The Penn's Grove Record

REV. DR. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Brooklyn Divine's Sunday
Sermon
Subject: "The New Tabernacle."
TEXT:
"What mean ye by these stones?"
-Joshua iv. 6.
The Jordan, like the Mississippi, has bluffs on the one side and flats on the other. Here and there a sycamore shadows it. Here and there a willow dips into it. It was only a little over waist deep in December as I waded through it, but in the months of April and May the snows on Mount Lebanon thaw and flow down into the valley, and then the Jordan overflows its banks. Then it is wide, deep, raging and impetuous. At this season of the year I hear the tramp of forty thousand armed men coming down to cross the river. You say, why do they not go up nearer the rise of the river at the old camel ford? Ah! my friends, it is because it is not safe to go around when the Lord tells us to go ahead. The Israelites had been going around forty years, and they had enough of it. I do not know how it is with you, my brethren, but I have always got into trouble when I went around, but always got into safety when I went ahead.
There spreads out the Jordan, a raging torrent, much of it snow water just come down from the mountain top; and I see some of the Israelites shivering at the idea of plunging in, and one soldier says to his comrade, "Joseph, can you swim?" And another says: "If we get across the stream we will get there with wet clothes and with damaged armor, and the Canaanites will slash us to pieces with their swords before we get up the other bank." But it is no time to halt. The great host marches on. The priests carrying the ark go ahead, the people follow. I hear the tramp of the great multitude. The priests have now come within a stone's throw of the water. Yet still there is no abatement of the flood. Now they have come within four or five feet of the stream; but there is no abatement of the flood. Bad prospects! It seems as if these Israelites that crossed the desert are now going to be drowned in sight of Canaan. But "Forward!" is the cry. The command rings all along the line of the host. "Forward!" Now the priests have come within one step of the river. This time they lift their feet from the solid ground and put them down into the raging stream. No sooner are their feet there than Jordan flies,
It is an outrage to build a house like this, so vast and so magnificent, unless there be some tremendous reasons for doing it; and so, my friends, I pursue you to-night with the question of my text, and I demand of these trustees and of these elders and of all who have contributed in the building of this structure, "What mean ye by these stones?"
But before I get your answer to my question you interrupt me and point to the memorial wall at the side of this pulpit, and say, Explain that unusual group of memorials. What mean you by those stones?" By permission of the people of my beloved charge I recently visited the Holy Lands and having in mind by day and night during my absence this rising house of prayer, I bethought myself, "What can I do to make that place significant and glorious?"
On the morning of December the 8th we were at the foot of the most sacred mountain of all the earth, Mount Calvary. There is no more doubt of the locality than of Mount Washington or Mount Blanc. On the bluff of this mountain, which is the shape of the human skull, and so called in the Bible, The place of the skull," there is room for three crosses. There I saw a stone so suggestive I rolled it down the hill and transported it. It is at the top of this wall, a white stone, with crimson veins running through it-the white typical of purity the crimson suggestive of the blood that paid the price of our redemption. We place it at the top of the memorial wall, for above all in this church for all time, in sermon and song and prayer, shall be the sacrifice of Mount Calvary. Look at it. That stone was one of the rocks rent at the crucifixion. That heard the cry, "It is finished." Was ever any church on earth honored with such a memorial?
Beneath it are two tables of stone which I had brought from Mount Sinai where the law was given. Three camels were three weeks crossing the desert to fetch them. When at Cairo, Egypt, I proposed to the Christian Arab that he bring one stone from Mount Sinai, he said, "We can't easier bring two rocks than one, for one must balance them on the back of the camel," and I did not think until the day of their arrival how much more suggestive would be the two, because the law was written on two tablets of stone. Those stones marked with the words "Mount Sinai" felt the earthquake that shook the mountains when the law was given. The lower stone of the wall is from Mars Hill, the place where Paul stood when he preached that famous sermon on the brotherhood of the human race, declaring "God hath made of one blood all nations."
Since Lord Elgin took the famous statuary from the Acropolis, the hill adjoining Mars Hill, the Greek Government makes it impossible to transport to other lands any antiquities, and armed soldiers guard not only the Acropolis, but Mars Hill. That stone I obtained by special permission from the Queen of Greece, a most gracious and brilliant woman, who received us as though we had been old acquaintances, and through Mr. Tricoupis, the Prime Minister of Greece, and Mr. Snowden, our American Minister Plenipotentiary, and Dr. Manatt, our American Consul, that suggestive tablet was sawed from the pulpit of rock on which Paul preached. Now you understand why we have marked it "The Gospel." Long after my lips shall utter in this church their last message, these lips of stone will tell of the Law, and the Sacrifice, and the Gospel. This day I present them to the church and to all who shall gaze upon them. Thus you have my answer to the question, "What mean you by these stones?"
But you cannot divert me from the question of the text as I first put it. I have interpreted these four memorials on my right hand, but there are hundreds of stones in these surrounding walls and underneath us, in the foundations, and rising above us in the towers. The quarries of this and transatlantic countries at the call of crowbar and
"What mean ye by these stones?"
You mean among other things that they shall be an earthly residence for Christ.
Christ did not have much of a home when He was here. Who and where is that child crying? It is Jesus, born in an outhouse. Where is that hard breathing? It is Jesus, asleep on a rock. Who is that in the back part of a fishing smack, with a sailor's rough overcoat thrown over Him? It is Jesus, the worn out voyager. O, Jesus! is it not time that Thou hadst a house? We give Thee this. Thou didst give it to us first, but we give it back to Thee. It is too good for us, but not half good enough for Thee. Oh! come in and take the best seat here. Walk up and down all these aisles. Speak through these organ pipes. Throw Thine arm over us in these arches. In the flaming of these brackets of fire speak to us, saying, "I am the light of the world." O King! make this Thine audience chamber. Here proclaim righteousness and make treaties. We clap our hands, we uncover our heads, we lift our ensigns, we cry with multitudinous acclamation until the place rings and the heavens listen, O King! live forever!"
Is it not time that He who was born in a stranger's house and buried in a stranger's grave should have an earthly house? Come in, O Jesus! not the corpse of a buried Christ, but a radiant and triumphant Jesus, conqueror of earth and heaven and hell.
He lives, all glory to His name,
He lives, my Jesus, still the same,
Oh, the sweet joy this sentence gives-
I know that my Redeemer lives.
Blessed be His glorious name forever!
Again, if any one asks the question of the text, "What mean ye by these stones?" the reply is we mean the communion of saints. Do you know that there is not a single denomination of Christians in Brooklyn that has not contributed something toward the building of this house? And if ever, standing in this place, there shall be a man who shall try by anything he says to stir up bitterness between different denominations of Christians, may his tongue falter, and his cheek blanch, and his heart stop! My friends, if there is any church on earth where there is a mingling of all denominations it is our church. I just wish that John Calvin and Arminius, if they were not too busy, would come out on the battlements and see us. Sometimes in our prayer meetings I have heard brethren use the phrases of a beautiful liturgy, and we know where they come from; and in the same prayer meetings I have heard brethren made audible ejaculation, "Amen!" "Praise ye the Lord!" and we did not have to guess twice where they come from. When a man knocks at our church door, if he comes from a sect where they will not give him a certificate, we say: Come in by confession of faith." While Adoniram Judson, the Baptist, and John Wesley, the Methodist, and John Knox, the glorious old Scotch Presbyterian, are shaking hands in heaven, all churches on earth can afford to come into close communication: "One Lord, one faith, one baptism."
Oh, my brethren, we have had enough of Big Bethel fights-the Fourteenth New York regiment fighting the Fifteenth Massachusetts regiment. Now, let all those who are for Christ and stand on the same side go shoulder to shoulder, and this church, instead of having a sprinkling of the divine blessing, go clear under the wave in one glorious immersion in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
I saw a little child once, in its dying hour, put one arm around its father's neck and the other arm around its mother's neck and bring them close down to its dying lips and give a last kiss. Oh, I said, those two persons will stand very near to each other always after such an interlocking. The dying Christ puts one arm around this denomination of Christians, and the other arm around that denomination of Christians, and He brings them down to His dying lips while He gives them this parting kiss: "My peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you."
How swift the heavenly courses they run,
Whose hearts and faith and hope are one.
I heard a Baptist minister once say that he thought in the millennium it would be all one great Baptist church; and I heard a Methodist minister say that he thought in the great millennial day it would be all one great Methodist church; and I have known a Presbyterian minister who thought that in the millennial day it would be all one great Presbyterian church. No, I think they are all mistaken, I think the millennial church will be a composite church; and just as you may take the best parts of five or six tunes, and under the skillful hands of Handel, Mozart or Beethoven entwine them into one grand and overpowering symphony, so, I suppose, in the latter days of the world, Christ will take the best parts of all denominations of Christians, and weave them into one great ecclesiastical harmony, broad as the earth and high as the heavens, and that will be the church of the future. Or, as mosaic is made of jasper and agate and many precious stones cemented together-mosaic a thousand feet square in St. Mark's, or mosaic historical in colossal marble in St. Sophia's-go I suppose God will make after a while, one great billion of all creeds, and all faiths, and all Christian sentiments, the amethyst and the jasper, and the chalcedony of all different experience; and built, cemented side by side in the great mosaic of the age; and while the nations look upon the columns and architraves of the stupendous church of the future and cry out, "What mean ye by these stones!" there shall be innumerable voices to respond, "We mean the Lord God omnipotent reigneth."
Still further, you mean by these stones the salvation of the people. We did not build this church for mere worldly reforms, or for an educational institution, or as a platform on which to read essays and philosophical disquisitions, but a place for the tremendous work of soul saving. Oh, I had rather be the means in this church of having one soul prepared for a joyful eternity than five thousand souls prepared for mere worldly success. All churches are in two classes, all communities in two classes, all the race in two classes-believers and unbelievers. To augment the number of the one and subtract from the number of the other we built this church, and toward that supreme and eternal idea we dedicate all our sermons, all our songs, all our prayers, all our Sabbath handshakings. We want to throw defection into the enemy's ranks. We want to make them either surrender unconditionally to Christ or else fly in front, scattering the way with canteens, blankets and knapsacks.
We want to popularize Christ. We would like to tell the story of His love here until men would feel that they had rather die than live another hour without His sympathy and love and mercy. We want to rouse up an enthusiasm for Him greater than was felt for Nathaniel Lyon when he rode along the ranks; greater than was exhibited for Wellington when he came back from Waterloo; greater than was expressed for Napoleon when he stepped ashore from Elba. We really believe in this place Christ will enact the same scenes that were enacted by Him when He landed in the orient, and there will be such an opening of blind eyes and unstopping of deaf ears and casting out of unclean spirits-such silencing of besormed Gennesarets as shall make this house memorable five hundred years after you and I are dead and forgotten. Oh, my friends, we want but one revival in this church, that beginning now and running on to the day when the chisel of time, that brings down even St. Paul's and the Pyramids, shall bring this house into the dust.
Oh, that this day of dedication may be the day of emancipation of all imprisoned souls. My friends, do not make the blunder of the ship carpenters in Noah's time, who helped to build the ark, but did not get into it. God forbid that you who have been so generous in building this church should not get under its influences. "Come thou and all thy house into the ark." Do you think a man is safe out of Christ? Not one day, not one hour, not one minute, not one second. Three or four years ago, you remember, a rail train broke down a bridge on the way to Albany, and after the catastrophe they were looking around among the timbers of the crushed bridge and the fallen train and found the conductor. He was dying, and had only strength to say one thing, and that was, "Hoist the flag for the next train." So there come to us to-night, from the eternal world, voices of God, voices of angels, voices of departed spirits, crying: "Lift the warning. Blow the trumpet. Give the alarm. Hoist the flag for the next train."
Oh, that to-night my Lord Jesus would sweep His arm around the great audience and take you all to His holy heart. You will never see so good a time for personal consecration as now. "What mean ye by these stones?" We mean your redemption from sin and death and hell by the power of an omnipotent gospel.