Christ a Presence
BUT it is the spiritual presence of Christ thus promised and pledged to His people: ‘’Lo I am with you ““‘dlwayP This promise of Jesus, as precious as it is marvelous, is predicated upon His essential Deity. Were He, as some represent, human only and not absolutely divine, what confidence could we have in this promise? What comfort would it impart, what hope would it inspire, what protection would it aflord? Where is the created being, be he man or angel, who could in truth speak in language so lofty and sublime as this? “Zt?, am with you alway even to the end of the world Would it not be the utterance of the boldest blasphemy in him thus to speak, and would it not be the veriest delusion in us thus to believe? But because our Lord Jesus was God, He spake with authority, Godlike and divine. ‘’Z am with you alioayP Oh, sublime thought! there is not a world, a being, a spot in the universe, however remote, insignificant, or obscure — there beams not a star, there flames not a sun, there breathes not a spirit, there exists not an empire, where Christ’s government does not rule, Christ’s power is not felt, Christ’s glory is not displayed. Could the believer take the wings of the morning and fly to the most distant planet, or touch the utmost limit of space, there the smile of Christ’s love would illumine him, the accents of Christ’s voice would cheer him, the atmosphere of Christ’s presence would encircle Mm, the power of Christ’s omnipotence would uphold him — he would feel the right hand of Christ gently laid upon his spirit; and in the awful stillness and fathomless depth of that profound solitude, he would exclaim, “Thou art itear, 0 Lord!”
We repeat the inquiry for the purpose of pursuing it more fully: ‘Whose presence is thus promised and pledged? It is the presence of Christ. The Christ of God. The Christ who is God. ‘Immanuel God with us, The Christ who made all worlds, created all beings, governs all empires, controls all events. The Christ who replenishes earth with beauty, heaven with glory, eternity with song. The Christ before whom angels and archangels, principalities and powers bend, and at whose name every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that He is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. The Christ whose glory is divine, whose beauty is peerless, whose wealth is boundless, whose love is as infinite as His being. The Christ who took your veritable nature, — that same infirm, suffering nature which now wearily you wear, — and in that nature bore and put away for ever your sins, uplifted and for ever removed your curse, paid all your great debt to Divine justice, sorrowed for you in the garden, suffered and expired in your stead on the cross, rose from the grave, irradiating it with the hope of the “first resurrection,” ascended up to heaven, lives and intercedes for you, representing your person and presenting your prayers and praises with ineffable acceptance and delight to His Father and your Father, to His God and your God. The Christ who loves you with an affection whose depth no line can sound, whose constancy no change can chill, whose care of, whose sympathy for, whose watchfulness over, you flings as to the torrid zone the warmest, tenderest love that ever pulsated in a human breast. The Christ who acknowledges Himself your Brother, has proved Himself your Friend, and who assures you that as the head is in union with the body, and the vine is one with the branch, so is He ever with, ever one with, ever close to you in an invisible, yet real and conscious presence, from which neither life with all its changes, nor death with all its solemnities, shall be able to sever you. Such, child of God, is the Being who breathes these gentle, assuring words into your ear — am with you!’ O honored saint of God! O favored disciple of Jesus! who has such a one ever at your side. The Divinest in the universe to love you, the Mightiest in the universe to shield you, the Loveliest in the universe to delight you, the Dearest in the universe to soothe, cheer, and gladden you. Tell me, if, of all you have ever loved, or who have loved you.
the one who was given to your youth to love you more tenderly than all, yea, the being who loved you yet more deeply, tenderly, and unchangeably still — who loved you as a mother only could, — is there one of all these whose presence ever with you, you would prefer to Christ’s? The question grieves you, you shrink from the comparison, and with uplifted eye, moistened with tears, yet beaming with affection, you exclaim, from the profoundest depths of your soul,” Whom have 1 in heaven hut Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire ieside Theer
But we must remind you, before we proceed further, that the presence of Christ with His people involves equally the presence of the First and Third Persons of the ever-blessed and glorious Trinity. It is a triple staff we place in your hand, in grasp-, ing which, your faith leans upon infinity in its threefold manifestation. “We can have nothing to do truly, spiritually, and savingly with one Person of the Godhead without an equal faith in, and love to, the others. When Christ pledges His presence with you. He unites with it the Fatherhood of God, its boundless sources of love, wisdom, and strength. Christ came to make known the Father’s mind, to reveal the Father’s love, to bring home to heaven the Father’s family, predestinated to the adoption of children. ^’^No man hnoweth the Father tut he to whom the Son will reveal him ‘’He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father P That great God, that eternal Father, who thus spoke to His Church, speaks equally to you: ^’Fear thou not j for I am with thee: he not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee j yea I will help thee; yea I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness,^^ “When thou jpassest through the waters I will he with thee j and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee: when thou walhest through the fire thou shalt not he hurned; neither shall the flame Mndle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God the Holy One of Israel the Saviour.’*^ Oh, seek to realize this precious truth in all your journeying: the presence of Christ is the assurance that your Heavenly Father is with you. Christ’s voice speaking to you in love, is the echo of the Father’s voice. Christ’s smile of delight beaming upon you, is the brightness of the Father’s smile. Christ’s precious promises sustaining and soothing you, are the ^’exceeding great and precious promises” of God, which are ‘’all yea and amen in Christ Jesus unto the glory of God the Father It is a truth, equally as revealed and equally as precious, that the presence of Christ with His people involves also the presence of the Holy Spirit. Oh y
30 CHRIST EVER ^VT^B. YOU.
that we had a more spiritual, vivid, grateful apprehension of the Divinity, personality, and gracious vrork of the Spirit, our Spiritual Quickener, our Divine Comforter, our Indwelling Sanctifier, our Infallible Teacher. “I believe in the Holy Ghost,” is one of the vital articles of our Creed; is it equally the deep, experimental, sanctifying sentiment of our heart? Do I firmly, practically believe in the Divine personality of the Holy Ghost, in His official relation to my salvation, in His absolute necessity in regeneration, in His tender, changeless love as my Comforter, in His indispensable necessity as my Teacher, and in His gracious, sanctifying power, as ever abiding with, and dwelling in, me? Such is the magnitude and extent of the promise of Christ, ^’lam with yoxcP We repeat, it involves the love of the Father who adopted you, the grace of the Son who died for you, the power of the Spirit who quickened you, the Triune- Jehovah,
“That triple bolt that lays all wrong in ruin.”
Before I refer to the circitmstanees in which you may anticipate a full realization of this precious promise, let me remind you of the offices of Christ it involves, the materials of this triple staff which Jesus places in your hand.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Where two or three are gathered in my name there am I in the midst of them. “We must have Christ ever near.
A gentleman said he had been several times of late on board the North Carolina, to assist in the conducting of the daily prayer meetings, which have been lately revived, and he had good news to tell.
Some months ago, everj pious seaman, who was on board of this old ship, had been drafted and sent off to some other ship in the naval service, so that none remained to sustain the prayer meeting, and the consequence was it was given up. The number on board also was very small. It was thought best to wait till the ship filled up with men, and then it would be proper to make an effort to renew the meetings. Since the business men’s prayer meeting convention, the desire had been much stimulated to go on board, and, with the leave of the Captain, resume the daily meetings. So a few pious seaman from the shore made known their wishes to the commander, and he readily assented to the request, to hold them. The hour appointed was at” two bells of the dog wateh/^ which is five o’clock, p. m.
At the very first meeting the spirit of God seemed to come down with power. Toward the close of the meeting twenty-four men arose and requested to be made the subjects of prayer. At the next meeting thirty-six arose for prayer, at the next fifty; and the last evening sixty signified their desire to be remembered in prayer. It is now a very solemn time on the old ship.
STORY OF A sailor’s CONVERSION.
I was in Boston, said a gentleman, a clergyman, and heard a sailor tell his religious experience. Now that prayer has been requested for these men of the sea, I want to speak of that man’s account of his own conversion. He ran away from home when young and went to sea. He had a pious, godly mother, whom he had not seen for seventeen years. He often had letters from his mother, begging him, when he came into port, to come and see her, but he never would go. He was often under a promise to go, but when tie came home from his long India voyages, with one hundred dollars, or two hundred dollars in his pocket, drawn as back pay, he would go ashore and fall into the hands of the land sharks, and there he would be tossed about among them, until his raoney was gone, and then he would go to sea again to be gone for another long voyage. All this time his mother kept on praying, and writing to him, and still begging him to come and see her, when he should come ashore. This mother had been in the habit of praying with him when he was a little boy, but he had long since forgotten her prayers.
So he had gone on in a career of wickedness for seventeen years, disappointing all the fond hopes of hie pious mother. One night he said his ship was overtaken by a terrible hurricane, so that it seemed as if the sails would all be blown away. He was ordered to go aloft to endeavor to take in the sails to save them. It seemed to him that, in spite of all he could do, he should be blown off into the raging billows. In that terrible gale, when it seemed as if distraction and death were yawning beneath him to swallow him up quick, he said he thought he heard his mother’s voice crying for mercy for him. The thoughts of his poor, praying mother came rushing over his soul. He listened, and still he thought, in the midst of the howling tempest, he heard the prayer of that same blessed, but neglected mother, praying God to save her son. Then and there it was, said this sailor, when I was hanging on for my life, to keep from being blown overboard, all my mother’s prayers when I was a little boy, came up to my mind. I seemed to hear them all over again.
He said as soon as he could come down from aloft, overwhelmed with a sense of his sins, he ran down into the forecastle, and there fell on his knees and cried to God for mercy. He confessed what a vile sinner he had been, and he asked God to hear his poor mother’s prayers and his own cries for mercy, and forgive him.
He hoped he that night obtained forgiveness. From that time all his manner and his plans of life were changed. He came into Boston, a new man in Christ Jesus. The land sharks could not get hold of him. He had saved up his wages, two hundred or three hundred dollars, and he said he was going right home to see his dear mother, who for these seventeen long years had been praying for him; and whatever he could do, or his money could do, all should be done to make that dear faithful mother happy.
THE YOUNG MAN WHO WAS BORN AGAIN AT SEA.
He rose at the very close of the meeting. ^’I must speak,” said he. ‘This meeting must not close until I tell you how mercifully the Lord has dealt with me. I was, as I hope, converted at sea less than a year ago. I am a stranger in this meeting, but I learn, from the exercises, something of those who compose it. There stood a gentlemen, a little time ago,” pointing to a part of the room, “who requested you to pray for the young Roman Catholic Italian, who comes in here to learn what he shall do to be saved. And near me is the man who speaks of an awakened young man, near to death, who wishes to be prayed for. And then one of the requests for prayer asks us to pray for an awakened young lady, now in the room. And another said a little time ago, do pray for my infidel young friend, who says lie has been an unbeliever, but the foundation on which he has stood has all been removed, and he finds him sinking to perdition.
“Oh! hear me I say — I have been through all this. As you hear me now for the first — and will never more — remember that I say to every one, who is, as I was, a sinner: come to Jesus. There is nothing like going to Him, nothing in the place of going to Him, nothing but going to Him. So it was with me, away in mid ocean, and so it must be with you in the Fulton Street Prayer Meeting. I find just such spiritual wants press down upon the soul here as everywhere else, when men are out of Christ. I must ask you — I must entreat you to take sanctuary in Him and be saved. That is all I want to say.”
There was an urgency and earnestness in the appeal which moved the hearts of all present. Men forgot, for the moment, that the hour for closing had fully come, and, prompt to the minute, the leader arose, and asked the meeting to sing one stanza —
“I lay my sins on Jesus,
The spotless lamb of God;
He bears them all and frees us
From the accursed load.
I bring ray guilt to Jesus,
To wash my crimson stains
White in his blood most precious
Till not a spot remains.”