SOLD OUT.

"Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed

without money."--ISA. lii: 3.

The Jews had gone headlong into sin, and as a punishment they had been

carried captive to Babylon. They found that iniquity did not pay.

Cyrus seized Babylon, and felt so sorry for these poor captive Jews

that, without a dollar of compensation, he let them go home. So that,

literally, my text was fulfilled: "Ye have sold yourselves for nought;

and ye shall be redeemed without money."

There is enough Gospel in this text for fifty sermons; though I never

heard of its being preached on. There are persons in this house who

have, like the Jews of the text, sold out. You do not seem to belong

either to yourselves or to God. The title-deeds have been passed over

to "the world, the flesh, and the devil," but the purchaser has never

paid up. "Ye have sold yourselves for nought."

When a man passes himself over to the world he expects to get some

adequate compensation. He has heard the great things that the world

does for a man, and he believes it. He wants two hundred and fifty

thousand dollars. That will be horses, and houses, and a

summer-resort, and jolly companionship. To get it he parts with his

physical health by overwork. He parts with his conscience. He parts

with much domestic enjoyment. He parts with opportunities for literary

culture. He parts with his soul. And so he makes over his entire

nature to the world. He does it in four installments. He pays down the

first installment, and one fourth of his nature is gone. He pays down

the second installment, and one half of his nature is gone. He pays

down the third installment, and three quarters of his nature are gone;

and after many years have gone by he pays down the fourth installment,

and, lo! his entire nature is gone. Then he comes up to the world and

says: "Good-morning. I have delivered to you the goods. I have passed

over to you my body, my mind, and my soul, and I have come now to

collect the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars." "Two hundred and

fifty thousand dollars?" says the world. "What do you mean?" "Well,"

you say, "I come to collect the money you owe me, and I expect you now

to fulfill your part of the contract." "But," says the world, "_I have

failed. I am bankrupt._ I can not possibly pay that debt. I have not

for a long while expected to pay it." "Well," you then say, "give me

back the goods." "Oh, no," says the world, "they are all gone. I can

not give them back to you." And there you stand on the confines of

eternity, your spiritual character gone, staggering under the

consideration that "you have sold yourself for nought."

I tell you the world is a liar; it does not keep its promises. It is a

cheat, and it fleeces everything it can put its hands on. It is a

bogus world. It is a six-thousand-year-old swindle. Even if it pays

the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for which you contracted,

it pays them in bonds that will not be worth anything in a little

while. Just as a man may pay down ten thousand dollars in hard cash

and get for it worthless scrip--so the world passes over to you the

two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in that shape which will not be

worth a farthing to you a thousandth part of a second after you are

dead. "Oh," you say, "it will help to bury me, anyhow." Oh, my

brother! you need not worry about that. The world will bury you soon

enough, from sanitary considerations. After you have been deceased for

three or four days you will compel the world to bury you.

Post-mortem emoluments are of no use to you. The treasures of this

world will not pass current in the future world; and if all the wealth

of the Bank of England were put in the pocket of your shroud, and you

in the midst of the Jordan of death were asked to pay three cents for

your ferriage, you could not do it. There comes a moment in your

existence beyond which all earthly values fail; and many a man has

wakened up in such a time to find that he has sold out for eternity,

and has nothing to show for it. I should as soon think of going to

Chatham Street to buy silk pocket-handkerchiefs with no cotton in

them, as to go to this world expecting to find any permanent

happiness. It has deceived and deluded every man that has ever put his

trust in it.

History tells us of one who resolved that he would have all his senses

gratified at one and the same time, and he expended thousands of

dollars on each sense. He entered a room, and there were the first

musicians of the land pleasing his ear, and there were fine pictures

fascinating his eye, and there were costly aromatics regaling his

nostril, and there were the richest meats, and wines, and fruits, and

confections pleasing the appetite, and there was a soft couch of

sinful indulgence on which he reclined; and the man declared afterward

that he would give ten times what he had given if he could have one

week of such enjoyment, even though he lost his soul by it. Ah! that

was the rub. He did lose his soul by it! Cyrus the Conqueror thought

for a little while that he was making a fine thing out of this world,

and yet before he came to his grave he wrote out this pitiful epitaph

for his monument: "I am Cyrus. I occupied the Persian Empire. I was

king over Asia. Begrudge me not this monument." But the world in after

years plowed up his sepulcher.

The world clapped its hands and stamped its feet in honor of Charles

Lamb; but what does he say? "I walk up and down, thinking I am happy,

but feeling I am not." Call the roll, and be quick about it. Samuel

Johnson, the learned! Happy? "No. I am afraid I shall some day get

crazy." William Hazlitt, the great essayist! Happy? "No. I have been

for two hours and a half going up and down Paternoster Row with a

volcano in my breast." Smollett, the witty author! Happy? "No. I am

sick of praise and blame, and I wish to God that I had such

circumstances around me that I could throw my pen into oblivion."

Buchanan, the world-renowned writer, exiled from his own country,

appealing to Henry VIII. for protection! Happy? "No. Over mountains

covered with snow, and through valleys flooded with rain, I come a

fugitive." Molière, the popular dramatic author! Happy? "No. That

wretch of an actor just now recited four of my lines without the

proper accent and gesture. To have the children of my brain so hung,

drawn, and quartered, tortures me like a condemned spirit."

I went to see a worldling die. As I went into the hall I saw its floor

was tessellated, and its wall was a picture-gallery. I found his

death-chamber adorned with tapestry until it seemed as if the clouds

of the setting sun had settled in the room. The man had given forty

years to the world--his wit, his time, his genius, his talent, his

soul. Did the world come in to stand by his death-bed, and clearing

off the vials of bitter medicine, put down any compensation? Oh, no!

The world does not like sick and dying people, and leaves them in the

lurch. It ruined this man, and then left him. He had a magnificent

funeral. All the ministers wore scarfs, and there were forty-three

carriages in a row; but the departed man appreciated not the

obsequies.

I want to persuade my audience that this world is a poor investment;

that it does not pay ninety per cent. of satisfaction, nor eighty per

cent., nor twenty per cent., nor two per cent., nor one; that it gives

no solace when a dead babe lies on your lap; that it gives no peace

when conscience rings its alarm; that it gives no explanation in the

day of dire trouble; and at the time of your decease it takes hold of

the pillow-case, and shakes out the feathers, and then jolts down in

the place thereof sighs, and groans, and execrations, and then makes

you put your head on it. Oh, ye who have tried this world, is it a

satisfactory portion? Would you advise your friends to make the

investment? No. "Ye have sold yourselves for nought." Your conscience

went. Your hope went. Your Bible went. Your heaven went. Your God

went. When a sheriff under a writ from the courts sells a man out, the

officer generally leaves a few chairs and a bed, and a few cups and

knives; but in this awful vendue in which you have been engaged the

auctioneer's mallet has come down upon body, mind, and soul: Going!

Gone! "Ye have sold yourselves for nought."

How could you do so? Did you think that your soul was a mere trinket

which for a few pennies you could buy in a toy shop? Did you think

that your soul, if once lost, might be found again if you went out

with torches and lanterns? Did you think that your soul was

short-lived, and that, panting, it would soon lie down for extinction?

Or had you no idea what your soul was worth? Did you ever put your

forefingers on its eternal pulses? Have you never felt the quiver of

its peerless wing? Have you not known that, after leaving the body,

the first step of your soul reaches to the stars, and the next step to

the furthest outposts of God's universe, and that it will not die

until the day when the everlasting Jehovah expires? Oh, my brother,

what possessed you that you should part with your soul so cheap? "Ye

have sold yourselves for nought."

But I have some good news to tell you. I want to engage in a

litigation for the recovery of that soul of yours. I want to show that

you have been cheated out of it. I want to prove, as I will, that you

were crazy on that subject, and that the world, under such

circumstances, has no right to take the title-deed from you; and if

you will join me I shall get a decree from the High Chancery Court of

Heaven reinstating you into the possession of your soul. "Oh," you

say, "I am afraid of lawsuits; they are so expensive, and I can not

pay the cost." Then have you forgotten the last half of my text? "Ye

have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without

money."

Money is good for a great many things, but it can not do anything in

this matter of the soul. You can not buy your way through. Dollars and

pounds sterling mean nothing at the gate of mercy. If you could buy

your salvation, heaven would be a great speculation, an extension of

Wall Street. Bad men would go up and buy out the place, and leave us

to shift for ourselves. But as money is not a lawful tender, what is?

I will answer: Blood! Whose? Are we to go through the slaughter? Oh,

no; it wants richer blood than ours. It wants a king's blood. It must

be poured from royal arteries. It must be a sinless torrent. But where

is the king? I see a great many thrones and a great many occupants,

yet none seem to be coming down to the rescue. But after awhile the

clock of night in Bethlehem strikes twelve, and the silver pendulum of

a star swings across the sky, and I see the King of Heaven rising up,

and He descends, and steps down from star to star, and from cloud to

cloud, lower and lower, until He touches the sheep-covered hills, and

then on to another hill, this last skull-covered, and there, at the

sharp stroke of persecution, a rill incarnadine trickles down, and we

who could not be redeemed by money are redeemed by precious and

imperial blood.

We have in this day professed Christians who are so rarefied and

etherealized that they do not want a religion of blood. What do you

want? You seem to want a religion of brains. The Bible says: "In the

blood is the life." No atonement without blood. Ought not the apostle

to know? What did he say? "Ye are redeemed not with corruptible

things, such as silver and gold, but by the precious blood of Christ."

You put your lancet into the arm of our holy religion and withdraw the

blood, and you leave it a mere corpse, fit only for the grave. Why did

God command the priests of old to strike the knife into the kid, and

the goat, and the pigeon, and the bullock, and the lamb? It was so

that when the blood rushed out from these animals on the floor of the

ancient tabernacle the people should be compelled to think of the

coming carnage of the Son of God. No blood, no atonement.

I think that God intended to impress us with the vividness of that

color. The green of the grass, the blue of the sky, would not have

startled and aroused us like this deep crimson. It is as if God had

said: "Now, sinner, wake up and see what the Saviour endured for you.

This is not water. This is not wine. It is blood. It is the blood of

my own Son. It is the blood of the Immaculate. It is the blood of

God." Without the shedding of blood is no remission. There has been

many a man who in courts of law has pleaded "not guilty," who

nevertheless has been condemned because there was blood found on his

hands, or blood found in his room; and what shall we do in the last

day if it be found that we have recrucified the Lord of Glory and have

never repented of it? You must believe in the blood or die. No

escape. Unless you let the sacrifice of Jesus go in your stead you

yourself must suffer. It is either Christ's blood or your blood.

"Oh," says some one, "the thought of blood sickens me." Good. God

intended it to sicken you with your sin. Do not act as though you had

nothing to do with that Calvarian massacre. You had. Your sins were

the implements of torture. Those implements were not made of steel,

and iron, and wood, so much as out of your sins. Guilty of this

homicide, and this regicide, and this deicide, confess your guilt

to-day. Ten thousand voices of heaven bring in the verdict against you

of guilty, guilty. Prepare to die, or believe in that blood. Stretch

yourself out for the sacrifice, or accept the Saviour's sacrifice. Do

not fling away your one chance.

It seems to me as if all heaven were trying to bid in your soul. The

first bid it makes is the tears of Christ at the tomb of Lazarus; but

that is not a high enough price. The next bid heaven makes is the

sweat of Gethsemane; but it is too cheap a price. The next bid heaven

makes seems to be the whipped back of Pilate's hall; but it is not a

high enough price. Can it be possible that heaven can not buy you in?

Heaven tries once more. It says: "I bid this time for that man's soul

the tortures of Christ's martyrdom, the blood on His temple, the blood

on His cheek, the blood on His chin, the blood on His hand, the blood

on His side, the blood on His knee, the blood on His foot--the blood

in drops, the blood in rills, the blood in pools coagulated beneath

the cross; the blood that wet the tips of the soldiers' spears, the

blood that plashed warm in the faces of His enemies." Glory to God,

that bid wins it! The highest price that was ever paid for anything

was paid for your soul. Nothing could buy it but blood! The estranged

property is bought back. Take it. "You have sold yourselves for

nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money." O atoning blood,

cleansing blood, life-giving blood, sanctifying blood, glorifying

blood of Jesus! Why not burst into tears at the thought that for thee

He shed it--for thee the hard-hearted, for thee the lost?

"No," says some one; "I will have nothing to do with it except that,

like the Jews, I put both my hands into that carnage and scoop up both

palms full, and throw it on my head and cry: 'His blood be on us and

on our children!'" Can you do such a shocking thing as that? Just rub

your handkerchief across your brow and look at it. It is the blood of

the Son of God whom you have despised and driven back all these years.

Oh, do not do that any longer! Come out frankly and boldly and

honestly, and tell Christ you are sorry. You can not afford to so

roughly treat Him upon whom everything depends.

I do not know how you will get away from this subject. You see that

you are sold out, and that Christ wants to buy you back. There are

three persons who come after you to-night: God the Father, God the

Son, and God the Holy Ghost. They unite their three omnipotences in

one movement for your salvation. You will not take up arms against the

Triune God, will you? Is there enough muscle in your arm for such a

combat? By the highest throne in heaven, and by the deepest chasm in

hell, I beg you look out. Unless you allow Christ to carry away your

sins, they will carry you away. Unless you allow Christ to lift you

up, they will drag you down. There is only one hope for you, and that

is the blood. Christ, the sin-offering, bearing your transgressions.

Christ, the surety, paying your debts. Christ, the divine Cyrus,

loosening your Babylonish captivity.

Would you not like to be free? Here is the price of your

liberation--not money, but blood. I tremble from head to foot, not

because I fear your presence, for I am used to that, but because I

fear that you will miss your chance for immortal rescue, and die. This

is the alternative divinely put: "He that believeth on the Son shall

have everlasting life; and he that believeth not on the Son shall not

see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." In the last day, if

you now reject Christ, every drop of that sacrificial blood, instead

of pleading for your release as it would have pleaded if you had

repented, will plead against you. It will seem to say: "They refused

the ransom; they chose to die; let them die; they must die. Down with

them to the weeping and the wailing. Depart! go away from me. You

would not have me, now I will not have you. Sold out for eternity."

O Lord God of the judgment day! avert that calamity! Let us see the

quick flash of the cimeter that slays the sin but saves the sinner.

Strike, omnipotent God, for the soul's deliverance! Beat, O eternal

sea! with all thy waves against the barren beach of that rocky soul,

and make it tremble. Oh! the oppressiveness of the hour, the minute,

the second, on which the soul's destiny quivers, and this is that

hour, that minute, that second!

I wonder what proportion of this audience will be saved? What

proportion will be lost? When the "Schiller" went down, out of three

hundred and eighty people only forty were saved. When the "Ville du

Havre" went down, out of three hundred and forty about fifty were

saved. Out of this audience to-day, how many will get to the shore of

heaven? It is no idle question for me to ask, for many of you I shall

never see again until the day when the books are open.

Some years ago there came down a fierce storm on the sea-coast, and a

vessel got in the breakers and was going to pieces. They threw up some

signal of distress, and the people on the shore saw them. They put out

in a life-boat. They came on, and they saw the poor sailors, almost

exhausted, clinging to a raft; and so afraid were the boatmen that the

men would give up before they got to them, they gave them three rounds

of cheers, and cried: "Hold on, there! Hold on! We'll save you!" After

awhile the boat came up. One man was saved by having the boat-hook put

in the collar of his coat; and some in one way, and some in another;

but they all got into the boat. "Now," says the captain, "for the

shore. Pull away now, pull!" The people on the land were afraid the

life-boat had gone down. They said: "How long the boat stays. Why, it

must have been swamped, and they have all perished together."

And there were men and women on the pier-heads and on the beach

wringing their hands; and while they waited and watched, they saw

something looming up through the mist, and it turned out to be the

life-boat. As soon as it came within speaking distance the people on

the shore cried out: "Did you save any of them? Did you save any of

them?" And as the boat swept through the boiling surf and came to the

pier-head, the captain waved his hand over the exhausted sailors that

lay flat on the bottom of the boat, and cried: "All saved! Thank God!

All saved!" So may it be to-day. The waves of your sin run high, the

storm is on you, the danger is appalling. Oh! shipwrecked soul, I have

come for you. I cheer you with this Gospel hope. God grant that within

the next ten minutes we may row with you into the harbor of God's

mercy. And when these Christian men gather around to see the result of

this service, and the glorified gathering on the pier-heads of heaven

to watch and to listen, may we be able to report all saved! Young and

old, good and bad! All saved! Saved from sin, and death, and hell.

Saved for time. Saved for eternity. "And so it came to pass that they

all escaped safe to land."