How Shall We Escape?
“How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?” Heh.
2:3.
f ’ i’”^ HE plan of salvation is the wonder of wonders of all the ages. It is so marvelous that the men with the greatest minds the world has known have never yet been able to think their way through it. They have set sail with their intellectual craft, and have gone east and west, north, and south, but like the apostle of old they have turned back, saying, “It is past finding out.” Concerning the plan of salvation wise men have always wondered. All the hosts of God’s redeemed will sing of it throughout eternity. Yet, while it is so wonderful, it is so simple that the smallest child in your home understanding the difference between right and wrong may know enough about it to be a Christian.
The first chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews is a great description of Jesus Christ. It is said by some Bible teachers to be the greatest in all the Word of God. He is preferred above the angels. His eternity is mentioned in the use of the most striking figures of speech and His greatness strikingly described, and when the author has reached the climax of his thought he says, “Therefore, we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.” There are two ways of reading this text. The second reading is: “Therefore, we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest they should run away from us as water from a leaking vessel.” And if ever you have lived in the country, as I have, and have gone down to the spring for a drink of water, and the cup which you lifted to your lips has been leaky, you have found that the water has run away almost too rapidly for you to quench your thirst. Evidently the author has this in mind. Men lose the truth in that way. There was a time in your experience when you believed absolutely in the integrity of the Scriptures, when you believed sincerely in the deity of Jesus, but, somehow, under the influence of the world, and of men who have held contrary views, you have loosened your hold upon those beliefs. They have been slipping away from you.
The apostle says you ought to give “the more earnest heed.” There is still another reading of this passage, which is as follows: “Therefore, we ought to
give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should drift away from them.” Drifting is an unconscious process. You have been on the stream on a summer day. The oars of your boat have been lying by your side. You have drifted so slowly that you never realized that you were moving until you turned your eyes back and saw the place where a little while before your boat was anchored. Men drift that way. They become blinded by sin, and sometimes they stop and think of the other days when God was a reality, when Jesus Christ was a personal Saviour, when the Word of God seemed as if it had been written for their hearts alone. Then only they realize the extent of their drifting. So the apostle says, “Therefore, we ought to give the more earnest heed.”
After reading the description of Jesus, and after hearing the warning which the apostle sounds out concerning our drifting, we find the text facing us: “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?” It is a possible thing for one to be very near to Christ and not be saved. A great Atlantic steamer was making her way across the Atlantic Ocean when the passengers were startled by the cry, “Man overboard.” There was a scene of great excitement; one man sprang to the rail and shouted out, “I will give £1,000 to the one who saves that man, for he is my brother.” The lifeboat was lowered and the sailors made their way to the sinking man. Presently a cheer sounded out. The sinking man had been reached. When the lifeboat came near to the great steamer, they fastened ropes round the man who had been rescued, and gave the signal to lift. They drew him higher and higher, and just as they were about to lift him over the side of the vessel, the rope slipped and the man bounded away, struck the lifeboat, and sank into the ocean. I have seen men as near to Christ as that; swayed by a mighty emotion, stirred by a holy memory, quickened by the minister’s preaching, lifted by the power of a mother’s love, they have come near to God. But that is not enough; the apostle says, “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?” We may be very near and be lost.
It will not be difficult to remember what I have to present in this message. It all centers round three words — “Great,” “Neglect,” “Escape.” It is a great salvation because it discloses to us a great Saviour. He is able to save to the uttermost. Literally it reads, “Able to save to the furthest throw.” That means the man who is deepest in sin, the man who is farthest from God. The man who is most hopeless and helpless can lift his eyes toward Christ, and cry out saying, “God be merciful to me,” and grace can reach him.
Once in a church in New England a distinguished woman told me that she had often been the guest of royalty, and gave the names of kings and queens at whose court she had been welcome. She told me the names of people in the City of New York to whose homes she had gone again and again as a guest, and I knew that those people represented the highest type of social life. But she told me that in all the round of pleasure she had had an aching heart. When I presented to her as simply as possible the plan of salvation through Jesus Christ, she bowed her head, and I thought I detected traces of tears coursing down her cheeks. When I said, “Will you accept Him as your Saviour,” she answered in a whisper, “Yes, I will.” Some days after this I had the privilege of meeting her again and she gave this testimony. She said that all the years which she had devoted simply to pleasure, when put over against the few days that had passed since she had given herself to Jesus Christ, were as nothing. She said, “Peace is mine, pardon is mine, forgiveness is mine.” I think it is a great salvation that can reach to the lowest and at the same time bring help to the highest. “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?”
It is a great salvation not only because it reveals to us a great Saviour, but because it suggests a salvation from greatest sin. One of the great preachers in the City of New York said one day as he stood in a pulpit and looked down upon the face of a man lying in his casket, at the foot of the pulpit, “Of all the men who have worked in our city I think this man was almost the greatest. I pay a tribute to his memory. He has influenced the city profoundly in his mission.” When he had finished his tribute many came forward, and as they looked into the upturned face it was with real emotion. Then the poor of New York came to see their friend and they filed past for a considerable time, some of them bending over and baptizing his face with their tears. Finally there came a great number of men, each with a white rose, which they placed in the casket until it was covered, and then the roses fell from the casket to the floor. It was a monument of flowers reared to the memory of a man who had served three terms in prison. He had been called in the early days a most violent criminal. He had been a man profane and ignorant. It is said that he was seated one night in gloom and misery in an alleyway of a city when a missioner came along and handed him a little tract. The poor fellow tore it in pieces and said with an oath, “If you want to help me give me your coat. You must see that I am freezing.” Then the missionary, who was himself thinly clad, took off his own coat, and gave it to him. And this act of kindness almost broke his heart. Jerry McAulay, then one who was deepest in iniquity, and the farthest from God, was wonderfully saved. It took a great Saviour to save him. “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?”
It is a great salvation in so many ways. Great in its pardon; great in its forgiveness. Can any of you tell me the difference between human pardon and divine pardon? I was once in one of the southern states when the governor of the state gave me the opportunity of going to the prison. He said, “There is a pardon for one of the men. I will send it by your hands.” Since that day I have often imagined that man, on being set free, making his way to his home, and spending the first night with his household. I have thought of him sleeping at home that first night, the first for many months. I have imagined him waking suddenly in the night with a shout of fear and saying, “My sin! My sin!” His wife bends down to comfort him, and says, “But, husband, you are a pardoned man.” And just to make it sure she brings the Governor’s pardon, and shows it to him. But he cries out again, “My sin! My sin!” Do you not see the difficulty? He is a pardoned man, but he is not a justified man. When the Governor pardons, he only pardons; but when God pardons, He justifies.
I have many times tried to give a definition of justification. I could give a theological definition, but I am not giving a message to theologians. I have many times tried to imagine what justification really is. I have looked into the face of the baby of my household unmarked with sin and have wished that I might be as pure and as free from sin as he. And when I have thought of my many failures I have been all but disheartened. But in the sight of God my sin is put away, and in God’s thought I am freed from its penalty and power, and it is marvelous to be thus justified in God’s sight, freely and forever.
It is great also in its forgiveness. And the difference between human forgiveness and divine forgiveness is this: You injure me very much and I forgive you, but every time I see you I remember the injury, but God does not. I remember when I was a lad that one day I hurt my mother’s feelings very much. She came again and again seeking me, but all through the day I eluded her. Then just as the day was dying out of the sky, at the time when every boy feels the need of his mother, I felt the need of mine, I stole back to the house; and I can still feel her arms about me as she drew me up against her, and said, “My boy, your mother will forgive you.” Then putting her face down close to mine, she said a thing which I am sure she did not realize meant so much; she said, “But it will be hard to forget, will it not?” That is human forgiveness, but it is very far from being God’s method of forgiveness. Some of you know that the sin of past years has been condemning you. In the quiet of the night conscience has been speaking again and again, and you have said, as a man said to me in the city of Philadelphia, “If God forgives what about my sin?”
It is plainly stated in the Bible that when He forgives He forgets. A minister in a great city was one day preaching a sermon on redemption and forgiveness, when it occurred to him that he might tell his own story. He had been a wanderer. He had almost broken his mother’s heart. “But,” he said, “Jesus found me.” He was preaching to a great crowd of people, and stretching out his arms over that great throng of men and women, he said, “Men, a Saviour who can save one such as I, can save you.” When the service was over the church officers gathered about him, and said, “You never preached before as you did to-night.” When they had passed on, down the aisle there came an old woman. Her hair was grey, but it was like a halo of glory. Her brow was furrowed, but it was as if an angel’s fingers had touched it. When she reached the great minister she put up her trembling hands, and clasped them behind his neck, and said, “O Jimmie, what made you tell it? Why did you tell it? You never were bad in all this world.” And yet years before he had almost broken her heart with his sin, and she with a mother’s love had forgotten. That is a suggestion as to God’s way of treating us. He will remember your sin against you no more forever. “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?”
But I hear some of you say, “I know I should be better.” Well, what will you do? You say, “I will reform.” What does that mean? You say, “From this time on I will not commit that sin again which has so harmed me. I will turn away from that transgression which has weakened me. From this time on
I will be true.” That does not meet the case. Let us suppose that I owed you a thousand dollars and I go into your office to-morrow morning and say, “Sir, I was in the church last night and decided to be better. I have made up my mind never again while I live to go in debt.” Maybe you would take me by the hand, and say, “That is fine, I congratulate you.” But you would not open your private drawer and take out my note for a thousand dollars and hand it to me, saying, “That settles your account; that pays the note.” No, you would say, “See here, sir, your reformation is for the future, your indebtedness is for the past.” And just so you cannot ignore the sin of yesterday.
I went to preach in a prison at one time several years ago; the prison chapel was so small that the governor said we had better go out in the open. So we went into the open court, and the prisoners gathered round me in great numbers. I said to the men, “I can give you the secret of getting almost as much money as you wish.” And you should have seen the audience. They drew a little closer to me and gave the closest attention; many of them were in prison for trying in various ways to get money that was not their own. Then I said, “Just take a piece of paper, and write down on it how much money you want, and tell me how long you wTant it for. Sign your name to the paper, and I will take it over to the bank and slip it through the grated window and the cashier will slip it back again. For that is not the secret.” But that is the way some of you have thought you could be saved. You have been saying that you were better than many a church member; that there were people professing to follow Jesus Christ who did things you would scorn to do. But you have not in this position learned the secret. There is not in all this Book in which your mother believed when she died, the pages of which your father stained with his tears as he studied it — there is not a sentence, which, taken in its connection, teaches other than this — That man is saved not by what he is in himself, but he is saved because of his faith in Jesus Christ. So, when these men in the prison seemed a bit disappointed, I said, “Take another piece of paper. Fill out the amount of money you want, and put down your name. Then I will take the paper to Mr. Andrew Carnegie, and have him sign his name on the back of it; I will then take it to the bank and slip it through the grated window, and the cashier will look at it just for a moment, not so much to see your name, but that of your security, and because he is satisfied with that he will pay the money.” And any one could walk into any bank in our country with his head rather high if Mr. Andrew Carnegie endorsed his note. And I know this, that any one who stands to-day with all the memory of his mother, with all the advantages of his early training, would have no show at the gate of heaven, were it not for Jesus. “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?”
It is great in its sacrifice. Jesus died that we might live. He paid the debt we owe. I put the last two words together — “Neglect,” “escape.” Some seem to have the idea that they are not in danger unless they commit great sin; that they are all right until they are guilty of some great transgression. Just fold your arms and stop sinning to-day, and reformation cannot touch yesterday and resolution cannot avail for last year. One day a man started out in a boat on the Niagara River a good distance above the falls. He was weary and sought to rest on his oars, but he did not know the current. He sat there with arms folded, and men on the shore who knew the current shouted to him, “The falls are ahead of you.” But he did not move. People ran down the bank waving their hands at him and shouting, “The falls are ahead of you.” But he gave no heed. He just sat with folded arms, and the mighty current of Niagara swept him over. Neglect cost him his life.
I recall the great fire that occurred some years ago in Minneapolis when one of the great newspaper buildings was wrapped in flames. The man in charge (I think) of the Associated Press dispatches, sat in the ninth story, and sent out a message all over America, “The building is burning. The fire is in the sixth story and I am in the ninth.” Then a little later he sent out a second message: “The fire is in
the seventh story, and I am in the ninth.” Then he sent a third message: “The fire is in the eighth story and I am in the ninth.” And when he could hear the crackling of the flames near to him he started to escape. Other men in the building had escaped. They had made their way quickly down the ladders and fire escapes while there was time. When this man came to the fire escapes they were too hot to hold. When he went to the stairway, the fire blocked him. He made his way to the window; he stood for a moment on the window casing, then leaned out to lay hold of a guy rope, and missed his footing. The rest of the story I need not tell you. With the abundant provision for his safety that man was lost. Why? Neglect! “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?”
I know only one way to be saved. First, repent of that sin that has cursed you. Repent of that sin that has mocked you. Repent of that sin that has undermined your character. Second, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Third, confess Him as your Saviour. Fourth, obey Him in your living. Do it now. It is not as if you had to wait till the way grows easier. Come now.
May I close with this? In the city of Philadelphia we had a family of repute. The family was made up of a father who died of a broken heart because of the shame that came to him through his boy; a mother who was beautiful; a very dutiful son, who is to-day a practising physician in that city; and a second boy, who was a disgrace to his family. When the father died this boy started away from home. He went as far as Baltimore, and then on to Washington. One day there came to him a great hunger to see his mother. As he started back he felt ashamed to go into his old home. He was afraid to go up boldly to the door for fear the servants might see him. But he knew that if he could slip into that house, there was one who would meet him and receive him. You know the one he had in mind. It is the one who always makes us stop and think, and makes us better as we think. This boy had no sooner touched the door than it opened and with never a word of complaint his mother’s arms went round about him, as she put her face against his to give the kiss of welcome; then she took him up to his room, directed him to his bed; in the early hours of the morning his brother rapped on the door of his room saying, “Edward, hurry, mother is dying.” The boy arose and rushed into his mother’s room, and they left him alone with his mother. Dropping down on his knees, he put his arms around her, and said, “Mother, mother, you must forgive me.” As she looked into his face with such a smile as only a mother’s face can wear, she said, “Edward, my boy, I forgave you long years ago, and I have been waiting all the time for you to accept my forgiveness.” And ever since Jesus Christ died upon Calvary God has been waiting — waiting — waiting, for you to take His forgiveness. “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?”