THE DAY OF REST. "REFUSE NOT HIM THAT SPEAKETH."

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 173, 9 October 1886, Page 6

THE DAY OF REST. "REFUSE NOT HIM THAT SPEAKETH."

A Sermon by the Rev: Wn H. Aitken. " See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh."— Heb. xii, 25. We are not in the habit of refusing audience to our fellow-man, wh«n he comes to apeak to us about important busineßß. If the business he has to consult us about, or to mention to us, is business in which we ourselves are personally interested, we are still leas disposed to refuse him an audience. And if this business in which we are favourably concerned ia a matter in which the person who desires to have conversation with us is solely endeavouring to advance our interests, and i8 actuated by no other motive than that of pure benevolence, then I venture to think We Should be Doufely Insane —shall I say ?— if we obstinately refused to listen to what he has got to say. None of you would be so absurd, to cay nothing else, as to shut your eara and refuse to listen to one who wanted to apeak to you about business which most closely concerned you, and about a matter in which he desired to«be your benefactor. Now, in the word of warning addreseed to us in the text, we are called upon to see to it that we do not refuse to listen to one who is speaking to us. The text assures us that Christ is speak ing to us. "We are come," says the writer, •' to Jeans, the Mediator of the New Testament. See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh." I would to God that He would give me the power to bring the full meaning of theee words forcibly before your minds. Whether we will or will not, we are come to Mount Calvary. God, by the gift of His own beloved Son, has brought upon us a responsibility from which we cannot by any possibility escape. We may reject the blessing, we may turn it into a curee, but juet as surely as the Israelites were brought to Mount Sinai, where they heard those mighty thunderings, and as their hearts quailed within them at the terrible sound, and they even besought that they might hear those terrible voices no longer, even so aurely, dear friends, We are Come to Mount Calvary. We may be amongst the number of those who care nothing for these things ; we may pass by with mockery on our lips and dis*dain in our hearts, but that does not in the slightest degree militate against the fact of our responsibility. EAery one of us is responsible for the fact that Christ hath been crucified, as it were, before our eyes that every one of us has had a tair opportunity of trusting our souls to Himandacceptingthebles&ingjwhichHedied to win for us ; and if any of those who are here gathered into God's presence pass into eternity without having accepted the grace of God, which brings salvation to every man our _ condemnation will be in fact that, privileged as we were, we have Ruthlessly thrown our own only opportunity away. We come to Jeaus, The Mediator of tne Now Covenant. You remember the circumstances to which the writer alludes ; how, after the Israelites came out of Egypt they came to Mount Sinai, where a wonderful revelation was made to them Do you know what it was ? It was a revelation of God's holiness and Gpd's just demands upon the human family in virtue of His holiness. When the Israelites heard those demands, they were filled with fear, and could not endure the sight. They desired tnat Mosea should come in between them and God, ac it were. The whole mountain was in a blaze, and it shook under the tremendous weight, Phall I say, of Divine Majesty, which, for the moment, was resting upon it. Now what was all that for ? Simply to excite a passing curioaity, a momentary interest ? No :it was to show man his real condition. While that terrible thunder was sounding, and that voice was ringing louder and louder, and while that fiery law was delivered to men's consciences, ifc was that they might see what, they had become through am, and that, under the conaciousneas of their own unworthiness and shortcoming, they might be disposed for that further revelation which the Lord Jesus Christ, a« the revelation of the father, should at A Future Day Make to Them. Dear friends, there are some of us who have come to Mount Sinai and got no further, as far as our own conscious realising of our position is concerned. Not that we are not actually come to Calvary : as I have already said, wo are all within the reach of the croas of Christ. There are some who have gob as far as to understand that we are sinners. We are trembling under the thought of our sin. Our consciences upbraid us. We feel that we are not fit to enter th<* company of God, or lift up our heads before His presence. It ig a terrible fact to come to— Sinai We always tremble there, and wonder ; but the bleaswd message I want to deliver is that, from the Incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the desire He accomplished at Jerusalem, it ia our privilege to take a step further. We may pass that mount, with its thunderings and lightnings, and we may come to Calvary, and see God's law manifested in a still more striking way, but so manifested that it is possible for poor guilty sinners to escape its condemnation and to accept The Blessings of Irvine Power. Now I have been eaying that, whether we will or not, we have come within sight of Calvary ; and I sometimes think that as it was eighteen hundred years ago, ao it is now. How differently we are affected to wards the object which stands revealed before our gaze ! How differently some feel from what others do J When our blessed Lord died upon the croas of Calvary, some passed by wagging their hsads, and ifc ia to them that the Lord Jesus Christ addresses these pathetic wordß : "Is it nothing to you, oh all ye that paas by ? Waa ever any sorrow like unto my sorrow !" In the nineteenth century there are still only too „ many people who thus pass by You have heard of the death of the Lord Jesus Chrisfi, you have read the story of His passion, and yet you pass by. Why ? Because, like those people of old\ you have no particular interest in this matter, and you are so busy. You, my dear friend, liave got your business to look after, and your pleasures and your domestic cares. ."Oh, dear, I must see about the things'belonging to my family, If 1 don't attend to these things Everything Will Go to Ruin. And the working man says, "I must win my daily bread ; it is necessary I should do it." lam not saying that all these things are not necessary in their way, but there is one thing necessary before everything else, and that is that your eoul shall be set right with its, God, that the burden of sin which now crushes it down shall be removed aud that you- shall have a prospect of everlasting glory and blessedness before you in the presence of God. Is it necessary for you to earu your daily bread, and not necessary to prepare an abiding place in that land of glory ?

There is one thing needful above everything else, and you that are passing by because you are so busy, I would like ta remind you, you wov?t be too busy to die one of these days. When the angel of death aays, "Come," you won't be able to turn and say, ;VMy dear brother, I have my day'B business to do, or, " My dear brother* I have so many family things to attend to." You will have to listen to the summons • you will have to obey; you will have * To stand before Your Judge. None of us will be tso buey to die,' and therefore common sense suggests that we should not he too bußy^o care for the sight that is revealed to U 3 to-day. Would to God I could take the scales from your eyes, and instead of passing by the cross and wagging your heads, as though it were nothing to you, you would realiaeVhat ifc means. I want to show you, if God gives me the power, that you have everything to do with the great spectacle. Thy sins that rest like a fearful load upon Immanuel's soul, thy waywardness and wilfulnees, have driven home those nails into Immanuel's hands ; it is for all this His heart is breaking. "Is it nothing to you, oh all ye that pass by ?" How much is it to you? Whether yon know its value or not, ifc is of the most infinite importance to you, and the sooner you realize it the better. There were some who drew near to the cross of Christ, who aid not altogether pass by, but surveyed it merely as a matter of sentiment. They abed tears of sorrow, bud they were simply sentimental sorrow ; and the Lord Jesus Christ says to them, " Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but for yourselves and for your children." There are, in our own day, people who have got a great deal of religious sentiment about them. They Like to Hea*' a Great Sermon, they enjoy anything like religious earnestness ; they are very fond of well-conducted services ; perhaps they join more or less in various branches of charitable and religious work; but all the while their religion is merely a thing of sentiment,—it does not get hold of the heart, it has not transfortned the life. These persons get no real benefit from Calvary. It is a grand thing to be convicted oE sin by the sight of the Cross of Christ. Thoße are the best cases of conviction where the conviction comes from the Cross. But you may get even so far; you may lie there in your sorrow right in front of the Cross of Christ, like that poor broken-hearted man or that weeping Mary Magdalene, and yet the real benefit which the cross is intended to impart shall not have been yours, because you have not faith to believe in what the Cross really is the revelation of. You do not Understand the Mystery. The eyes of your heart are as yet dark. There was one man who did understand ifc so fully that it made a complete and entirechange in his spiritual nature. Who was he? I hope there are some heie now who will understand just what he understood. There was one hanging on a cross beside Jesus— a poor outcast, wretched sinner, a dying man, a man that had been a disgrace to the world, and the world was thrueting him out of it. He was dying a felon's death. The shades of death aregathering arcund him ; a mortal etupor is laying bold of his beiig ; his pallid lips are parched with burning thirst; the tide of life is ebbing swiftly and surely; a few minutes or houra and the man will be a corpse. Look at Him. Poor Dying Wretch! Can anyone be more miserable than that wretched malefactor, breathing out his soul in agony -dying by inches, an object ot pity to all ? Oh ! my dear friends, whenfirsxi welook at that dying thief, wo are disposed to pity him. But listen for a moment. Hear that agonising cry which goes forth from* his dying lips : •' Lord,rememberine when Thou comest into Thy kingdom." What does that mean ? Ah ! he has found outsomebody thatncbody elsehas discovered behind that Cress. He has seen through the darkness, andthrough the darkness discovered the glory. He haß found out that the poor dying Son of Man is also the Son of God, the Saviour of the lost, the help of the friendless, the light of those that Bin in gloom — Ay, the Very Life Prom tne Dead. The dying thief has made that discovery, and he puts the case into the Lord's hands, and he saya, " Lord, remember me when Thou comest to Thy kingdom." From thedying lips of Jesus on the central cross, there speeds Me word of mercy—-"To-day thou shalt be with Me in paradise." Now, there are some in this church who have |got aa far as this dying thief. Are there some of you willing to go a 9 far V You have come up to the Cross, but what is it to you ? Are you looking at that dying Saviour * "See, from His head, Hisjhands. His feat, Sorrow and love flow mingling down ! Did e'er such lovo and sorrow meet. Or thorns compose so rica a crown T There He hangs in His death agony j what is He to you ? Dear souls, are you looking up to His face, and saying, "He is my Saviour. In my utter ruin, in mv helplessness and desperation, conscious of my soul's despair, incapable of relieving myself from my misery and agonizing woe, ob, great God ! oh, dying Saviour ! I look into Thy face, I cling to Thy feet, where the blood is streaming ; I see the pardoning stream ; I claim deliverance because Thou hast died ?"" Have You Come Thus To Christ 1 Can you see pardon in every quivering of that body ; pardon in every drop of blood that trickles down over His languid, dying frame ? Can youdiscoverpardon in every voice of sorrow that leaves His parched lips ? Do ycu discern pardon in that lasfc bowing of His dying head ? Jesus, Thou thorncrowned King ; Jesus, thou dying man of sorrows; Jesua, Thou ,"£ reat world sinbearer: by Thy. wounds lam healed; by Thy sorrow I enter into joy ; by Thy darkness I obtain the light of life ; and by Thy shame I obtain the crown of glory. Christ for me » Christ for me! Have you found out that at Calvary? Oh, hasten at ouce^ to Jesus, the Mediator of the New Covenant—covenant by which God, in His love, binds Himself to His own eternal Son to receive, and accept, and pardon, and^ restore* and deliver and bless eternally, those who are content to accept the work which that Son has wrought, and trust their • souls to Him. i | i i

The latest importation. Scene, Newport. "How well preserved Lord Bawmast is— is he not quite a swell?" "Oh, yes." (With a buxat of confidence) —"Do you know when he arrived he was obliged to pay duty on himself as a work of art." At breakfast. Mrs B. (severely)- " You are-aware, no doubt, Mr 8., that the clock was striking 4 this morning before you ' Mrß, (composedly) —"No, madame, I am not. And I might add that most respectable people are asleep at that moss unseemly, hour." One of our contemporaries hss a subscriber who wants to know who won the battle ef Waterloo. The man has no patience. He ought to give his paper tim&> to catch up.