Milk and Meat: Twenty-Four Sermons

THE how of everything is mysterious. The “must be” of everything is plain. I do not know how fire burns, but I know that fire must burn if the world is to be warmed.

I do not know how corn and cotton grow; but I know that corn and cotton must grow if the world is to be fed and clothed. I do not know how taking food makes my blood red and gives strength and vitality to nerve and muscle; but I know that I must take food if I would live. I do not know how I am born again; but I know that I must be if I ever get to Heaven. “Marvel, Nicodemus. at the how just as much as you please; it is like the wind blowing. Listen! You can hear the sound in the trees, but you know not whence it cometh, or whither it goeth. Wonder at the how, but wonder not at the ’ must be.’ You cannot enjoy Heaven, unless you are born again; you are not fitted for the place.” Wicked men do not like Christian company here and they will not like it a whit better in Heaven. They do not like to be where Christ is talked about, His praises sung, and His will obeyed; and if they should go to Heaven, where nothing else is done, they would feel very miserable.

On the Bothnia, in mid- Atlantic, there were three hundred delegates going to the Sunday-school Convention in London. Mr. Blake, ut Chicago, put a great map before the delegates, representing the resurrection of Christ, and its relations to history and doctrine. A Jew, one of the passengers, as soon as he saw the name of Christ and the resurrection, began to grow red in the face, and went bustling to the captain to say that it was an insult to him and his people. Now, suppose that Jew, just as he was, should be translated to Heaven, where Christ is the centre of song, and where His resurrection is the theme of conversation. Would he be any happier than he was on the Bothnia? He would break up the choir if he could. Imagine him rushing up to Gabriel, making complaint that the saints and angels are singing of Christ and the resurrection! A man in Boston bought a ticket to a race-course, and by mistake got on a boat going to a camp-meeting, where he was among Methodist preachers, singing hymns, talking about the Bible, and speaking of their Christian experience. He came to the captain and said: “Captain, I was never so near perdition in my life. I will give you ten dollars to let me out at the nearest place.” Put that gambler in Heaven, — would he be happy? No, indeed. Good surroundings cannot make bad men happy. Unless there be a taste for spiritual things, spiritual surroundings are not happiness. “Ye must be born again.” Those

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who love whiskey will not find a bar-room even on the back streets of Heaven. For all who roll sin as a sweet morsel under their tongues there will be no course of sin at the celestial banquet.

With these introductory words we come to the subject of the new birth. It is our purpose first to correct some mistakes concerning it, then to define it in God’s own words, and, finally, to show how any one who will may be born again.

I. As to the Mistakes.

The new birth is not getting re/igio/i. You have that. There is not a man in the world who is not a religious being. The religious instinct marks us off from the brute. Men worship God or money or their friends or themselves, and they become assimilated to the object of their worship. Some are just about as hard in heart as the yellow gold they have been worshipping for the last twenty-five years. The mother takes her child and flings it to the crocodile. It is her religion that makes her do it. You see a man by the highway in India with his arm erect, and he has been standing for twenty years in that position. His arm has grown rigid and hard. He has religion; and it is his religion that makes him hold up his arm till it becomes almost as hard as wood. Yonder goes another man walking with spikes in his feet, and he has started out on a journey of not less than twenty miles. Bloody tracks are behind him. That man has too much religion.

Religion in itself is not the new birth. Going into a church and sitting down where it is quiet and warm and beautiful, looking at frescoing and architecture, feeling sweet, sensuous impressions steal through you — all that may exist without the new birth. It is natural religion.

And expressing your deep religious feelings in a gorgeous ritual is not the new birth. Nicodemus, the Pharisee, was one of the most religious men of his time. He fasted twice a week — better than some of us do. Better still, he gave tithes of all that he possessed. He made long prayers, standing on the streetcorners. He made broad his phylactery. He was full of religion from head to foot. He was a sort of deacon in the church of that day. Many of the Pharisees were hypocrites; they were ritualists; but they were religious. Religion, I repeat, is not the new birth. Every man is a religious being.

The new birth is not a change of feeling. The word feeling is mentioned but three times in the New Testament. Feelings can be changed even by the weather or the state of health. I know a man who is never religious except when he is under the influence of drink. Just as soon as he gets drunk, he mounts his cart on the street and preaches the sermon he heard the Sunday before. Three ounces of alcohol can make a man entirely different, so far as his feelings are concerned.

Now, understand me, I believe in feeling. Feeling may go before the new birth. It may follow the new birth. But the feeling itself and the change of feeling is not the essence and substance of the new birth. Let me illustrate. I was preaching in a country church during August. The thermometer marked about 95 degrees, and the house was densely crowded. The people were standing in the aisles and all around the wall. At the close

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of the service, according to the custom of the place, I invited those who wanted Christians to pray for them to come up and take the front seats. About forty out of the crowd pressed their way up to the front. Their friends gathered around them to talk and pray with them. While I was talking to a man on his knees, I felt my head grow dizzy. I said to myself, “I must get out of here; the atmosphere is too close.” As I walked out the door,” and met a good fresh gust of air coming in from the forest, I felt a thrilling sensation tingling to my finger tips. I felt like a new man from head to foot. It was a purely physical change, that was itself changed again by different surroundings; but it was the kind of change that I once sought for religion.

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