How to Be Unspeakably Happy at

“Whom, not having seen ye love; on whom, though now ye see him not, yet BELIEVING, ye rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory’’ — I Peter i: 8.

SHAVE here a beautiful text, a text that you all know, but I wonder how many of you have ever pondered it enough to take in all its wonderful wealth of meaning?

A young woman in England many years ago always wore a golden locket that she would not allow anyone to open or look into, and everyone thought there must be some romance connected with that locket and that in that locket must be the picture of the one she loved. The young woman died at an early age, and after her death the locket was opened, everyone wondering whose face they would find within. And in the locket was found simply a little slip of paper with these words written upon it, “Whom having not seen, I love.” Her Lord Jesus was the only Lover she knew and the only Lover she longed for, and she had gone to be with Him,

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the one object of her whole heart’s devotion, the un¬ seen but beloved Saviour.

But it is to the last part of the verse that I wish to call your particular attention to-night, “On whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory.”

This text informs us (and many of us do not need to be informed of it, for we know it by blessed experience) that the one who really believes on Jesus Christ, our unseen, but ever living Lord and Saviour, rejoices with “joy unspeakable and full of glory.” The Greek word translated “joy” is a very strong word, describing extreme joy or exult¬ ant joy. The word “unspeakable” declares that this exultant joy is of such a character that we cannot, by any possibility, tell it all out to others. Every¬ one who really believes on the Lord Jesus does rejoice with an exultant joy that is beyond all description. And those who do truly believe on the Lord Jesus Christ are the only ones who do thus rejoice. Others may have a certain amount of joy, a certain measure of gladness, but the only people who really know “joy unspeakable and full of glory” are those who really believe on Jesus Christ.

Who is there among us who does not wish to be happy? Happiness is the one thing all men are seeking. One man seeks it in one way, and another man seeks it in another way, but all men are in pur¬ suit of it. Even the man who is “happy only when he is miserable,” is seeking happiness in this ‘strange way of cultivating a delightful melancholy by always looking on the dark side of things. One man seeks money because he thinks that money will make a man happy. Another man seeks worldly pleasure because he thinks that worldly pleasure will make a man happy. Still another seeks learning, the knowledge of science, or philosophy, or history, or literature, because he thinks that learning brings the true joy; but they are all in pursuit of the one thing, happiness.

The vast majority of men who seek happiness do not find it. You may say what you please, but for the majority of men this is an unhappy world. I go down into the houses of the poor, I do not find many happy people there. I go into the homes of the rich, I do not find many happy people even there. Study the faces of the people you meet on the cars, on the street, at entertainments, or anywhere else, how many really radiant faces do you see? When you do see one it is so exceptional that you note it at once. But there is a way, and a very simple way, a very sure way, and a way that is open to all, not only to find happiness, but to be unspeakably happy. Our text tells us what that way is. Listen, “On zi thorn, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice greatly zvith joy unspeakable and full of glory” This statement of Peter’s is true. How do I know it is true? In the first place, I know it is true because the Word of God says so. Whatever this book says is true. In the second place, I know it is true because I have put the matter to the test of personal experiment, and found it true. A good many people say, “I do not believe the Bible.” Well, I do. I believe the Bible for a good many sufficient reasons; but there is this one reason why I believe the Bible that I wish to mention to-night.

HOW TO BE SAVED

I believe the Bible because I have personally tested scores and scores of its most astonishing and apparently most incredible statements and found every one of them true in my own experience. Do you not think if I knew a man who made very many statements that I could test for myself, some of them apparently incredible, and I tested these statements one after another through a long period of years, and found everyone of them true, and never one single statement failed, do you not think that I would believe that man after a while? Well, that is just my experience with the Bible, and I believe it. I would be a fool if I did not. The statement of the text is one of those that I have tested, and I have found it true.

I was not always happy. Indeed, I was once unspeakably miserable. I had sought happiness very earnestly. I had sought happiness in gaiety and sin, and found, not joy, but wretchedness. In my pur¬ suit of happiness I had tried study, the study of languages, science, philosophy and literature, but I did not find happiness in these things. At last I turned to Jesus Christ and believed on Him, and I found not merely happiness, but something better, joy, “joy unspeakable and full of glory.” Whatever Heaven may be or may not be, I know that on this earth the one who really believes on Jesus Christ, the one who puts himself in Christ’s hands, to be led, and taught, and guided, and strengthened, puts himself in the hands of Jesus Christ for Jesus Christ to do all He will with him, I know that such a per¬ son finds “joy unspeakable and full of glory.”

I. Why Those Who Believe in Jesus Christ
Have Joy Unspeakable and Full of Glory
Why do those who believe in Jesus Christ have
“joy unspeakable and full of glory”?

i. First of all, Those who believe on Jesus Christ have “joy unspeakable and full of glory” because they know that their sins are all forgiven. It is a wonderful thing to know that your sins are all for¬ given, to know that there is not one single, slightest cloud between you and God, to know that no matter how many, or how great your sins may have been, that they are all blotted out, to know that God has put them all behind His back where no one can ever get at them, to know that God has sunken all your sins in the depths of the sea from which they can never be raised; that they are all gone. A little boy once asked his mother, “Mother, where are our sins after they are blotted out?” His mother replied, “My boy, where are those figures that were on your slate yesterday?” He answered, “I rubbed them out.” Then she asked, “Where are they now?” He replied, “They are nowhere.” “Well,” she said, “That is just so with your sins when God has blotted them out. They are nowhere. They have ceased to be.” Oh, friends, what a joy it is to know that there is not one single smallest cloud between you and the Holy God whom we call Father and Who rules this universe. Suppose that you had offended against the laws of the nation and had been committed to prison on a life sentence, and a pardon were brought you, do you not think you would be happy? But that is nothing compared

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with the joy of knowing that your every sin is blotted out. Some years ago Governor Stuart of Pennsylvania determined to pardon one of the prison¬ ers in the Pennsylvania state’s prison, so he sent for Mr. Moody and said to him, “I have determined to pardon one of the prisoners in our state’s prison, and I want you to go and take the pardon to him. You can preach to the prisoners if you want to while you are doing it.” So Mr. Moody went, carrying the pardon with him, and before he began to preach he said, “I have a pardon for one of you men that the Governor has sent by me.” He did not intend to tell who it was who was pardoned until the sermon was over, but as he looked around upon his audience and saw how anxious they all were, how eager they were, how a very agony of suspense was in their faces, Mr. Moody thought, “This will never do, I can’t keep these men in this suspense,” so he said, “I will tell you now who the man is,” and he read his name from the pardon. Do you not think that that was a glad moment for that one man out of those hundreds of prisoners, a glad moment for the one man who had the Governor’s pardon, and who could walk out of prison a free man? Ah, but that is nothing to knowing that the eternal God has eternally pardoned your sins. Every true Christian knows that, he knows that every one of his sins is forgiven. How does he know it? Because the Bible says so in many places. It says for example, in Acts 13:39, “By him everyone that believeth is justified from all things,” so we know it because God says so. But no one but the believer on Jesus Christ knows that his sins are all forgiven. If anyone who is not a believer on Jesus Christ says, “I know my sins are all forgiven,” he says what is not true; for they do not know it, and cannot know it, for it is not a fact: but a Christian knows it because the Word of God says so.

The Christian knows his sins are all forgiven for another reason: that is, because the Holy Spirit bears witness in his own heart to the fact. One day when the Apostle Peter was preaching to Cornelius, the Roman officer, and to his household, he said, “To him bear all the prophets witness that through his name everyone that believeth on him shall receive remission of sins” (Acts 10:43), and everyone in his audience believed it. The Spirit of God descended right then and there and filled their hearts with the knowledge of sins forgiven, and they “began to magnify God” with exultant hearts and exultant voices. I tell you that was a joyful meeting.

A king, a great king, once wrote one of the great¬ est songs that was ever written. That song has lasted through the ages. It has been sung and is still being sung by thousands. It has been sung by millions, and though it was written many centuries ago, it is just as sweet to-day as the day the king wrote it. The man who wrote this song was a great king, the greatest king of his day, he was also one of the greatest generals of his day, one of the great¬ est generals of any day. He had great armies, the all-conquering armies of the day. He had a magnificent palace. I do not suppose that any other earthly king was ever so beloved as he was. His song was about joy and about happiness. He does

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not say in that song, “How happy is the man who is a great ‘king,” or, “How happy is the man who is a great general.” What does he say? “Oh, the happinesses of the man whose transgression is for¬ given, whose sin is covered” (Ps. 32:1, translated literally from the Hebrew). There is no happiness like the joy of knowing your sins are all forgiven. Oh, what a joy thrills the heart when a man knows that his sins are fully, freely and forever forgiven. That is one reason why the one who believes on Jesus Christ is unspeakably happy, and you can have that unspeakable happiness to-day. I do not care how black your life may have been in the past; I do not care how far you may have wandered from God; I do not care how old you may have grown in sin; if you take Jesus Christ to-day for your Saviour and your Lord, and believe on Him, your every sin will be blotted out, and it will be your privilege to know it.

2. In the second place, Those who believe on Jesus Christ rejoice with “joy unspeakable and full of glory,” because they are free from the most grind¬ ing and crushing of all forms of slavery, the slavery of sin. There is many a slave in this audience to¬ night. Some of you are slaves of strong drink. Some of you men and some of you women are slaves of drink. You know you are slaves of drink. Some of you are slaves of drugs. Some of you are slaves of an ungovernable temper. Some of you are slaves of impurity of act or impurity of thought. Some of you are slaves of other sins. The grossest, vilest, most degrading slavery in the universe is the slavery of sin. Yes, many of you here to-night are slaves.

But the Lord Jesus says in Jno. 8:31, 32, “If ye continue in my word, then are ye truly my disciples; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” He says again in the thirty-sixth verse, “If therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” There is not a slave in this building to-night who cannot have his fetters snapped in a moment, yes, in a moment, by the mighty Son of God, if he will only believe on Him and trust Him to do it. How many a man and how many a woman I have known, who were once slaves of sin in its most degrading and hopeless forms, who are now free.

One of the dearest and most honoured and most useful friends I ever had was Sam Hadley of New York City. Sam Hadley was once hopelessly enslaved by sin. Strong drink had utterly mastered him and undermined his character. He had committed one hundred and thirty-eight forgeries, and was being sought for by the police. One night after having spent a horrible night the night before, locked up in a New York jail with delirium tremens, in a mission meeting a few blocks away from the jail he cried to Jesus to save him, and Jesus saved him right then and there; and I have often heard him say that never from that night had he ever had the slightest desire for that which had enslaved him more than anything else, intoxicating drink. My, what a happy man he became! All who knew him testified that he had “joy unspeakable and full of glory.” I wish you could have looked in Sam Hadley’s face and seen the joy that there was in that redeemed and radiant countenance. But we do

HOW TO BE SAVED

not need to call Sam Hadley back from Heaven to testify, for there are hundreds of people right here in this building to-night who were once complete slaves, who are now God’s free men and free women, and who could testify to the fact. That is one rea¬ son why we are unspeakably happy, because we are free. How the Southern negroes rejoiced when they came to understand they were emancipated. They shouted and sang, “Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!” Why? Because they were once slaves, but now were free. No wonder then that we rejoice with “joy unspeakable and full of glory” because we know that we are free, and free forever.

3. In the third place, Those who believe on Jesus Christ rejoice with “joy unspeakable and full of glory” because they are delivered from all fear. There is nothing that more darkens the human heart and robs it of all joy and fills it with gloom than fear in some of its myriad forms. Those who truly believe on Jesus Christ are saved from all fear. They are delivered from all fear of misfortune; they are delivered from all fear of man; they are delivered from all fear of death; they are delivered from all fear of eternity. Do you know, friends, that to a true believer in Jesus Christ “Eternity” is one of the sweetest words in the English language? Oh, how it makes our hearts swell, that word, “Eternity.” But “Eternity” is not a sweet word to the unsaved. Write these words, “Where will you spend eternity?” on a card and hand it to a man who is not a Christian, and they will make him mad; write these same words, “Where will you spend eternity?” on a card and hand it to a Christian, and they will make him glad. Why is it? Simply because a true believer on Jesus Christ is not afraid of but delights in thoughts of eternity. Why, to the one who believes on Jesus Christ eternity is glory.

4. In the fourth place, The one who believes on Jesus Christ rejoices with “joy unspeakable and full of glory” because he knozvs he will live forever. Is not that something to rejoice over? Is it not wonderful? We read in I Jno. 2:17, “The world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.” We all know that it is true that “the world passeth away.” We certainly ought to know it by this time; but it is equally true that, “He that doeth the will of God abideth forever.” Sometimes as we ride along our beautiful roads we see the stately mansions of our multi-millionaires, and the thought will come to one sometimes, “It must be very pleasant to live there.” Well, I suppose it must be, but think a moment. How long will these people live there? The father of the household may perhaps live there ten years, possibly twenty years. Then where does he live? Some of the children may live there twenty, thirty, possibly forty years, then what? The grave. I tell you it is not worth much after all. But the Christian looks on, and on, and on, to a life that has no end, to a life that is eternal. Glory!

5. In the fifth place, Those who truly believe on Jesus Christ “rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory” because they know they are children of God. It is a great thing to know that you are a child of God. How does the Christian know it? He knows it because God says so in Jno. 1: 12, “As

HOW TO BE SAVED

many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name.” A child of God! think of it! Some¬ times as I have travelled around the world someone has pointed out to me some man, and said, “That man is the son of such and such a man, naming some king. Would you not like to be the son of a great king? Just look at that young man. He is the son of a king.” In one country many years ago, when the king business was better than it is to-day, I was taken up and introduced to the son of one of the reigning monarchs of Europe, and the man who introduced me whispered to me,” He is the son of so and so” (naming the king). Well, what of it? He was a fine man in himself, but what if he was the son of a king? I am a son of God, and that is far greater, and every believer in Jesus Christ in this building to-night is a child of God, the child of “the King of kings.” And any one of you here to-night, if you are not already a child of God, can become one in an instant, by receiving the Lord Jesus.

6. In the sixth place, and very closely connected with the last, True believers in Jesus Christ rejoice with “joy unspeakable and full of glory” because they are heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. Is that not wonderful? We are so familiar with it we do not stop to take in the meaning of it. One of England’s dukes once lay dying. He called his brother to him, the one who would succeed to the title, and said, “Brother, .in a few hours now you will be a duke and — and I will be a king.” He was already a child of the King and in a few hours he himself would be a king. I, too, will be a king in a few days. You may say, “It may be many years.” Well, many years are only a few days on the scale of eternity. And, if you really are a believer in Christ Jesus, if you have a real living faith in Him, you, too, will be a king in a few days. There was never a royal pageant sweeping through the streets of London at any coronation comparable in glory to the glory that awaits you and me just over yonder. “When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall we also with him be manifested in glory” (Col. 3:3). We may be poor to-day. That does not matter. This life will be over in a moment and the other life begun, and that life is eternal.

7. In the seventh place, Those who truly believe on Jesus Christ, those who throw their hearts wide open to Him, those who surrender absolutely to Him, rejoice with “joy unspeakable and full of glory” be¬ cause God gives them the Holy Spirit, and there is no other joy in the present life like the joy of the Holy Spirit. One Monday morning, in Chicago, my front door-bell rang. I kept Monday in those days for my rest day, and had a notice above the door bell, “Mr. Torrey does not see anyone on Monday.” The maid went to the door, and there stood a poor woman. The maid said, “Mr. Torrey does not see anyone on Monday. Did you not see the notice over the door-bell?” She said, “I knew that, but I have got to see him and you just go and tell him a member of his church must see him.” So the maid brought her into the reception room. She was a washerwoman. The maid showed the washerwoman a seat and came upstairs and said to me,

HOW TO BE SAVED

“There is a woman downstairs who is a member of your church and says she has got to see you.” So down I walked. As I entered the room she arose and hurried toward me, and said, “Mr. Torrey, I knew you did not see anybody on Monday, but I had to see you. Last night after I went to bed I was filled with the Holy Spirit right there in my bed, and I was so happy I could not sleep all night, and this morning I had to come and tell somebody. I could not afford to give up a day’s work to come around and tell you about it, but I knew I must tell somebody and I did not know anybody I would so like to tell as you. I know you won’t be angry.” Indeed I was not angry. I was glad she came, and rejoiced with her, that old washerwoman filled with the Holy Spirit and so full of joy that, poor as she was, she had to give up a day’s work to go and tell somebody she loved all about it.

Before I came to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ I was one of the bluest men that ever lived. I would sit down by the hour and brood. I have never known what the blues mean since the day I really became a Christian, absolutely surrendered to God. I have had troubles. I have had losses. There have been times in my life when I have lost pretty much everything the world holds dear. I know what it is to have a wife and four children, and to lose everything of a financial kind I had in the world, and not know from meal to meal where the next meal was coming from. I was absolutely without resources, living from hand to mouth, — from God’s hand to my mouth. I have known what it is to be with a wife and child in a foreign country where they spoke a strange language, and for some reason or other supplies did not come, and I did not know anyone in the city well enough to turn to them for help; but I did not worry. I knew it was all in God’s hands, that it would all come out right somehow, and of course it did come out right. The first time I ever visited London, thirty-nine years ago last September, I was planning to spend two weeks in England, and then start for America. I expected to find money waiting for me when I reached London, and I reached London with a wife and child, and not a letter, and no money. But I said, “the letter and the money will come to-morrow or the next day.” My wife went and made some purchases, taking it for granted we would have money when the purchases came home; but the money did not come. Day after day passed, and the dresses came home and it was about time for the landlady to come with her board bill. It came to be the very last day before our boat started, and not a penny in sight. I went down to the bank. I did not know a soul in London. There were three or four million people there then; a stranger amid three or four millions of people, money absolutely gone, three thousand miles from friends. I did not worry. I knew the money would come. I did not know how it would come, for the source I expected to receive it from seemed utterly cut off; but yet I was happy. Why? Because I was a child of God; I had the promises of the Bible; I knew they were absolutely sure. I never lost an hour’s sleep. I never worried. I just trusted. It seemed as though I would have to be fed somewhat as Elijah was, but I knew I

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would be fed. I knew my wife and child would be provided for. The money came and I sailed on the steamer I expected to sail by, with every penny due paid, and money in my pocket. Friends, a Christian is happy at all times and under all circumstances. We rejoice with “joy unspeakable and full of glory” every one of the twenty-four hours of the day that we are awake, and sometimes in our sleep. You, too, can have that joy.

II. How to Get This Joy That is Unspeakable

and Full of Glory

Now arises the question, “What must anyone here to-night who has not this “joy unspeakable and full of glory” do to get it? I have really answered that question several times in what I have already said, but to be sure that we all really understand it, let me answer it again, or rather let my text answer it, “On whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” The text tells us that the way to obtain this “joy unspeakable and full of glory,” the way to be unspeakably happy at all times and under all circumstances, is just by believing on the unseen Christ Jesus. What does it mean to believe on Jesus Christ? There is no mystery at all about that. It simply means to put confidence in Jesus Christ as what He claims to be and what He offers Himself to be to us, to put confidence in Him as the One who died in our place, the One who bore our sins in His own body on the cross, and to trust God to forgive us all our sins because Jesus Christ died in our place; to put confidence in Him as the One who was raised from the dead and who now has “all power in heaven and on earth,” and therefore is able to keep us day by day, and give us victory over sin, and to trust this risen Christ to give us victory over sin day by day; and to put confidence in Him as our absolute Lord and Master, and therefore to surrender our thoughts and wills and lives entirely to His control, believing everything He says, even though every scholar on earth denies it, obeying everything He commands, whatever it may cost; and to put confidence in Him as our Divine Lord, and confess Him as Lord before the world, and worship and adore Him. It is wonderful the joy that comes to the one who thus believes on Jesus Christ. But one must really believe on Jesus Christ to have this joy.

Merely being a member of a church is not enough. Merely being baptized is not enough. Merely being confirmed is not enough. Merely reading your Bible is not enough. Merely reading the Prayer Book is not enough. Merely going to church is not enough. Merely going to the Lord’s table and partaking of the Lord’s Supper is not enough. But if you are a real believer on Jesus Christ, if you have put all your trust in the Lord Jesus as your atoning Saviour and your risen Saviour, and your risen Lord and Master, and surrendered your thoughts and life to Him utterly as your Lord and Master, and are confessing Him as such before the world, if you have thrown your heart’s door wide open for the Lord Jesus to come in, and live, and rule, and reign there, you will have “joy unspeakable and full of glory” at all times and under all circumstances.

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All anyone has to do then, to be unspeakably happy at all times and under all circumstances, is to believe on Jesus Christ. It does not make any difference what his circumstances may be: he may be rich or he may be poor; he may be highly educated, or he may be ignorant; he may be in good health or he may be a hopeless invalid; he may have been a moral, clean, upright man, or he may have been the vilest of sinners, it matters not. Everyone who believes on the unseen but living Christ will find “joy unspeakable and full of glory.” I can bring scores, hundreds, thousands of witnesses to prove that. You cannot bring a single witness on the other side. Col. Robert Ingersoll delighted to say, “It does not make one happy to be a Christian.” How did he know? He never tried it. You can search the earth through and you cannot find me one single man or woman who was ever an out and out believer in Jesus Christ, a real whole-hearted believer in Jesus Christ, one who had surrendered all to Jesus Christ; I say you cannot find me even one such man or woman who will deny that Jesus Christ gives “joy unspeakable and full of glory” to those who thus believe on Him. Here, then, is the way the case stands: Every single competent witness, that is, every witness who has ever tried it, testifies that believing on Jesus Christ does bring “joy unspeakable and full of glory,” and these witnesses number thousands, tens of thousands and hundreds of thou¬ sands, people from every rank of society and culture, and not one witness on the other side. Is it demonstrated or not? It certainly is.

I take it that I am speaking to-night to reasonable %

men and women. You desire “joy unspeakable and full of glory.” I have told you how to get it. There can be no doubt about it. The evidence is overwhelmingly convincing. There is then but one rational thing for you to do, believe on Jesus Christ to-night. Will you do it?

There came to me once, a man who was utterly miserable. He was a rarely gifted man, a brilliant scholar, but utterly miserable. If ever I saw a man in hell he was the man. He had attempted suicide at least four times. He had been so near succeed¬ ing in his attempts that on two occasions it had been necessary to pump out of him the poison he had taken and thus bring him back to life. I urged him to believe on Jesus Christ. He replied, “I cannot, I have sinned away the Day of Grace.” Day after day I talked with the man and I never had but one message, and that was, “Come to Jesus Christ. Believe on Jesus Christ.” At last one day the man did come to Jesus Christ. He found “joy unspeakable and full of glory.” I have seen that man some¬ times when his face was radiant. Out of hell into heaven by just believing on Jesus Christ. Will you take that same step to-night?

VII

IS THERE ANY MAN OR WOMAN IN THIS
CITY WHOM THE LORD JESUS CAN¬
NOT SAVE AND FILL WITH
RADIANT JOY?

He is able.” — Hebrews 7:25.

’Y subject is: Is there a man or woman in this city whom the Lord Jesus cannot save and fill with radiant joy? There is not. But that is merely my assertion, and I do not ask anybody to take anything on my mere say-so. I am going to prove conclusively to every one of you to-night the truth of my assertion. I am going to prove so conclusively that there is not a man or woman in this city whom Jesus Christ cannot save and fill with radiant joy, that if any of you go out of this auditorium to-night unsaved or with a heavy heart it will be your own fault. I am not going to prove it by merely quoting from the Bible. That would be enough; for the proof that the Bible is God’s sure Word, is overwhelming, to anybody who really wishes to know the truth. But I am going to prove it by what mine own eyes have seen. By present-day facts that are unquestionably and demonstrably facts. But before I give you my text and my argument I wish to tell you about three people with whom I have dealt personally. The first was a woman, apparently a most desperate and hope¬ less case. She had killed a man, and in addition to all that was a professional murderess of infants. But that was not all. She had come one night to hear me preach and was brought under deep conviction of sin, and had called at my office the next day and told me her story and I had dealt with her. But the devil was not willing to let her go so easily, and she resisted her convictions. She was not will¬ ing to yield to Jesus Christ. One afternoon she came to me at the close of my Bible class, with a hard look on her face, and with one of the most terrible mocking laughs I ever heard she said, “Mr. Torrey, you cannot trouble me any more with your preaching or your teaching. I admit that you did trouble me. I admit that my conscience was deeply stirred, but I have prayed to the devil to take away my convictions and he has done it.” “Ha! Ha!” she said with a hard, steely look in her eyes and an evil look upon her face, “you cannot trouble me any more. I have prayed to the devil and he has taken away all my convictions.” As I recall it, all that I said in reply was, “Well, you are the greatest fool I have ever known.” And she went away. But I prayed for her.

The second person was a man, a drunken shoe¬ maker. He had tried to kill his wife when he was drunk and his wife had fled with their child and was in hiding. My private secretary had put her in a place of safety. The man came to me and said, “Mr. Torrey, do you know where my wife is?” I replied, “I do.” He said, “Tell me where she is.” I said, “I will not. You are not fit to have a wife. You tried to kill your wife last Saturday night. I will not tell you where she is.” He said, “If you

HOW TO BE SAVED

do not tell me where she is I will kill myself.” “No,” I said, “you will not kill yourself. You do not dare, you are a coward. Moreover, if you do kill yourself you will go to hell,” and with that I dis¬ missed him. But he kept coming to see me. He got under what he called “deep conviction of sin” and would come around for me to pray with him, and I would pray with him. He would cry to God to save him from the drink. The tears would roll down his cheeks, and then he would ask me for a nickel or a dime to go down to Pullman to get a job, and I knew the money all went for whiskey. He kept this up for several years. He would not only strike me for money but struck the students also. I suppose he got hundreds of dollars out of the students. He would cry and whine and snivel and the tears would roll down his cheeks. He would profess repentance, then strike somebody for money and go off and get drunk; and he kept that game up for years.

The third person was a man, a very gifted man, said to be the most brilliant Greek scholar and most brilliant scholar in some other lines that one of our well-known universities had turned out for many years. But the man had gone against his conscience in many things until he was in a morbid state of mind bordering on insanity. He had attempted suicide at least five times. Morphine or other drugs had been pumped out of him two or three times. He was sent to me from Ohio to Chicago under guard lest he kill himself on the way. The man who brought him led him in to me and introduced him, then said, “May I go now?” I said, “Yes, leave him with me.” The man sank down and glared at me and said, “I am possessed of the devil.” I said, “I think you are. But Jesus Christ came to cast out demons.” “No,” he said, “that is not what I mean. I mean the devil has entered into me as he did into Judas Iscariot.” I said, “That may be true, but Jesus Christ is stronger than the devil.” He said, “I have committed the unpardonable sin.” I said, “Jesus Christ says, ‘Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out,” He said, “I have no desire to come to Him.” I said, “He does not say that if anyone has a desire to come to Him, He will in no wise cast him out, He says, ‘ Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out,” The conversation went on in that way for some time, and then I sent him to a room. For many long months scenes like this were repeated. At times at night, after the meetings, I would take him to our home three miles away, on the front end of the car through a wild blizzard, hoping to cool him down. At other times in the middle of the night I would hear somebody creeping up the stairs toward my door on the third floor, and I knew it was this man.

These three persons seemed to me at the time the three most hopeless cases I had ever met, and so one day I said to God, “Oh, God, if Thou wilt give me these three persons, if Thou wilt let me see these three persons clearly saved, I will never despair of another person as long as I live.” And God gave me to see every one of these three persons saved and filled with radiant joy. Years have passed, more than twenty-five years, and they have all stood fast. Almost every time I pass through Chicago, if

HOW TO BE SAVED

I speak anywhere in the city, this woman who had prayed to the devil, and who had stained her hands with human blood and had been guilty of infant murder, hears of it and is in my audience, and comes to me at the close with happy, radiant face and tells me how God is using her to lead others to Christ. There are people in this audience to-night who I think know her but they do not know her history. I have never told it to a human being in a way that they could tell who it was. The second person, the man who tried to kill his wife, and for years worked Christian workers by prayer and weeping and got money out of them to squander in drink; to-day that man is a very active and happy member of the Moody church, with a happy wife and a son now grown to manhood. Many know his history and the details of it. The whole family often come up to me when I go to Chicago, and all of them wreathed with smiles. When I held a Union Meeting of the churches of Chicago years afterward he was one of my most faithful ushers. The third person is known by many here who have heard him teach the Word of God with mighty power in Chicago, and Toronto, and St. Louis, and Detroit, and in many other cities in America and across the Pacific in China. Do you wonder after three such experiences as this, and I could relate many more, some of which might seem to some of you more wonderful than any of these, that I never despair of anyone, and have an unshakable confidence that there is not a man or woman in Los Angeles or anywhere else whom the Lord Jesus Christ, the Omnipotent Son of God, cannot save and fill with radiant joy?

Now for my text. It consists of but three words, three short words. There are but eight letters in the whole text. You will find these three short words in Heb. 7: 25, “He is able.” The whole verse is a great verse and sums up in a wonderful way what the mighty Jesus, the risen Son of God, is able to do. Let me quote it, “Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by (through) him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.” But I wish to concentrate your attention to-night on these three words, “He is abler

I. What Jesus is Able To Do

Let us look first at what the Lord Jesus is able to do. Let us look at some of the tremendously important specific things that He is able to do. The verse from which my text is taken sums up what He is able to do in four wonderful words, “save to the uttermost r Not merely from the uttermost, we shall see before we get through that He is able to do that, but the verse teaches far more than that. It says that “He is able to save to the uttermost The Greek words so translated mean “unto entire completeness,” or “unto entire perfectness.” But I wish to-night to call your attention to some of the wonderful details that are included in that striking general statement “unto the uttermost” or “unto entire perfectness.”

1. First of all, The Lord Jesus is able to forgive sins. That was His claim when He was here upon earth. He said of Himself, “The Son of man hath

HOW TO BE SAVED

power on earth to forgive sins” (Mark 2: 10). He is able to forgive any sin and all sins. He Himself tells us that there is but one unpardonable sin, the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost (Matt. 12:31, 32), i. e., the deliberately attributing to the devil what you know to be the work of the Holy Spirit And it is evident from our Lord’s words about it compared with other words He spoke that the only reason that this sin is unpardonable is because the people who commit this sin are so hardened and determined in sin that they will not repent, and have no desire to repent. So, if anyone here has any desire to repent and be forgiven, it proves conclusively that you have not committed this one unpardonable sin. Absolutely every other sin the Lord Jesus can forgive and will forgive, if the sinner meets the one condition of forgiveness, simply putting his trust for forgiveness in the Lord Jesus.

How do we know that the Lord Jesus is able to forgive sins? Because He said He had “authority on earth to forgive sins,” and proved on the spot that He had that authority which He claimed, and furthermore God set the stamp of His own endorse¬ ment on this wonderful claim of Christ Jesus, and upon all of His claims, by raising Him from the dead. His resurrection from the dead is the best proven fact of history. The proof of it is absolutely overwhelming. But that is not all, thousands upon thousands of living witnesses to-day bear witness to the fact that they know that the Lord Jesus has forgiven their sins. My own sins were very many and very great, and I know that the Lord Jesus has forgiven every one of them.

Let me tell you of one instance, though not more notable than many of which I have had personal knowledge. Years ago there was in New York City a young woman of about twenty-five. She had been sold into a life of sin by her own mother at the age of eleven, and not only that, though a white girl, she was sold to a negro. She lived this awful life in the vilest slums of New York until she was about twenty-five years of age. A friend of mine saw her one night stagger up from an underground den of infamy in the Pell Street District in New York. She leaned against a lamp post, and in her misery groaned. My friend stepped up to her and told her of the Lord Jesus Christ and His power to save. He sent her to a place where she would be sheltered and looked after. He led her to a definite acceptance of Jesus Christ. Her life was marvelously transformed, her every sin was blotted out. From being one of the vilest of the vile in New York she became a remarkably beautiful Christian character. One day she stood on the public platform in the Cooper Institute in New York, and with the tears running down her cheeks, and the cheeks of her audience, plead with wonderful power with three thousand people to accept Jesus Christ. Her previous life had broken her health. She lived only about two years after her conversion, but they were wonderful years. The night she died the man who had led her to Christ called to see her in the home where he had had her sheltered. As he entered the room the smile of Heaven was upon her face. A large picture of his daughter, who had died at four years of age, hung at the foot of the dying slum

HOW TO BE SAVED

girl’s bed. She looked at her benefactor and said, “Uncle Charlie, I shall soon see Florence.” Then a brighter light came into her face and she said, “Uncle Charlie, in a few minutes I shall see Jesus.” And she departed to be with the King. Can anyone question then that Jesus Christ has power on earth to-day to forgive sins, to forgive all sins, to wash the record of the vilest sinner on earth as white as snow?

2. In the second place, The Lord Jesus is able to save from sin’s power. He is able to save any man from sin’s power, no matter how completely he is fettered or how hopelessly he is straining in his own strength to throw off the shackles of sin. How do we know that? First of all because the Lord Jesus Himself says so. He says, in Jno. 8:34, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Everyone that committeth sin is the hand-servant (slave) of sin.” Now we all know that is true, we all know that it is true with all of us. We have personal experience of the fact. But two verses farther down our Lord says, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (Jno. 8:36).

But our Lord Jesus not only claimed when He was here on earth that He could save from the power of sin and Satan any man who would put his trust in Him, but He also proved it. No one ever came to Him for deliverance from the power of sin but he got it. And Jesus Christ is proving to-day that He has power on earth to-day to deliver any man from the power of sin. Miracles of deliverance from sin’s power are just as common to-day as they were when Jesus our Lord walked upon this earth.

Indeed they are more common than they were then; for then He was in His humiliation, now He is in His resurrection glory and power (Jno. 14:12).

I wanted to tell you of some instances that had come under my personal observation, but so many came surging into my mind I had difficulty in deciding which to tell. There was “Billy the Boozer” in Cardiff, Wales, and “Bob” in Glasgow, Scotland, who sent to the platform a defiant letter, saying that he was in the gallery, and that Jesus Christ could not save him, and that when he died and went to hell the devil would resign and appoint him leader in his place. Then there was a man in Liverpool, and there was a woman in Dublin, who in some respects seemed the most awful woman I ever met. She must have been sixty years old, highly educated, intimately associated with people whose name is known around the world in cultured circles. But I will tell you of a man in Minneapolis. He had once been up in the world. He had been postmaster in his home town. But he had gone down through drink until he was separated from wife and children and mother and all friends. He drifted to Minneapolis, became a beer slinger in the lowest saloon in the city, “the Jumbo saloon,” but became so bad that they kicked him out of there and he was a wanderer on the streets. He had one small coin left in his pocket, all he had in the world, a ten-cent piece. He came down Washington avenue drunk. He came by the brilliantly lighted hall where I was speaking and thought it was some free-lunch joint. He staggered in, his hat on the side of his head, the stub of a cigar which he had picked out of the gutter in his

HOW TO BE SAVED

mouth. He looked confusedly around the room. A lady stepped up to him and courteously asked him if he would not take off his hat and hand her the stub of his cigar, which she laid aside. She brought him down to the front of the hall, right near the platform, to the only seat she could find vacant. The speaker, another man who had been wonderfully saved from drink, was telling of the saving power of Jesus Christ. This poor down-and-out leered up at me and lurched in his chair, and said, “Do you believe that?” referring to the testimony that the man was giving. I said, “Yes, I know that what this man says is true, and the Lord Jesus can save you too.” When the man had finished his testimony I said, “Joe, take this man around into my office,” back of the platform. After the meeting was over he was somewhat sobered, and I led him to Christ. He left the building a saved man. The appetite that nothing else could break was broken in a moment by the power of the risen Christ. He never touched another drop of drink. The next day he found work peeling potatoes in a cheap restaurant. Soon he found better work. Soon he was an employee of one of the leading railroads in the northwest. He was promoted from position to position. I moved to Chicago and took the superintendency of the Bible Institute and he was planning to come down and prepare for the ministry. But his health broke down, and the higher railway officials thought so much of him that they sent him down to Missouri to a warmer climate, and paid all his expenses for months in the hope he might recover. But he passed into the glory. After his death his mother. to whom he had been reunited, wrote me telling me of his triumphant death, and sent me his picture, saying, “you were kind to my boy when he was down, and I want you to have this to remember him by.” I wrote his story on the back of the picture and -placed it on the mantelpiece in my office in Chicago, and whenever I was tempted to be discouraged I would turn around in my chair and look at that noble Christian face looking down upon me from the mantelpiece. Yes, Jesus “is able,” able to snap the fetters of drink or drugs, or lust or any sin of any man or any woman who comes in utter help¬ lessness to Him, and puts their trust in Him to set them free.

3. In the third place. Our Lord Jesus is able to keep from falling. We read in Jude 24, He “is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.” Thank God that we not only read it in Jude 24, but we read it in the experience of thou¬ sands of men and women to-day. Our Lord Jesus is proving every day that He can keep any man or woman, any human being, from falling. I have known a multitude of men and women who have thought that there was no use for them to try to be Christians or to lead a better life because of their utter bondage to sin in some form, sometimes in many forms. They thought the Lord Himself could not keep them from falling, but they were persuaded to put their trust in Him and He has kept them from falling. Let me tell you of just one.

It was in Ottawa, Canada. One afternoon there came into the meeting a most degraded looking speci-HOW TO BE SAVED

men of humanity. Someone whispered to me that he was the champion welterweight pugilist of Canada, and an awful drunkard. He was drunk that afternoon. Before I began to preach I prayed that God would save him. I saw Mr. Jacoby seated beside him, and he afterwards dealt with him personally and led him to Christ. They told me that the man was such a desperate character that a saloon¬ keeper in Hull, across the river, had hired him to stand at the bar and drink with everyone that came in who would pay for his drinks. But knowing how dangerous he was when drunk, this saloon-keeper riveted around his ankle a heavy iron ring, fastened to a heavy chain, fastened to a great spike driven into the floor. When he professed to accept Christ all Ottawa was amazed. But they said he would not stand. Bets were made among the members of Parliament as to how long he would stand. They bet that he would not stand twenty-four hours. But he did. Then they bet that he would not stand an¬ other twenty-four hours. But he did. Then they bet that he would not stand another twenty-four hours. But he did. And they gave up betting. That man was only one out of a great multitude. I could stand here by the hour and tell of slaves of dope, of cocaine, of morphine, of chloral, of somnos, and of other drugs, slaves of drink, and slaves of the gambling mania, and slaves of impurity in every known form, and slaves of every sin of which I have ever heard, hopeless slaves, despairing slaves, seemingly bound for a hopeless sinner’s grave and an eternal hell, who have been set free and have become among the finest Christians I have ever known. I am not speculating to-night, I am not guessing, I am not theorizing. I am telling you what I know by my own personal experience and observation. And on the ground of that I tell you that the Lord Jesus Christ is able to keep any man or woman in this building to-night from falling, if with an honest heart you come to Him, putting your trust in Him as your crucified Saviour from the guilt of sin and your risen Saviour from the power of sin.

4. In the fourth place, Our Lord Jesus Christ, our mighty Divine Saviour, not the Saviour of Unitarianism, or of Theosophy, or of Christian Science, or of New Thought, or of the Higher Criticism, or of the New Theology, but the Saviour of this Book, the risen Christ Jesus, the very Son of God, is able to completely transform the lives of men and women who put their trust in Him. This book says, in II Cor. 5:17, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature (creation): old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” Yes, this book says it, and the experience of countless multitudes proves it true. Our Lord Jesus proved in the Bible days that He could completely transform men’s lives by doing it. He transformed, e. g., Saul of Tarsus, who had stained his hands with the blood of men and women and children, guilty of no other crime than that of believing in Jesus Christ, Saul of Tarsus who breathed an atmosphere of “threatenings and slaughter,” into Paul the Apostle, Paul, whose heart was filled with love instead of hate, whose hands were given to saving others instead of slaughtering others; Paul who was transformed from being Saul, a bigoted Jew, into Paul, a devoted Christian; Paul

HOW TO BE SAVED

who instead of seeking the death of others laid down his own life to save others. This Paul toward the end of his life wrote from what he knew by his own experience as well as by inspiration of God, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief” (I Tim. 1:15). But the still living Lord Jesus, living up yonder in the glory, at the right hand of God the Father, is doing the same thing to-day right down here on earth. Here again a crowd of memories surge before my mind. Just one case.

A boy of German parentage was drunk in Philadelphia at nine years of age. At fifteen years of age no school could manage him, nor could his father and mother. He was a young desperado. He en¬ listed in the navy and spent four years in the navy during the Civil War. At the end of the Civil War he was given a place on the Philadelphia police force, but was so full of criminal traits himself that he was discharged from the Philadelphia police force, and the mayor of the city said he would not put him on the force again if he were his own brother. He be¬ came a young outlaw in Philadelphia. He joined the regular army and was sent west in the Indian wars. He was in some desperate encounters, not so much with Indians as with desperadoes, and he was as desperate and lawless as any of them, and he spent most of his time in the guard-house. There was a motley company of desperadoes in the guard-house at the time, some of the most desperate criminals in the land, and they elected him chief of the gang. He was dishonourably discharged from the army and became a notorious character. He was ordered out of the city of Omaha by the mayor and by the chief of police and given only twenty-four hours to leave the city, because he had nearly killed the bully of Omaha in a fight. He was invited to join the Jesse James gang. He went to an Iowa town where, because of having considerable money left him by his father, he went into business. But he became so notoriously bad that when the merchants of the town would hear his whoop as he came up the streets at night they would turn out the lights in their stores and put up the shutters at the windows. The town outlawed him, forced him to leave the town and ordered him not to come back. But he came back. A revival service was then in progress. He went in with one of his cronies. When the invitation was given out for all that would accept Christ to lift their hands he said to the other man, “You lift your hand and I will lift mine,” The other man said to him, “Bill, you lift your hand and I will lift mine.” But they were both joking, and ridiculing the meeting. But the next night, a man who sat down here in front in this church one morning a few weeks ago, a prominent lawyer, went to him and said, “Bill, come up to the altar,” and he went. And the Lord Jesus met him and saved him, and transformed him into the noblest, truest man I ever knew, the truest friend I have on earth to-day, the dearest friend out¬ side of my own family I ever had. And if anyone would ask me who was the most Christlike man I ever knew, without hesitation I would say, the Rev. William S. Jacoby, who at the age of forty-two turned his back upon a notorious career of sin and

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accepted Jesus Christ. And our risen Lord proved His resurrection power by completely transforming that life into the likeness of His own. Oh! I know, I say I know, not guess, nor think, nor hope, I know that our Lord Jesus, our Mighty, Risen, Divine Saviour, the Saviour of this man, is able to trans¬ form any life from all that is vilest into all that is noblest and highest and most divine.

5. In the fifth place, Our Mighty Lord Jesus is able to fill the saddest hearts with the most radiant joy. We read in this book, in Ps. 34:5 R. V., “They looked unto him and were radiant” and we read in I Pet. 1:8, “Though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” These words were written by one whose heart was once utterly sad and broken, but was now filled “with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” Our Lord Jesus lifts men out of the deepest depths ot utter despair to the highest heights of rapturous joy. Here again crowds of men and women in inconsolable and utter sorrow, whom it has been my privilege to introduce to Jesus Christ and see, become among the most radiantly happy people I ever knew, pass before me. I am tempted to tell you of the one I knew best and still know best of all, myself. I know what it means to be driven to such desperation by heart agony that seemed unendurable that I started to end my own life. I have known what it means to spring out of bed with a shriek of agony and despair in the middle of the night and cower on the floor in an agony that was a very hell on earth. In years gone by I have said, “I know that there is a hell because I have been there.” But thank God for years and years this glorious Lord Jesus has filled my whole soul day and night with a continuous rapturous joy, amidst all sorts of trials and perils and losses on sea and land, and in pretty nearly every corner of the earth. But I will tell of another and not myself.

There was a woman in Cleveland, Ohio, the wife of a well-to-do merchant. But financial reverses overtook the man and he was forced to give up his business, and almost everything he had in the world was swept away. He went to Chicago to see if he could not get a new start there, leaving his wife, two sons and a daughter in Cleveland. He was taken sick in Chicago and they telegraphed his wife to come on. She hurried to Chicago, reaching there late at night, and drove at once to the hospital where her husband lay ill, very ill. But by some strange misunderstanding they refused to allow her to see her husband that night, it being so late, and told her to come the next day. When she came early the next day he was dead. Money gone, business gone, husband gone, home gone. She spent hours in weeping. Her much weeping injured her eyes. She called upon an eye specialist, not knowing that he was a Christian Scientist, but supposing him to be a regular practitioner. Following his Christian Science methods, he assured her that there was no serious trouble with her eyes, that they would be all right soon. This was the assurance he gave her day after day. But her eyes became steadily worse, until she finally consulted a real physician. After a care¬ ful examination he said,” Madam, I am forced to tell you that there is absolutely no hope of saving

HOW TO BE SAVED

your eyesight. If you had come to me sooner your eyes could easily have been saved, but you have now waited so long it is impossible.” In a short time she was totally blind. Money gone, business gone, home broken up, husband dead, eyesight gone! A woman of culture and refinement left to face the world with her three children, no money, no friends, no husband, no sight! Is it any wonder that her heart was filled with gloom? She came to hear me preach in Chicago. She accepted the Lord Jesus Christ. Her heart-broken soul was filled with radiant joy. She became a radiantly happy Christian. Any prayer-meeting night you could have seen her in her place, in her widow’s garments, and with her blind eyes, but with a wonderful smile upon her face. And oftentimes she would rise and publicly thank God for all the losses that had come into her life, because through them she was led to the Lord Jesus Christ and to find a joy she had never known when she had all this world had to give. Years and years have passed since. I received a letter from her only a short time ago, full of trust and full of longing to see others saved and helped. Our Lord Jesus can do the same to-night for the saddest-hearted man or woman in this room. He can fill and flood your soul with the wondrous and perpetual sunshine of His grace. He Himself says, “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14). It is true. Thousands upon thou¬ sands can testify to its truth.

People sometimes say that “religion makes men and women crazy.” Religion may make men and women crazy, some forms of religion. But Jesus Christ does not make men crazy. He gives to those who receive Him the Holy Spirit, and “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kind¬ ness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22). Are these the things that make men crazy? Letting Christ into the heart has saved many men and women from insanity.

How many I have known who were on the verge of insanity from sorrow, morbidness and despair, whom I have led to Christ, who are radiantly happy people to-day. In order to get this fullness of joy every Christian must make a full surrender to God. There is no fullness of joy to one who tries to serve the Lord Jesus Christ with one hand and to keep fast hold on the world with the other hand. If we keep back anything from Jesus Christ we will not get fullness of joy. Are you a professing Christian, and have you not fullness of joy? Listen! There is something you are keeping back from God.

6. In the sixth place, Our Lord Jesus Christ is able to use in glorious service those zvhom He saves. Our Lord Jesus is able to use the unlikeliest instrument, the man or woman of least promise. This book tells us that “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to con¬ found the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in his presence” (I Cor. 1:27-29).

HOW TO BE SAVED

How well I remember a drunken expressman on the streets of Chicago, a Roman Catholic Irishman, a worthless wreck but whom a personal worker led to accept Jesus Christ as his Saviour. And dear Cully became one of the most useful soul-winners in Chicago. It was one of the greatest privileges of my life to be able to do honour to my Lord, and honour to myself, by conducting his funeral services, to which multitudes flocked.

7. In the last place, Our Lord Jesus, the risen, mighty Son of God, is able to raise from the dead, and to give eternal life to all who put their trust in Him in the life that now is. He Himself says, in Jno. 6: 39, 40, “And this is the will of him that sent me, that of all that which he hath given me I should lose nothing but should raise it up at the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone that beholdeth the Son, and believeth on him shall have eternal life; and I zvill raise him up at the last day.” And He says in Jno. 17:2, in that wonderful prayer of His the night before His crucifixion, “Thou gavest” me “authority over all flesh, that to all whom thou hast given me,” I “should give eternal life.” It is true that the wonderful and glorious work of “our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13, English R. V.) does not end at death. It begins there; i. e., the best part of it begins there. Oh! the salvation that is limited to this life is not worth much. This life is so short. And eternity is so long. A brief lifetime of bitter disappointment, and sorrow, and loss, and intense and constant suffering, would pay if it would bring us an eternity of joy, and victory, and glory. But Jesus Christ brings a whole lifetime of joy, and peace, and power, and an eternity also of boundless joy, abounding peace, and amazing power and glory hereafter. He is indeed “able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by (through) him.,,

II. For Whom Does Our Lord Jesus Do

These Things?

Now let us ask the all-important question, for whom does our glorious Lord Jesus do these things of which we have been speaking? Whom does He “save to the uttermost” and fill with radiant joy in the life that now is, and crown with infinite glory in the never-ending life that is to come? The question can be answered in a few words. Our text answers it, and the uniform experience of thousands upon thousands of men and women answers it the same way. Listen to the text, “He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by (through ) him” He saves to the uttermost, “them that come unto God through him All of them and no one else. He will save and fill with radiant joy to-night anyone here, any man, woman, or child here, who will “come unto God through Him.” It matters not who you are. It matters not what you have done. It matters not how helpless and hopeless a slave you may be of sin in any form. It matters not how dark, and sad, and full of foreboding, and how despairing your heart may be: come unto God through Jesus Christ and He will save you right now, and He will fill your heart with radiant joy right now.

What does it mean to come unto God through

Him?” The answer is simple. God is a Holy God, and you and I are sinners. And the only way a sin¬ ner can approach a Holy God is on the ground of atoning blood, and Jesus Christ has shed His blood to atone for our sins, and His blood is the only atonement for sins in the whole universe. He has “redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us” (Gal. 3: 13), i. e., by taking our place and bearing our penalty. To come unto God through Jesus Christ is for the sinner, acknowledging himself a lost sinner, with no hope in himself or in man, but believing what God says about Jesus Christ, that He has laid all our sins upon Him, to come to God on the ground of this atoning death of Jesus Christ, and just trust God to forgive all his sins, because Jesus Christ died in his place. There is no other way for the sinner to approach God. If anyone will not come to God through Jesus Christ he cannot come to God at all. The vilest sinner this world ever knew who will believe God’s testimony about Jesus Christ, and God’s testimony about Him¬ self, and take his place as a lost sinner before God, and trust God for Jesus Christ’s sake to forgive his sins, will find salvation. For “He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God through Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.”

These things that I have been mentioning are some of the things that our Lord Jesus is able to do for you to-night. Will you let Him do them for you? Will you come to God “through Him” that He may do them for you? Will you accept God’s testimony about yourself, that you are an utterly lost sinner. and God’s testimony about Jesus Christ that He has borne your sins in His own body on the cross, and accept Jesus Christ as your Saviour, your Lord and your King? If you will, Jesus Christ, the mighty Son of God, will do these things for you that we have been mentioning. It rests with each one of you individually to say whether or not you will have your sins forgiven to-night. The Lord Jesus stands by your side to-night and says, “I am able to forgive all your sins to-night. Trust me and I will do it.” It rests with each one of you individually to say whether or not you shall have deliverance from sin’s power to-night. The Lord Jesus, the Mighty Deliverer, stands by your side and says, “I am able to deliver you from the power of every sin.” Ask Him to do it, and trust Him to do it. Put your trust in Him as your risen Lord and Saviour, who has all power in Heaven and on earth, and trust Him to set you free from every sin, and He will do it. It rests with each one of you individually to say whether you shall know the transforming power of Jesus Christ in your life to-night, transforming you from all that you should not be, but which you are, into all which you should be, and which you can become by faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ stands right by you to-night and says, “I am able to completely tranform your life, if you will put it in my hands and trust me to do it.” It rests with each one of you individually to say whether you will have your heart filled with radiant joy or not, to-night. Oh, this Mighty Giver of the Holy Spirit, Who be¬ comes to each one who receives Him a fountain of water springing up every day and every hour unto

HOW TO BE SAVED

everlasting life, leans down beside you, holding out to you to drink the golden goblet that contains the water of life. And if you will put your trust in Him as your crucified Saviour, Who bore all your sins in His own body on the cross, and your risen Saviour, and ask Him, and trust Him to give you His Holy Spirit to fill you with radiant joy, He will do it. It rests with each one of you individually to say whether or not you shall receive the sure guarantee of being raised again when you die, and of receiving eternal life, and joy that never ends, and the hope of infinite power and glory. That Mighty One whom God hath appointed to give eternal life to those who put their trust in Him, and to raise them up at the last day, stands by your side and says, “I will give eternal life and resurrection. Will you accept it as a free gift?” And if you will believe His word and put your trust in Him, He will give you eternal life and you will never perish, and all the powers of earth and hell cannot pluck you out of His hand (John 10:28, 29). “He is able!” “He is able!” “He is able!” Will you come to Him? Will you put your trust in Him? Will you surrender fully to Him? Will you put yourself in His hands to do with you as He will? Will you come unto God through Jesus Christ f If you do, you will get all these things. He will save you to the uttermost and fill your heart with radiant joy. If you do not there will be for you barrenness and bitterness, and sorrow, and emptiness, and despair, and spiritual death, and gloom, and agony, and gnashing of teeth in impotent rage and sorrow throughout all eternity.