"If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be
Anathema Maranatha."--I COR. xvi: 22.
The smallest lad in the house knows the meaning of all those words
except the last two, Anathema Maranatha. Anathema, to cut off.
Maranatha, at His coming. So the whole passage might be read: "If any
man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be cut off at His coming."
Well, how could the tender-hearted Paul say that? We have seen him
with tears discoursing about human want, and flushed with excitement
about human sorrow; and now he throws those red-hot iron words into
this letter to the Corinthians. Had he lost his patience? Ok, no. Had
he resigned his confidence in the Christian religion? Oh, no. Had the
world treated him so badly that he had become its sworn enemy? Oh, no.
It needs some explanation, I confess, and I shall proceed to show by
what process Paul came to the vehement utterance of my text. Before I
close, if God shall give His Spirit, you shall cease to be surprised
at the exclamation of the Apostle, and you yourselves will employ the
same emphasis, declaring, "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ,
let him be Anathema Maranatha."
If the photographic art had been discovered early enough, we should
have had the facial proportions of Christ--the front face, the side
face, Jesus sitting, Jesus standing--provided He had submitted to that
art; but since the sun did not become a portrait painter until
eighteen centuries after Christ, our idea about the Saviour's personal
appearance is all guess work. Still, tradition tells us that He was
the most infinitely beautiful being that ever walked our small earth.
If His features had been rugged, and His gait had been ungainly, that
would not have hindered Him from being attractive. Many men you have
known and loved have had few charms of physiognomy. Wilberforce was
not attractive in face. Socrates was repulsive. Suwarrow, the great
Russian hero, looked almost an imbecile. And some whom you have known,
and honored, and loved, have not had very great attractiveness of
personal appearance. The shape of the mouth, and the nose, and the
eyebrow, did not hinder the soul from shining through the cuticle of
the face in all-powerful irradiation.
But to a lovely exterior Christ joined all loveliness of disposition.
Run through the galleries of heaven, and find out that He is _a
non-such_. The sunshine of His love mingling with the shadows of His
sorrows, crossed by the crystalline stream of His tears and the
crimson flowing forth of His blood, make a picture worthy of being
called the masterpiece of the eternities. Hung on the wall of heaven,
the celestial population would be enchanted but for the fact that they
have the grand and magnificent original, and they want no picture. But
Christ having gone away from earth, we are dependent upon four
indistinct pictures. Matthew took one, Mark another, Luke another,
and John another. I care not which picture you take, it is lovely.
Lovely? He was altogether lovely.
He had a way of taking up a dropsical limb without hurting it, and of
removing the cataract from the eye without the knife, and of starting
the circulation through the shrunken arteries without the shock of the
electric battery, and of putting intelligence into the dull stare of
lunacy, and of restringing the auditory nerve of the deaf ear, and of
striking articulation into the stiff tongue, and of making the
stark-naked madman dress himself and exchange tombstone for ottoman,
and of unlocking from the skeleton grip of death the daughter of
Jairus to embosom her in her glad father's arms. Oh, He was
lovely--sitting, standing, kneeling, lying down--always lovely.
Lovely in His sacrifice. Why, He gave up everything for us. Home,
celestial companionship, music of seraphic harps, balmy breath of
eternal summer, all joy, all light, all music, and heard the gates
slam shut behind Him as He came out to fight for our freedom, and with
bare feet plunged on the sharp javelins of human and satanic hate,
until His blood spurted into the faces of those who slew Him. You want
the soft, low, minor key of sweetest music to describe the pathos; but
it needs an orchestra, under swinging of an archangel's baton,
reaching from throne to manger, to drum and trumpet the doxologies of
His praise. He took everybody's trouble--the leper's sickness, the
widow's dead boy, the harlot's shame, the Galilean fisherman's poor
luck, the invalidism of Simon's mother-in-law, the sting of Malchus'
amputated ear.
Some people cry very easily, and for some it is very difficult to cry.
A great many tears on some cheeks do not mean so much as one tear on
another cheek. What is it that I see glittering in the mild eye of
Jesus? It was all the sorrows of earth, and the woes of hell, from
which He had plucked our souls, accreted into one transparent drop,
lingering on the lower eyelash until it fell on a cheek red with the
slap of human hands--just one salt, bitter, burning tear of Jesus. No
wonder the rock, the sky, and the cemetery were in consternation when
He died! No wonder the universe was convulsed! It was the Lord God
Almighty bursting into tears. Now, suppose that, notwithstanding all
this, a man can not have any affection for Him. What ought to be done
with such hard behavior?
It seems to me that there ought to be some chastisement for a man who
will not love such a Christ. Does it not make your blood tingle to
think of Jesus coming over the tens of thousands of miles that seem to
separate God from us, and then to see a man jostle Him out, and push
Him back, and shut the door in His face, and trample upon His
entreaties? While you may not be able to rise up to the towering
excitement of the Apostle in my text, you can at any rate somewhat
understand his feelings when he cried out: "After all this, 'if a man
love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha.'"
Just look at the injustice of not loving Him. Now, there is nothing
that excites a man like injustice. You go along the street, and you
see your little child buffeted, or a ruffian comes and takes a boy's
hat and throws it into the ditch. You say: "What great meanness, what
injustice that is!" You can not stand injustice. I remember, in my
boyhood days, attending a large meeting in Tripler Hall, New York.
Thousands of people were huzzaing, and the same kind of audiences were
assembled at the same time in Boston, Edinburgh, and London. Why?
Because the Madaii family, in Italy, had been robbed of their Bible.
"A little thing," you say. Ah, that injustice was enough to arouse the
indignation of a world. But while we are so sensitive about injustice
as between man and man, how little sensitive we are about injustice
between man and God. If there ever was a fair and square purchase of
anything, then Christ purchased us. He paid for us, not in shekels,
not in ancient coins inscribed with effigies of Hercules, or Ægina's
tortoise, or lyre of Mitylene, but in two kinds of coin--one red, the
other glittering--blood and tears! If anything is purchased and paid
for, ought not the goods to be delivered? If you have bought property
and given the money, do you not want to come into possession of it?
"Yes," you say, "I will have it. I bought and paid for it." And you
will go to law for it, and you will denounce the man as a defrauder.
Ay, if need be, you will hurl him into jail. You will say: "I am bound
to get that property. I bought it. I paid for it!"
Now, transpose the case. Suppose Jesus Christ to be the wronged
purchaser on the one side, and the impenitent soul on the other,
trying to defraud Him of that which He bought at such an exorbitant
price, how do you feel about that injustice? How do you feel toward
that spiritual fraud, turpitude and perfidy? A man with an ardent
temperament rises and he says that such injustice as between man and
man is bad enough, but between man and God it is reprehensible and
intolerable, and he brings his fist down on the pew, and he says: "I
can stand this injustice no longer. After all this purchase, 'if any
man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha'!"
I go still further, and show you how suicidal it is for a man not to
love Christ. If a man gets in trouble, and he can not get out, we have
only one feeling toward him--sympathy and a desire to help him. If he
has failed for a vast amount of money, and can not pay more than ten
cents on a dollar--ay, if he can not pay anything--though his
creditors may come after him like a pack of hounds, we sympathize with
him. We go to his store, or house, and we express our condolence. But
suppose the day before that man failed, William E. Dodge had come into
his store and said: "My friend, I hear you are in trouble. I have come
to help you. If ten thousand dollars will see you through your
perplexity, I have a loan of that amount for you. Here is a check for
the amount of that loan." Suppose the man said: "With that ten
thousand dollars I could get through until next spring, and then
everything will be all right; but, Mr. Dodge, I don't want it; I won't
take it; I would rather fail than take it; I don't even thank you for
offering it." Your sympathy for that man would cease immediately. You
would say: "He had a fair offer; he might have got out; he wants to
fail; he refuses all help; now let him fail." There is no one in all
this house who would have any sympathy for that man.
But do not let us be too hasty. Christ hears of our spiritual
embarrassments, he finds that we are on the very verge of eternal
defalcation. He finds the law knocking at our door with this dun: "Pay
me what thou owest."
We do not know which way to turn. Pay? We can not pay a farthing of
all the millions of obligation. Well, Christ comes in and says: "Here
is My name; you can use My name. Your name would be worthless, but My
red handwriting on the back of this obligation will get you through
anywhere." Now suppose the soul says: "I know I am in debt; I can't
meet these obligations either in time or eternity; but, oh, Christ, I
want not Thy help; I ask not Thy rescue. Go away from me." You would
say: "That man, why, he deserves to die. He had the offer of help; he
would not take it. He is a free agent; he ought to have what he wants;
he chooses death rather than life. Ought you not give him freedom of
choice?" Though awhile ago there was only one ardent man who
understood the Apostle, now there are hundreds in the house who can
say, and do say within themselves: "After all this ingratitude, and
rejection, and obstinacy, 'if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ,
let him be Anathema Maranatha.'"
I go a step further, and say it is most cruel for a man not to love
Jesus. The meanest thing I could do for you would be needlessly to
hurt your feelings. Sharp words sometimes cut like a dagger. An unkind
look will sometimes rive like the lightning. An unkind deed may
overmaster a sensitive spirit, and if you have made up your mind that
you have done wrong to any one, it does not take you two minutes to
make up your mind to go and apologize. Now, Christ is a bundle of
delicacy and sensitiveness. How you have shocked His nerves! How you
have broken His heart!
Did you, my brother, ever measure the meaning of that one passage:
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock"? It never came to me as it did
this morning while I was thinking on this subject. "Behold, I stand at
the door and knock." Some January day, the thermometer five degrees
below zero, the wind and sleet beating mercilessly against you, you go
up the steps of a house where you have a very important errand. You
knock with one knuckle. No answer. You are very earnest, and you are
freezing. The next time you knock harder. After awhile with your fist
you beat against the door. You must get in, but the inmate is careless
or stubborn, and he does not want you in. Your errand is a failure.
You go away.
The Lord Jesus Christ comes up on the steps of your heart, and with
very sore hand he knocks hard at the door of your soul. He is standing
in the cold blasts of human suffering. He knocks. He says: "Let me in.
I have come a great way. I have come all the way from Nazareth, from
Bethlehem, from Golgotha. Let Me in. I am shivering and blue with the
cold. Let Me in. My feet are bare but for their covering of blood. My
head is uncovered but for a turban of brambles. By all these wounds of
foot, and head, and heart, I beg you to let Me in. Oh, I have been
here a great while, and the night is getting darker. I am faint with
hunger. I am dying to get in. Oh, lift the latch--shove back the
bolt! Won't you let Me in? Won't you? 'Behold, I stand at the door and
knock!'"
But after awhile, my brother, the scene will change. It will be
another door, but Christ will be on the other side of it. He will be
on the inside, and the rejected sinner will be on the outside, and the
sinner will come up and knock at the door, and say: "Let me in, let me
in. I have come a great way. I came all the way from earth. I am sick
and dying. Let me in. The merciless storm beats my unsheltered head.
The wolves of a great night are on my track. Let me in. With both
fists I beat against this door. Oh, let me in. Oh, Christ, let me in.
Oh, Holy Ghost, let me in. Oh, God, let me in. Oh, my glorified
kindred, let me in." No answer save the voice of Christ, who shall
say: "Sinner, when I stood at your door you would not let Me in, and
now you are standing at My door, and I can not let you in. The day of
your grace is past. Officer of the law, seize him." And while the
arrest is going on, all the myriads of heaven rise on gallery and
throne, and cry with loud voice, that makes the eternal city quake
from capstone to foundation, saying: "If any man love not the Lord
Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha."
Sabbath audience in the Brooklyn Tabernacle, and all to whom these
words shall come on both sides the sea, notice here the tremendous
alternative: it is not whether you live in Pierrepont Street or
Carlton Avenue, walk Trafalgar Square or the "Canongate;" nor whether
your dress shall be black or brown; nor whether you shall be robust
or an invalid; nor whether you shall live on the banks of the Hudson,
the Shannon, the Seine, the Thames, the Tiber; but it is a question
whether you will love Christ or suffer banishment; whether you will
give yourselves to Him who owns you or fall under the millstone;
whether you will rise to glories that have no terminus or plunge to a
depth which has no bottom. I do not see how you can take the
ten-thousandth part of a second to decide it, when there are two
worlds fastened at opposite ends of a swivel, and the swivel turns on
one point, and that point is now, now. Is it not fair that you love
Him? Is it not right that you love Him? Is it not imperative that you
love Him? What is it that keeps you from rushing up and throwing the
arms of your affection about His neck?
My text pronounces Anathema Maranatha upon all those who refuse to
love Christ. Anathema--cut off. Cut off from light, from hope, from
peace, from heaven. Oh, sharp, keen, sword-like words! Cut off!
Everlastingly cut off! Behold, therefore, the goodness and severity of
God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou
continue in His goodness; otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.
Maranatha--that is the other word. "When he comes" is the meaning of
it.
Will He come? I see no signs of it. I looked into the sky as I rode
down to church. I saw no signs of the coming. No signal of God's
appearance. The earth stands solid on its foundation. No cry of
welcome or of woe. Will He come! He will. Maranatha! Hear it ye
mountains, and prepare to fall. Ye cities, and prepare to burn. Ye
righteous, and prepare to reign. Ye wicked, and prepare to die.
Maranatha! Maranatha!
But, oh, my brother, I am not so aroused by that coming as I am by a
previous coming, and that is the coming of our death hour, which will
fix everything for us. I can not help now, while preaching, asking
myself the question--Am I ready for that? If I am ready for the first
I will be ready for the next. Are you ready for the emergency? Shall I
tell you when your death hour will come? "Oh, no," says some one, "I
don't want to know. I would rather not know." Some one says: "I would
rather know, if you can tell me." I will tell you. It will be at the
most unexpected moment, when you are most busy, and when you think you
can be least spared. I can not exactly say whether it will be in the
noon, or at the sundown when people are coming home, or in the morning
when the world is waking up, or while the clock is striking twelve at
night. But I tell you what I think, that with some of you it will be
before next Saturday night.
A minister of the Gospel said to an audience: "Before next Sabbath
some of you will be gone." And a man said during the week: "I shall
watch now, and if no one dies in our congregation during this week I
shall go and tell the minister his falsehood." A man standing next to
him said: "Why, it may be yourself." "Oh, no," he replied; "I shall
live on to be an old man." That night he breathed his last.
Standing before some who shall be launched into the great eternity,
what are your equipments? About to jump, where will you land? Oh, the
subject is overwhelming to me; and when I say these things to you, I
say them to myself. "Lord, is it I? Is it I?" Some of us part to-night
never to meet again. If never before, I now here commit my soul into
the keeping of the Lord Jesus Christ. I throw my sinful heart upon His
infinite mercy. But some of you will not do that. You will go over to
the store to-morrow, and your comrades will say: "Where were you
yesterday?" You will say: "I heard Talmage preach, and I don't believe
what he preaches." And you will go on and die in your sins.
Feeling that you are bound unto death eternal I solemnly take leave of
you. Be careful of your health, for when your respiration gives out
all your good times will have ended. Be careful in walking near a
scaffold, for one falling brick or stone might usher you into the
great eternity for which you have no preparation. A few months, or
weeks, or days, or hours will pass on, and then you will see the last
light, and hear the last music, and have the last pleasant emotion,
and a destroyed eternity will rush upon you. Farewell, oh, doomed
spirit! As you shove off from hope, I wave you this last salutation.
Oh, it is hard to part forever and forever! I bid you one long, last,
bitter, eternal adieu!