Revival Addresses

Bequests have come from many quarters for the publication of some of the sermons which God has been pleased to so greatly use in Japan, China, Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, India, England, and Scotland. This volume is published in response to this request. The author hopes that the sermons may be used as greatly in their printed form as they have been when spoken. The sermons when delivered, as here published, were taken down in shorthand, but have been carefully revised by the author. Each one of them has many sacred memories connected with it. When one of these sermons was delivered through an interpreter in a Japanese city, eighty-seven Japanese came forward and declared publicly their acceptance of Christ. After the delivery of another in Shanghai, a large number of Chinese men and women walked out from their places among their heathen companions and publicly professed their acceptance of Christ. On some occasions in Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand, hundreds of men and women came forward and with their own lips publicly confessed their acceptance of Christ as their ii INTRODUCTION

Saviour and their Lord. Reports of some of these sermons have been given in religious and secular papers, but these reports have been necessarily fragmentary and inaccurate, as they have never been revised by the author. I have abundant proof that even these unsatisfactory reports have done good, but it seems desirable that a full and accurate report of what I have said be given to the public.

I have taken, or rather God has given me, for my text to-night a very short one. I do not think you ever heard a sermon from a shorter text. I will not tell you where to find the text. It occurs several hundred times in the Bible. Indeed, open your Bible at random almost anywhere and you will find my text somewhere on the page. It consists of but one word; but it would take all eternity to exhaust its meaning, and then it will not be exhausted. It is “God” — a word the height and depth and length and breadth of whose meaning no philosopher has ever fully apprehended.

I. God Is

The first thing the Bible teaches us about God is that God is. “God is” — two short words. Tremendous significance! “God is.” If that simple truth gets hold of your mind and heart it will move and mould your entire life. It will determine your science, it will determine your philosophy, it will determine your daily

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e REVIVAL ADDRESSES

life, it will determine your eternity. “God is.” The psalmist tells ns in Psalm xiv. — “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” Please note where he says it — “in his heart.” That is, he says there is no God simply because he does not wish to believe that there is a God. ‘Now, there is a God, and a man that denies a fact simply because he does not wish to believe it is a fool.

There is abundant proof of the existence of God, so abundant that no man can sit down and consider the proof thoroughly and candidly without acknowledging the existence of God. Nature proves the existence of God. All through iN’ature there are marks of creative intelligence. Everywhere in Nature you find order, symmetry, law. You can study Nature in the minute, or you can study Nature in the vast, it makes no difference; everywhere you find the marks of intelligence and creative design. You may take your microscope and turn it down upon the minutest forms of life; everyhere there is adaptation to end, to purpose, to design. The man of science will tell you that in the minutest structure discernible by the most powerful microscope he finds perfect beauty, and most perfect adaptation of means to end. Or take your telescope and turn it towards the vaster Nature. Everywhere you see order, symmetry, law, intelligence, design, all proving an intelligent Creator of the material universe in which we live. Suppose I show you my watch, and ask, “Do you believe it had a maker?” you would say„ “Certainly.” “But why? Did you see it made?” “No.” “Did you ever see a watch made?” ‘No.” ‘by, then, do you believe it had a maker?” ^’Because everything about it indicates an intelligent maker — hands, figures upon the face, case, winding apparatus, everything about the watch proclaims that it had an intelligent maker. Suppose I replied, “You are mistaken; the watch had no intelligent maker; the watch came to be by accident; by a fortuitous concurrence of atoms dancing around through endless ages, until at last, in the age in which you find it, they danced into the present form; thus the watch came to be.” Your remark would be, “That man may think he is highly educated, but he talks like a fool;’’ and you would be right. Yet there are no such marks of intelligent design in that watch as in this material universe. One very small part of Nature, your own eye, is a far more wonderful structure than any watch. But if some man should stand up and say that this wonderful universe in which we live came into being by a fortuitous concurrence of atoms which danced around through the endless ages until they danced into their present form, many would call him a philosopher. In the ordinary affairs of life he would be called a foolosopher.

But, some one may say, “The doctrine of evolution does away with the whole force of the argument from design.’^ Not at all. I formerly believed that the doctrine of evolution was true, but gave up the belief, not from theological but from scientific reasons, because it was absolutely unproven; there is not a single proof of the hypothesis of evolution. People talk about the missing link; they are all missingj there is not a single link. There is not a single place where one species passes over into another species. There is not one single observed instance of the evolution of a higher species from a lower. Development of varieties there has been, but of evolution of a higher species from a lower not one single case. The hypothesis of the evolution of species, and especially of the highest forms of life from the lowest, is a guess pure and simple, without one scientifically observed fact to build upon. But suppose the doctrine of evolution were true, it would not for a moment militate against the argument from design. If there were originally some unorganised protoplasm that developed into all the forms of life and beauty as we see them to-day, it would be a still more remarkable illustration, in one way, of the wisdom and power of the Creator, for the question would arise. Who put into the primordial protoplasm the power of developing into the universe as we see it to-day? It would take a more wonderful man to make a watch-hand which would develop into a watch than it would to make a watch outright. And, in one way, it would be a more marvellous illustration of the creative wisdom and power of God, if God had created some primordial protoplasm that developed into the world we now see than if God had made the world at once as we now see it. Nature proves that there is a God.

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