A Fatal Mistake

Fred B. Smith lias been called one of the greatest preachers to young men in modern times. I have no hesitation in saying that I have never seen another audience so moved as the audience in Topeka, Kansas, when Mr. Smith preached the following sermon.

All of his time is now devoted to this special work for men. He is hnnself so manly in his presentation of the gospel and so thoroughly imbued with the impression that every man needs Jesus Christ to complete and control his life, that his arguments and pleadings are well nigh irresistible. He is a master in his control of audiences, and in his after-meeting work is as strong as any evangelist I have ever known.

I saw more than three hundred men take a stand for Christ at the close of this sermon. Several thousand men were present and the attention and interest manifested were intense.

He said: I will read a few verses from the loth chapter of Mark’s Gospel, beginning with the 17th verse: * * *

FRED B. SMITH.

For many years in my life when I wanted to refer to some character that was beautiful and that would inspire high and noble living, I always referred to the “Rich Young Ruler,” described in this scripture, but suddenly the whole picture of his life and record changed from one of inspiration to one of warning, and since, in increasing measure, has this warning intensified and the seriousness of his error become more apparent. I want, if possible, therefore to bring from this young man’s experience a timely message of warning to other young men that may be following in the channel of his thought.

There are four such warnings that I wish to speak of. The first one suggests itself to all of you. Always and everywhere the preacher has never tired of referring to this young man as a zcarniug to the rich man. From my boyhood, as I look back, it seems to me that that is the picture I have always had of this man. Over and over again has he been held up as a warning to the man that was absorbed in getting wealth. Personally I have no doubt about that warning being true. There can be no mistaking this message, and here is a clarion ringing voice warnmg every man on the question ot money. I believe the words of Jesus Christ need but very little explanation. If ever there was a man that spoke plainly that man was the Son of God. And when He said: “How hardly shall a rich man enter the kingdom of God,” I think He meant just what He said If He didn’t mean that, I feel sure He would have said what He meant. Therefore this message comes, first, with that warning in it. Two things I think are important, though: You will notice that when the disciples were so astonished at that statement, Jesus said: “How hardly shall they that inist in riches enter the kingdom of God.” I do not know of a place in the Bible where wealth as such is condemned, but everywhere running through it the right use of wealth is exalted. It is well for us to remember that this is not a sweeping charge against every man that is engaged in getting wealth. It is well for us to remember the other thing also, namely: It is not a question of the amount of money involved. One man may be as much kept away from God over getting ten dollars a week as another man is in getting ten thousand. It is not a question of how much it is. It is simply a question of this: Has the struggle for bread, the conquest for gain, the battle of the commercial world, so consumed and so fascinated you that you have shut God out of your life? If it has, Jesus Christ speaks again about it when he says to you: “How hardly shall the man that is so consumed with things of this world ever enter the kingdom of God.” There is that warning, but I think it is only on the surface, and I feel sure that if that had been the only teaching that Jesus intended to leave from this incident. He would not have given it a place in His Book.

Wc pass to the second warning. Not only is that a warning to the rich man, but it is a warning to another very large class. More times in the cycle of a year in my own life I hear this, than any other one objection to the religious life. When I press many a man about his personal obligation to live for God, he will answer me in this way: He says, “It is true, I am not a religious man. I have never personally accepted of Jesus Christ. I have never affiliated myself with organized Christianity; but I believe in it, and more than that, I am trying to live an honest, upright life.” Or, to be very quick with my figure: That man says to me, “I am not a professing Christian man; I have never entered the religious life; hut I am living a moral life,” and he tells me that he pays his debts, that he is kind to his family, and tries to be a good citizen, and that therefore he feels his account is right with God.

Hear me!

There is not a man in all this vast audience, not one; there is not a man in the beautiful city of Topeka; there is not a man in the whole state of Kansas; there is not one man living in these United States, nor on this North American continent — there is not one man living to-day in the whole realm of the world, that can stand up and say, “My life has been equal to that of the rich young ruler.” Here was a moral man of the moral men. When Jesus asked him about that half of the commandments that had to do with his relation to men, recall what he said. Quickly this young man answered: “I have kept all of them from my youth.” If there is a man in this audience that dare stand up and say that from his youth he has kept all of these commandments, I pause to let that man rise to declare that he has so lived. We know he has not, and I am sure that when Jesus held the interview with this young man, He was bringing out with His divine wisdom an answer forever and eternally to that carping man that would rob God of the glory of his life by saying: “I am living a moral life.” There is many a man that seems to think there is some credit due him because he is out of jail. I suspect there are a lot of men in this audience that ought to be in jail, and if the truth was known about some of you, they would put you in jail before the sun goes down. The fact that you are out of jail does not prove very much. The religious life is not composed of negations, is not a system of negatives. God not only wants you to keep from theft and from stealing and from adultery and gambling and from murder and the like, but, hear me! Brother, God wants your heart; God wants your life. God wants your service. God wants your ALL! He will have that, or He will have nothing. No standard of morality, be it ever so high, is equivalent to, the demand God has on every man’s life through the grace of Jesus Christ. There is the warning to the rich man; and there is the warning to the man that is living only by human standards. There is another warning this young man brings. He teaches me that it is entirely possible for a man to be very, very near the kingdom of God, and then he forever lost. Look at this scene, if you will: This man running out by the roadside, and as he ran, in his intensity he threw himself down on the ground upon his knees in salutation, and said, “Oh, Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?” Had it been the custom of the day, he could have reached out and taken the hand that was to be scarred for the sins of the world. This young man knelt there, and he heard the way of salvation, not from the lips of a faltering prophet, priest or king. This young man heard the way of salvation from the very author of it, while He paused in His busy life to tell that young man what he must do to be saved. He had the privilege that some of us are longing for and our souls are yearning for the hour when it shall burst upon us. This young man saw “face to face” the Savior of the world.

This young man had the privilege. He looked into the very eyes and heard the words and stood in the presence of the Son of God, and yet we see him as he turns sorrowing away and, so far as we know, he was a lost man.

Only a little while ago I rose on a Sunday morning early, and read all of Luke’s Gospel to see if I could find some character somewhere that would correspond with this young man that had at a later time come back in his life and repented and accepted of Jesus Christ; but I could not find one. I do not know, but so far as the record is given us, after being so very near that line of decision, he drifted out into the world and went into a Christless eternity, without God, without hope.

My warning is this: You are living in a land where there are more church spires pointing their majestic finger toward God than in any other land in the world, save one. More sweet chimes in America ring calling the people to God and to prayer than in any other land in all the world. More prayers are being said now than ever in the history of life. This is it: My brother, you note my message to-day! You may live in this land; you may live in a place where your streets are crowded with churches; you may hear over and over again the yearning appeal of the Gospel. You may have been prayed over by the sweetest mother that ever sung a lullaby hymn to her child. You may have been counselled by the Godliest father that ever lived. You may have been reared under the very dripping of the sanctuary of the church of God, and despite it all, you may be drifting out into the world and into sin, to go out of this life without Christ, without hope.

Almost in the Kingdom, and yet he was lost. Oh, I wonder how many men there are in this audience that you can look back now to times when you were on the very verge of giving your heart to God and then somehow swung away from it? I suspect while I stand here now I am delivering the last message to some man. I suspect some man is standing on the mount this afternoon and is going to hear his last Gospel message. Either accept it, or turn away into the world to spurn God and trample it under foot, and go out of life without God. The saddest hymn in all hymnology is that one we sometimes sing, “Almost Persuaded.” You have been there — “almost persuaded.” It closes thus:

16o
“Almost, cannot avail;
Almost, is but to fail.
Sad, sad that bitter wail,
Almost, but lost.”

Let this man speak to you to-day from 1900 years ago that it is possible for a man to be very nearly in the kingdom of God and then be forever lost.

There is another warning. Not only does this incident warn me of the danger of becoming over much consumed in getting wealth, and of the danger of trusting alone in a moral standard, but that it is possible for a man to be very nearly saved, and then be lost. I want you to get this last one. Get that scene before you vividly. The young man running out by the roadside. He throws himself on the ground and looks up in the face of Jesus. He says: “Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?’’ What did Jesus say to him? Did he say: “You must quit that gambling, quit that stealing, quit that lying. Young man, put that impurity out of your life?” Not a word of it. Those things were foreign to his life. Hear it! Jesus looked on that young man and said He loved him, and then said, Young man, rich young man, honest young man, pure young man, noble young man, “ONE THIXG THOU LACK EST!”

I know of no other four words in the Bible that carry such ponderous power with them. “One thing thou lackest.” If I should ever write a book, these four words will be the theme of it. You may start to-day and you may go around the world, and as

K 161 you go take a paint-pot and brush and painter with you, and as you travel around you may go to every penitentiary, where the young men pace back and forth behind the bars, like caged lions with faces blanched white; and when you come to the cell you need not write over it the word “Murderer” or “Robber.” You may simply write over every cell in that penitentiary these four words: “One thing thou lackest.” And it will tell the secret of the life behind the bars. You may go to two-thirds of all the insane hospitals, where the poor souls go with reason dethroned, and you may write over two-thirds of them just those four words: “One thing thou lackest.” Yonder where that poor mother kneels this afternoon and no rest comes to her body and no peace to her soul, there where she agonizes over some of you young men, you may simply write over her, as she bows there with broken heart, praying for a prodigal son: “One thing thou lackest.”

In every sad place, in every broken heart, in every place of sin, in all the cycle of the world, you may write over it these four words, and it will tell you the secret of the ruin and sorrow and the broken heart.

There are three things I want to say about that “One thing thou lackest.” First is this: Lacking that one thing, many a man has utterly gone to ruin in this world. In the Spanish war, sitting one day by the side of our tent in old Chickamaugua Park, I noticed a young soldier climbing the mountain side towards us. I wondered what he could want. Despair was written on his face. Finally he sat down on the hillside and bowed his head over in his hands. I went down to him and stood by his side and said: “Soldier, what is the trouble?” He said: “I am a mean, miserable man, the most miserable of all this camp.” He was nothing but a beardless boy. I said: “Tell me your trouble; I would like to help you.” He said: “Day before yesterday we got our first pay, $34.16 I drew. When I left my home in Mississippi, my mother said she could not spare me, that I was her only support. I promised her I would send every cent I got back to her.” He said: “I took that money and came down here to get a money order to send home. On the way I met some soldiers, and one of them had a whisky bottle, and I took a drink. I don’t know where I have been, but I have been gambling and my money is all gone.” I said to that young soldier: “What can I do for you?” He said: “I thought I would come up and ask some of you if you wouldn’t write a letter to my mother and tell her about it.” I said to him: “What shall I w-rite your mother?” He said: “Write her that I was robbed. Write her that it was stolen from me. In God’s name write her anything, but don’t write her that I have been drunk and gambled it away.” As I stood by him, I said to myself: “Is this young man a gambler? Is he a drunkard? Does he hate his mother? Is he deliberately wicked and cruel and mean in his heart?” Just one trouble! When he left home that young man was lacking in one thing — and that was the power of Jesus Christ in his life, and lacking that had brought him to that place of sorrow and disgrace.

Hear me, young men! Some day, if the raging torrent of sin sweeps you over and you lie on the rocks yonder, bruised, bleeding and undone, remember what I said to you this afternoon. You will go there just because you lack this one thing.

There is another thing I want to say about those four words. Mark it close! You may go and get everything in all the world that you ever dreamed of. Let your mind go out quick over all the things you have ever thought you would like to do in the world. Sum it up now — of all the victories that you dreamed of winning, of the money you would make, of the fame you would have, of the wisdom that some day should be yours. Sum it all up, and I give you my word that if you go and get it all and leave out that “one thing,” your life is going to be a failure, and some day you will give that testimony before you leave this old world. I knew a man, that from boyhood was oft exhorted to live the Christian life, but always put ofif the day of decision. “I am going to, but there is no hurry,” was many times his answer. After fifty years he was violently taken ill, almost the first time in his life. The doctor quickly told him it was a sickness unto death, that only two or three days at most were left him, and that his business must be adjusted at once. He said: “It is not business I want to adjust.” He sent for an old minister, and for forty-eight hours they tried in vain to bring him to trust in Christ. He refused to believe God would accept him, and the third morning, as the end approached, he talked with sons, daughters, sons-in-law and friends, and to each gave the same pleading: “Do not make the mistake I have”; and with the old pastor hurrying a prayer to God to save him at the last moment, with some friends trying through tears to sing, “Jesus, Lover of my Soul,” he raised himself, and calling his oldest son, said: “Hold my hand, boy, it is getting dark, I cannot see, it is a failure,” and dropped back on his pillow, and his spirit winged its way to God. His dying words were: “It is a failure.” In what, money? No! he had accumulated a goodly sum. Estimation of his friends? A-o! highly honored among men. In his home? Vo! one of the kindest of men. A failure in this, that amid the busy activities ot his life he had forgotten God, and when he lay down to die he left as his parting message that sad confession — “It is a failure.”

My brother, go get gold until you can pile it mountain high. Go get wisdom until you can vie with Solomon. Go get glory until your brow can bear no more; but leave God out of your life, and some day you will go out of this world and say: “It is all a failure.” I care not what else a man gets, if he leaves God out of his life there will be a blank there that with his own words he will wish he had not lived, and that with his own words he will say that his life is a failure.

The other side — what is it? I have just said if a man got everything in all the world he would like to have, but left God out, his life would be a failure. Now get the other side of it.

If you in this life meet defeat, if in this life at every milestone you have to pause and write, “It has been a defeat for me,” if you will do what I say, your life is going to be a triumph. After all, there are only a few men who know what the largest blessings of this world are. Most men to whom I speak to-day are men that live a hard struggle; most men to whom I speak to-day are men that will go through a hard battle; most men to whom I speak to-day are men that will live in poverty and die in the struggle. This world showers its blessings in largest measure on only a few. Most of us will never be known outside of the county in which we live. Hear me, my brother, and mark it well. If you will give your heart to God and serve Jesus Christ while you are here, when you go out of this life it is going to be a victory! (Cries of “Amen! Amen! Amen!”) It is going to be a victory as sure as I look into your faces.

Pardon me if I use a personal illustration. Once in twelve months I go out to my old farm home, there where the scenes are so familiar that they swing me back to childhood’s days, and if there is a sadness about going there it is this: somehow the sadness of the struggle of the life of my father and mother. My father is now a man whose hair is white — an old man, coming to the close of life. At times he has prospered, only in old age to have the uncertain wheels of commercial life swing against him, and he closes life soon with nothing of this world to call his own. A few years ago when I went to visit them, I went with the express purpose of taking them away from that old farm. I felt as though the time had come for them to leave it. I stayed those days until on the Sunday night before I was to leave the next morning. I waited until all were in bed and we were alone. We sat in that old dining-room that is just as familiar, every crack and corner of it, as the faces of those I love best. Over on one side of the table sat my mother, with the old leather covered Bible in her lap. Every page of that old Bible is stained with tears of that dear old saint. On the other side sat my father. I said: “Father and mother, I have come out here now to ask you to leave the old farm and come away from it. It has been only a scene of hardship.” Mother said: “No! I guess we had better stay here.” She said: “If any of the children or grandchildren are ever sick, here is a place you can come.” I said: “Mother, you must be so very lonely here, now, and the old farm has just been a scene of hard work. You had better leave it.”

Young men, when I am looking for the last time into the face of that dear old mother, I want to remember her as I saw her on that night. I am praying God to keep her memory fresh with me as I saw her then. She leaned across the table and pushed her glasses up on her forehead, and said: “We do get lonely here sometimes, but it is only for the children.” Then, said she, as she held out the Bible and looked me in the face, “Boy, we will never be so very lonely while we have this old Bible,” and she clasped it to her bosom and rocked to and fro.

I went outside and stood alone, and as I stood there that night, I said: “I can well go away and leave these dear old saints here in the keeping of Cod.”

Catch my illustration? That is all the world they have. The money is all gone. They have never had any glory in this world. But I will tell you what they have got: They have a record of years of loyalty to the Church of Jesus Christ. (Cries of “Amen! Amen!”) And so far as I know they are the richest people I ever knew in all the world. They are going out of life soon, and that is all they have, but when they go, I want jou to know that that is going to be a place where we will stand around and we will shed some tears, sure; but we will stand around that grave, and if God gives me grace, I am going to shout: “Hallelujah! This is Victory!” (Cries of “Amen! Bless the Lord!”)

Listen to me 1 Most of your life is going to be defeat. You might as well face it now. Most of the things you expect to do you will never accomplish. If you truly and loyally give your heart to God and serve Jesus Christ, stranger though I am to you, I will give my word that some day you will go out of this life, shouting: “Victory! Glory to God!”

There is a question I want to ask, and then I am done. Up yonder in Dakota it was asked of me, before I was a Christian. I was riding on a railway train with three men. As the train whirled along, we had two seats turned together, and our conversation was not such as becomes Christian men. The train stopped at a little station, and as the passengers were going out there came past me an old minister. I didn’t know he was in the car, for if I had known he was there my conduct would have been different — I never saw the day but that I respected the ministry. He leaned over and looked at me. I don’t know who that old man was; I don’t know his name; I don’t know his home; but that strange old minister stopped at the car seat beside me and said: “Young man, will you answer me a question?” I said; “Certainly, sir,” and blushed as I saw I was in his presence. He said: “Young man, why don’t you live like you want to die?” He didn’t wait for answer, but walked out of the car. We rode on in silence to the station where I was to get off. I went to the hotel and into my room, locked the door, and then back and forth I paced, as I said to myself: “Yes, why don’t I live like I will want to die? Why don’t I live like I will want to die?’’ I never got that question out of my ears. I want to give it to you to-day.

Young man, there is going to come a day in your life when you will pray! Yes, you will! I care not who you are, though your heart be as hard as a rock. You may be able to listen to the Gospel to-day and it never touch a tender place in your life. You may have rejected Jesus Christ until it has become a common thing to you. But hear me! Every man in this audience will pray some day!

It may be too late; but you are going to pray! And the agony of your soul will go out in that last prayer you offer. I know you! You feel strong, don’t you? You can stand up in the power of your physical strength and can curse and damn and swear and drink whisky and gamble. But you will pray! Yes, you will. You will pray, and some day we will find you on yOur face crying for mercy! You will cry: “Oh, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” One of the meanest and wickedest men I ever knew was a man that lived in our village town. He was a gambler, a blaspheming man. But the day when he thought he was going to die he ran out of the village and threw himself on the ground and cried so a hundred people could hear him!

You will pray! Yes, you will. Some of you men, hear me! Before the snow flies over these prairies again, some of you will send a hurried message for one of these preachers to “Come quick! I am dying.” You will call a preacher to your side to pray for you, and you will want him to stand over your grave and say a prayer there.

Prince Henry, that dauntless young man of the early history of England, that young man that defied God and God’s people, when he was twenty-seven years old, was told: “Prince, you are dying.” He said: “What? Dying?” “Yes,” they said, “You are dying.” Do you remember his words? He said: “Tie a rope around my body and drag me out to an ash heap and let me say my prayers!” They tied a rope around the body of Prince Henry, and as they started to the ash heap the cord was broken and the spirit of him went out to God before he got to the ash heap to say his prayer!

I want to read four actual prayers. Listen, while I read you the prayer of Voltaire, that man that damned God and defied God’s people; but hear him when he died!

“I am abandoned by God and man. I will give you” (his physician) “half of what I am worth if you will give me six months of life. Then I shall go to hell and you will go with me. Oh, Christ! Oh, Christ Jesus!” That was the prayer of Voltaire as he went out.

Listen while Tom Paine prays:

“I would give worlds, if I had them, that the Age of Reason had never been published. Oh, Lord God, help me. Oh, God, what have I done to sufifer so much? Oh, there is no God. But if there should be one, what will become of me? Stay with me, for God’s sake, for I cannot bear to be left alone. Even send a child to stay with me.”

Oh, yes, Tom Paine prayed!

Listen! Listen! “Earth is receding. Heaven is opening. God is calling me. Let me go.” And Moody, the mighty man “fell on sleep.”

Let me give you another one:

“Good-bye all. Good-bye. It is God’s way. Nearer, My God. to Thee.” And President Mc-Kinley went out to be with God.

I am a stranger here. I never was in this town before. I never expect to be again. I look into your faces only to-day and once only. My young man friend, I part with you. May I ask you this question .•

“Why not be a man and live like you want to die?”