a wretched state in this country to-day is on account of
crowding the poor, and getting such a large amount of money for
usury. People evade the law, and pay the interest, and then they
give a few hundred dollars to negotiate the loan. There is a great
amount of usury, and see where we are to-day! See what a wretched
state of things we are having, not only in this country, but all
over the world!
The fifth thing he made them do was to _bring their first fruits to
the sons of Levi_.
They were to give God a tenth, the first and best. As long as Israel
did that they prospered, and when they turned away from that law
they did not prosper. You can look through history and look around
you and see the same thing to-day. As long as men keep God's law and
respect God's testimony, they are going to prosper, but when they
turn aside, like Samson, they lose their strength; they have no
power.
If you take these five things and carry them out, you will have
prosperity. Let us all do it personally. If it was good for those
men it is good for us. The moment we begin to rob God of time or
talents then darkness and misery and wretchedness will come.