"Put a ring on his hand."--LUKE xv: 22.
I will not rehearse the familiar story of the fast young man of the
parable. You know what a splendid home he left. You know what a hard
time he had. And you remember how after that season of vagabondage and
prodigality he resolved to go and weep out his sorrows on the bosom of
parental forgiveness. Well, there is great excitement one day in front
of the door of the old farmhouse. The servants come rushing up and
say: "What's the matter? What _is_ the matter?" But before they quite
arrive, the old man cries out: "Put a ring on his hand." What a
seeming absurdity! What can such a wretched mendicant as this fellow
that is tramping on toward the house want with a ring? Oh, he is the
prodigal son. No more tending of the swine-trough. No more longing for
the pods of the carob-tree. No more blistered feet. Off with the rags!
On with the robe! Out with the ring! Even so does God receive every
one of us when we come back. There are gold rings, and pearl rings,
and carnelian rings, and diamond rings; but the richest ring that ever
flashed on the vision is that which our Father puts upon a forgiven
soul.
I know that the impression is abroad among some people that religion
bemeans and belittles a man; that it takes all the sparkle out of his
soul; that he has to exchange a roistering independence for an
ecclesiastical strait-jacket. Not so. When a man becomes a Christian,
he does not go down, he starts upward. Religion multiplies one by ten
thousand. Nay, the multiplier is in infinity. It is not a blotting
out--it is a polishing, it is an arborescence, it is an efflorescence,
it is an irradiation. When a man comes into the kingdom of God he is
not sent into a menial service, but the Lord God Almighty from the
palaces of heaven calls upon the messenger angels that wait upon the
throne to fly and "put a ring on his hand." In Christ are the largest
liberty, and brightest joy, and highest honor, and richest adornment.
"Put a ring on his hand."
I remark, in the first place, that when Christ receives a soul into
His love, He puts upon him the ring of adoption. Eight or ten years
ago, in my church in Philadelphia, there came the representative of
the Howard Mission of New York. He brought with him eight or ten
children of the street that he had picked up, and he was trying to
find for them Christian homes; and as the little ones stood on the
pulpit and sung, our hearts melted within us. At the close of the
services a great-hearted wealthy man came up and said: "I'll take this
little bright-eyed girl, and I'll adopt her as one of my own
children;" and he took her by the hand, lifted her into his carriage,
and went away.
The next day, while we were in the church gathering up garments for
the poor of New York, this little child came back with a bundle under
her arm, and she said: "There's my old dress; perhaps some of the
poor children would like to have it," while she herself was in bright
and beautiful array, and those who more immediately examined her said
that she had a ring on her hand. It was a ring of adoption.
There are a great many persons who pride themselves on their ancestry,
and they glory over the royal blood that pours through their arteries.
In their line there was a lord, or a duke, or a prime minister, or a
king. But when the Lord, our Father, puts upon us the ring of His
adoption, we become the children of the Ruler of all nations. "Behold
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should
be called the sons of God." It matters not how poor our garments may
be in this world, or how scant our bread, or how mean the hut we live
in, if we have that ring of Christ's adoption upon our hand we are
assured of eternal defenses.
Adopted! Why, then, we are brothers and sisters to all the good of
earth and heaven. We have the family name, the family dress, the
family keys, the family wardrobe. The Father looks after us, robes us,
defends us, blesses us. We have royal blood in our veins, and there
are crowns in our line. If we are His children, then princes and
princesses. It is only a question of time when we get our coronet.
Adopted! Then we have the family secrets. "The secret of the Lord is
with them that fear Him." Adopted! Then we have the family
inheritance, and in the day when our Father shall divide the riches of
heaven we shall take our share of the mansions and palaces and
temples. Henceforth let us boast no more of an earthly ancestry. The
insignia of eternal glory is our coat of arms. This ring of adoption
puts upon us all honor and all privilege. Now we can take the words of
Charles Wesley, that prince of hymn-makers, and sing:
"Come, let us join our friends above,
Who have obtained the prize,
And on the eagle wings of love
To joy celestial rise.
"Let all the saints terrestrial sing
With those to glory gone;
For all the servants of our King,
In heaven and earth, are one."
I have been told that when any of the members of any of the great
secret societies of this country are in a distant city and are in any
kind of trouble, and are set upon by enemies, they have only to give a
certain signal and the members of that organization will flock around
for defense. And when any man belongs to this great Christian
brotherhood, if he gets in trouble, in trial, in persecution, in
temptation, he has only to show this ring of Christ's adoption, and
all the armed cohorts of heaven will come to his rescue.
Still further, when Christ takes a soul into His love He puts upon it
a marriage-ring. Now, that is not a whim of mine: "And I will betroth
thee unto Me forever; yea, I will betroth thee unto Me in
righteousness, and in judgment, and in loving-kindness, and in
mercies." (Hosea ii: 19.) At the wedding altar the bridegroom puts a
ring upon the hand of the bride, signifying love and faithfulness.
Trouble may come upon the household, and the carpets may go, the
pictures may go, the piano may go, everything else may go--the last
thing that goes is that marriage-ring, for it is considered sacred. In
the burial hour it is withdrawn from the hand and kept in a casket,
and sometimes the box is opened on an anniversary day, and as you look
at that ring you see under its arch a long procession of precious
memories. Within the golden circle of that ring there is room for a
thousand sweet recollections to revolve, and you think of the great
contrast between the hour when, at the close of the "Wedding March,"
under the flashing lights and amid the aroma of orange-blossoms, you
set that ring on the round finger of the plump hand, and that other
hour when, at the close of the exhaustive watching, when you knew that
the soul had fled, you took from the hand, which gave back no
responsive clasp, from that emaciated finger, the ring that she had
worn so long and worn so well.
On some anniversary day you take up that ring, and you repolish it
until all the old luster comes back, and you can see in it the flash
of eyes that long ago ceased to weep. Oh, it is not an unmeaning thing
when I tell you that when Christ receives a soul into His keeping He
puts on it a marriage-ring. He endows you from that moment with all
His wealth. You are one--Christ and the soul--one in sympathy, one in
affection, one in hope.
There is no power in earth or hell to effect a divorcement after
Christ and the soul are united. Other kings have turned out their
companions when they got weary of them, and sent them adrift from the
palace gate. Ahasuerus banished Vashti; Napoleon forsook Josephine;
but Christ is the husband that is true forever. Having loved you once,
He loves you to the end. Did they not try to divorce Margaret, the
Scotch girl, from Jesus? They said: "You must give up your religion."
She said: "I can't give up my religion." And so they took her down to
the beach of the sea, and they drove in a stake at low-water mark, and
they fastened her to it, expecting that as the tide came up her faith
would fail. The tide began to rise, and came up higher and higher, and
to the girdle, and to the lip, and in the last moment, just as the
wave was washing her soul into glory, she shouted the praises of
Jesus.
Oh, no, you can not separate a soul from Christ! It is an everlasting
marriage. Battle and storm and darkness can not do it. Is it too much
exultation for a man, who is but dust and ashes like myself, to cry
out this morning: "I am persuaded that neither height, nor depth, nor
principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
nor any other creature shall separate me from the love of God which is
in Christ Jesus my Lord"? Glory be to God that when Christ and the
soul are married they are bound by a chain, a golden chain--if I might
say so--a chain with one link, and that one link the golden ring of
God's everlasting love.
I go a step further, and tell you that when Christ receives a soul
into His love He puts on him the ring of festivity. You know that it
has been the custom in all ages to bestow rings on very happy
occasions. There is nothing more appropriate for a birthday gift than
a ring. You delight to bestow such a gift upon your children at such
a time. It means joy, hilarity, festivity. Well, when this old man of
the text wanted to tell how glad he was that his boy had got back, he
expressed it in this way. Actually, before he ordered sandals to be
put on his bare feet; before he ordered the fatted calf to be killed
to appease the boy's hunger, he commanded: "Put a ring on his hand."
Oh, it is a merry time when Christ and the soul are united! Joy of
forgiveness! What a splendid thing it is to feel that all is right
between me and God. What a glorious thing it is to have God just take
up all the sins of my life and put them in one bundle, and then fling
them into the depths of the sea, never to rise again, never to be
talked of again. Pollution all gone. Darkness all illumined. God
reconciled. The prodigal home. "Put a ring on his hand."
Every day I find happy Christian people. I find some of them with no
second coat, some of them in huts and tenement houses, not one earthly
comfort afforded them; and yet they are as happy as happy can be. They
sing "Rock of Ages" as no other people in the world sing it. They
never wore any jewelry in their life but one gold ring, and that was
the ring of God's undying affection. Oh, how happy religion makes us!
Did it make you gloomy and sad? Did you go with your head cast down? I
do not think you got religion, my brother. That is not the effect of
religion. True religion is a joy. "Her ways are ways of pleasantness,
and all her paths are peace."
Why, religion lightens all our burdens. It smooths all our way. It
interprets all our sorrows. It changes the jar of earthly discord for
the peal of festal bells. In front of the flaming furnace of trial it
sets the forge on which scepters are hammered out. Would you not like
to-day to come up from the swine-feeding and try this religion? All
the joys of heaven would come out and meet you, and God would cry from
the throne: "Put a ring on his hand."
You are not happy. I see it. There is no peace, and sometimes you
laugh when you feel a great deal more like crying. The world is a
cheat. It first wears you down with its follies, then it kicks you out
into darkness. It comes back from the massacre of a million souls to
attempt the destruction of your soul to-day. No peace out of God, but
here is the fountain that can slake the thirst. Here is the harbor
where you can drop safe anchorage.
Would you not like, I ask you--not perfunctorily, but as one brother
might talk to another--would you not like to have a pillow of rest to
put your head on? And would you not like, when you retire at night, to
feel that all is well, whether you wake up to-morrow morning at six
o'clock, or sleep the sleep that knows no waking? Would you not like
to exchange this awful uncertainty about the future for a glorious
assurance of heaven? Accept of the Lord Jesus to-day, and all is well.
If on your way home some peril should cross the street and dash your
life out, it would not hurt you. You would rise up immediately. You
would stand in the celestial streets. You would be amid the great
throng that forever worship and are forever happy. If this day some
sudden disease should come upon you, it would not frighten you. If you
knew you were going you could give a calm farewell to your beautiful
home on earth, and know that you are going right into the
companionship of those who have already got beyond the toiling and the
weeping.
You feel on Saturday night different from the way you feel any other
night of the week. You come home from the bank, or the store, or the
shop, and you say: "Well, now my week's work is done, and to-morrow is
Sunday." It is a pleasant thought. There is refreshment and
reconstruction in the very idea. Oh, how pleasant it will be, if, when
we get through the day of our life, and we go and lie down in our bed
of dust, we can realize: "Well, now the work is all done, and
to-morrow is Sunday--an everlasting Sunday."
"Oh, when, thou city of my God,
Shall I thy courts ascend?
Where congregations ne'er break up,
And Sabbaths have no end."
There are people in this house to-day who are very near the eternal
world. If you are Christians, I bid you be of good cheer. Bear with
you our congratulations to the bright city. Aged men, who will soon be
gone, take with you our love for our kindred in the better land, and
when you see them, tell them that we are soon coming. Only a few more
sermons to preach and hear. Only a few more heart-aches. Only a few
more toils. Only a few more tears. And then--what an entrancing
spectacle will open before us!
"Beautiful heaven, where all is light,
Beautiful angels clothed in white,
Beautiful strains that never tire,
Beautiful harps through all the choir;
There shall I join the chorus sweet,
Worshiping at the Saviour's feet."
I stand before you on this Sabbath, the last Sabbath preceding the
great feast-day in this Church. On the next Lord's-day the door of
communion will be open, and you will all be invited to come in. And so
I approach you now with a general invitation, not picking out here and
there a man, or here and there a woman, or here and there a child; but
giving you an unlimited invitation, saying: "Come, for all things are
now ready." We invite you to the warm heart of Christ, and the
inclosure of the Christian Church. I know a great many think that the
Church does not amount to much--that it is obsolete; that it did its
work and is gone now, so far as all usefulness is concerned. It is the
happiest place I have ever been in except my own home.
I know there are some people who say they are Christians who seem to
get along without any help from others, and who culture solitary
piety. They do not want any ordinances. I do not belong to that class.
I can not get along without them. There are so many things in this
world that take my attention from God, and Christ, and heaven, that I
want all the helps of all the symbols and of all the Christian
associations; and I want around about me a solid phalanx of men who
love God and keep His commandments. Are there any here who would like
to enter into that association? Then by a simple, child-like faith,
apply for admission into the visible Church, and you will be received.
No questions asked about your past history or present surroundings.
Only one test--do you love Jesus?
Baptism does not amount to anything, say a great many people; but the
Lord Jesus declared, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be
saved," putting baptism and faith side by side. And an apostle
declares, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you." I do not stickle
for any particular mode of baptism, but I put great emphasis on the
fact that you ought to be baptized. Yet no more emphasis than the Lord
Jesus Christ, the Great Head of the Church, puts upon it.
The world is going to lose a great many of its votaries next Sabbath.
We give you warning. There is a great host coming in to stand under
the banner of the Lord Jesus Christ. Will you be among them? It is
going to be a great harvest-day. Will you be among the gathered
sheaves?
Some of you have been thinking on this subject year after year. You
have found out that this world is a poor portion. You want to be
Christians. You have come almost into the kingdom of God; but there
you stop, forgetful of the fact that to be almost saved is not to be
saved at all. Oh, my brother, after having come so near to the door of
mercy, if you turn back, you will never come at all. After all you
have heard of the goodness of God, if you turn away and die, it will
not be because you did not have a good offer.
"God's spirit will not always strive
With hardened, self-destroying man;
Ye who persist His love to grieve
May never hear his voice again."
May God Almighty this hour move upon your soul and bring you back from
the husks of the wilderness to the Father's house, and set you at the
banquet, and "put a ring on your hand."