Many a fine road has become miry and foul because it has not been
properly cared for; but my text says the unclean shall not walk on
this one. Room on either side to throw away your sins. Indeed, if you
want to carry them along, you are not on the right road. That bridge
will break, those overhanging rocks will fall, the night will come
down, leaving you at the mercy of the mountain bandits, and at the
very next turn of the road you will perish. But if you are really on
this clean road of which I have been speaking, then you will stop
ever and anon to wash in the water that stands in the basin of the
eternal rock. Ay, at almost every step of the journey you will be
crying out: "Create within me a clean heart!" If you have no such
aspirations as that, it proves that you have mistaken your way; and if
you will only look up and see the finger-board above your head, you
may read upon it the words: "There is a way that seemeth right unto a
man, but the end thereof is death." Without holiness no man shall see
the Lord; and if you have any idea that you can carry along your sins,
your lusts, your worldliness, and yet get to the end of the Christian
race, you are so awfully mistaken that, in the name of God, this
morning I shatter the delusion.
III. Still further, the road spoken of is a plain road. "The wayfaring
men, though fools, shall not err therein." That is, if a man is three
fourths an idiot, he can find this road just as well as if he were a
philosopher. The imbecile boy, the laughing-stock of the street, and
followed by a mob hooting at him, has only just to knock once at the
gate of heaven, and it swings open: while there has been many a man
who can lecture about pneumatics, and chemistry, and tell the story of
Farraday's theory of electrical polarization, and yet has been shut
out of heaven. There has been many a man who stood in an observatory
and swept the heavens with his telescope, and yet has not been able to
see the Morning Star. Many a man has been familiar with all the higher
branches of mathematics, and yet could not do the simple sum, "What
shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own
soul?" Many a man has been a fine reader of tragedies and poems, and
yet could not "read his title clear to mansions in the skies." Many a
man has botanized across the continent, and yet not know the "Rose of
Sharon and the Lily of the Valley." But if one shall come in the right
spirit, crying the way to heaven, he will find it a plain way. The
pardon is plain. The peace is plain. Everything is plain.
He who tries to get on the road to heaven through the New Testament
teaching will get on beautifully. He who goes through philosophical
discussion will not get on at all. Christ says: "Come to Me, and I
will take all your sins away, and I will take all your troubles away."
Now what is the use of my discussing it any more? Is not that plain?
If you wanted to go to Albany, and I pointed you out a highway
thoroughly laid out, would I be wise in detaining you by a geological
discussion about the gravel you will pass over, or a physiological
discussion about the muscles you will have to bring into play? No.
After this Bible has pointed you the way to heaven, is it wise for me
to detain you with any discussion about the nature of the human will,
or whether the atonement is limited or unlimited? There is the
road--go on it. It is a plain way.
"This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners." And that is you and that
is me. Any little child here can understand this as well as I can.
"Unless you become as a little child, you can not see the kingdom of
God." If you are saved, it will not be as a philosopher, it will be as
a little child. "Of such is the kingdom of Heaven." Unless you get
the spirit of little children, you will never come out at their
glorious destiny.
IV. Still further: this road to heaven is a safe road. Sometimes the
traveler in those ancient highways would think himself perfectly
secure, not knowing there was a lion by the way, burying his head deep
between his paws, and then, when the right moment came, under the
fearful spring the man's life was gone, and there was a mauled carcass
by the roadside. But, says my text, "No lion shall be there." I wish I
could make you feel, this morning, your entire security. I tell you
plainly that one minute after a man has become a child of God, he is
as safe as though he had been ten thousand years in heaven. He may
slip, he may slide, he may stumble; but he can not be destroyed. Kept
by the power of God, through faith, unto complete salvation.
Everlastingly safe.
The severest trial to which you can subject a Christian man is to kill
him, and that is glory. In other words, the worst thing that can
happen a child of God is heaven. The body is only the old slippers
that he throws aside just before putting on the sandals of light. His
soul, you can not hurt it. No fires can consume it. No floods can
drown it. No devils can capture it.
"Firm and unmoved are they
Who rest their souls on God;
Fixed as the ground where David stood,
Or where the ark abode."
His soul is safe. His reputation is safe. Everything is safe. "But,"
you say, "suppose his store burns up?" Why, then, it will be only a
change of investments from earthly to heavenly securities. "But," you
say, "suppose his name goes down under the hoof of scorn and
contempt?" The name will be so much brighter in glory. "Suppose his
physical health fails?" God will pour into him the floods of
everlasting health, and it will not make any difference. Earthly
subtraction is heavenly addition. The tears of earth are the crystals
of heaven. As they take rags and tatters and put them through the
paper-mill, and they come out beautiful white sheets of paper, so,
often, the rags of earthly destitution, under the cylinders of death,
come out a white scroll upon which shall be written eternal
emancipation.
There was one passage of Scripture, the force of which I never
understood until one day at Chamounix, with Mont Blanc on one side,
and Montanvent on the other, I opened my Bible and read: "As the
mountains are around about Jerusalem, so the Lord is around about them
that fear Him." The surroundings were an omnipotent commentary.
"Though troubles assail, and dangers affright;
Though friends should all fail, and foes all unite;
Yet one thing secures us, whatever betide,
The Scriptures assure us the Lord will provide."
V. Still further: the road spoken of is a pleasant road. God gives a
bond of indemnity against all evil to every man that treads it. "All
things work together for good to those who love God." No weapon formed
against them can prosper. That is the bond, signed, sealed, and
delivered by the President of the whole universe. What is the use of
your fretting, O child of God, about food? "Behold the fowls of the
air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns;
yet your heavenly Father feedeth them." And will He take care of the
sparrow, will He take care of the hawk, and let you die? What is the
use of your fretting about clothes? "Consider the lilies of the field.
Shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?" What is the
use worrying for fear something will happen to your home? "He blesseth
the habitation of the just." What is the use of your fretting lest you
will be overcome of temptations? "God is faithful, who will not suffer
you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation
also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."
O this King's highway! Trees of life on either side, bending over
until their branches interlock and drop midway their fruit and shade.
Houses of entertainment on either side the road for poor pilgrims.
Tables spread with a feast of good things, and walls adorned with
apples of gold in pictures of silver. I start out on this King's
highway, and I find a harper, and I say: "What is your name?" The
harper makes no response, but leaves me to guess, as, with his eyes
toward heaven and his hand upon the trembling strings this tune comes
rippling on the air: "The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom
shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be
afraid?" I go a little further on the same road and meet a trumpeter
of heaven, and I say: "Haven't you got some music for a tired
pilgrim?" And wiping his lip and taking a long breath, he puts his
mouth to the trumpet and pours forth this strain: "They shall hunger
no more, neither shall they thirst any more, neither shall the sun
light on them, nor any heat, for the Lamb which is in the midst of the
throne shall lead them to living fountains of water, and God shall
wipe away all tears from their eyes." I go a little distance further
on the same road, and I meet a maiden of Israel. She has no harp, but
she has cymbals. They look as if they had rusted from sea-spray; and I
say to the maiden of Israel: "Have you no song for a tired pilgrim?"
And like the clang of victors' shields the cymbals clap as Miriam
begins to discourse: "Sing ye to the Lord, for He hath triumphed
gloriously; the horse and the rider hath He thrown into the sea." And
then I see a white-robed group. They come bounding toward me, and I
say: "Who are they? The happiest, and the brightest, and the fairest
in all heaven--who are they?" And the answer comes: "These are they
who came out of great tribulations, and had their robes washed and
made white with the blood of the Lamb."
I pursue this subject only one step further. What is the terminus? I
do not care how fine a road you may put me on, I want to know where it
comes out. My text declares it: "The redeemed of the Lord come to
Zion." You know what Zion was. That was the King's palace. It was a
mountain fastness. It was impregnable. And so heaven is the fastness
of the universe. No howitzer has long enough range to shell those
towers. Let all the batteries of earth and hell blaze away; they can
not break in those gates. Gibraltar was taken, Sebastopol was taken,
Babylon fell; but these walls of heaven shall never surrender either
to human or Satanic besiegement. The Lord God Almighty is the defense
of it. Great capital of the universe! Terminus of the King's highway!
Doctor Dick said that, among other things, he thought in heaven we
should study chemistry, and geometry, and conic sections. Southey
thought that in heaven he would have the pleasure of seeing Chaucer
and Shakespeare. Now, Doctor Dick may have his mathematics for all
eternity, and Southey his Shakespeare. Give me Christ and my old
friends--that is all the heaven I want, that is heaven enough for me.
O garden of light, whose leaves never wither, and whose fruits never
fail! O banquet of God, whose sweetness never palls the taste, and
whose guests are kings forever! O city of light, whose walls are
salvation, and whose gates are praise! O palace of rest, where God is
the monarch and everlasting ages the length of His reign! O song
louder than the surf-beat of many waters, yet soft as the whisper of
cherubim!
O my heaven! When my last wound is healed, when the last heart-break
is ended, when the last tear of earthly sorrow is wiped away, and when
the redeemed of the Lord shall come to Zion, then let all the harpers
take down their harps, and all the trumpeters take down their
trumpets, and all across heaven there be chorus of morning stars,
chorus of white-robed victors, chorus of martyrs from under the
throne, chorus of ages, chorus of worlds, and there be but one song
sung, and but one name spoken, and but one throne honored--that of
Jesus only.