The A and the Z
I am Alpha and Omega.” — Revelation i., 8.
ALPHA is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and
Omega is the last; so that Christ in this text represents himself as the A and the Z.
That is one reason why I like the Bible: its illustrations are so easy to understand. When it represents the Gospel as a hammer, every body knows it is to knock something to pieces; or as salt, every body who has put down meat in barrels knows it is to keep things from spoiling; or as a salve, that it is to cure the old sores of the heart. The Bible illustrations go not on stilts, but in a plain way walk straight into the understanding. When a physician in the sick-room, or a philosopher in his conversation, or a minister in the pulpit, begins to use big words, and to bother you with technicalities, you may make up your mind that he is trying to confound you with his learning. I do not want a man in ordinary conversation to call a dandelion a “Taraxacum dens leonis,” or a wart “an enlargement of the vascular papilla.” A dandelion is a dandelion, and a wart is a wart.
A woman went to hear the great Dr. Alexander preach, and came home disappointed, saying, “I do not think he is such a great man after all, for I could understand every word he said.”
When we learn to call things by their plain names, we will be getting back to the old Bible way of teaching.
Any body who knows the a b c’s understands that the text means that Christ is the Beginning and the End of every thing good.
I. He is the A and the Z of the physical universe. By him were all things made that are made. He made Galilee as well as hushed it. He made the fig-tree as well as blasted it. He made the rock as well as rent it. Ho wonder he could restore the blind man, for he first made the optic nerve and the retina. Ho wonder that he could give hearing to the deaf man, for he first set the drum of the ear. Ho wonder he could cure the withered arm, for he made the bone and strung the muscle. He flung out of nothing the first material out of which the world was formed. He set spinning around the first axle, and drove the first pivot, and hung to the throne the first constellation. The eighteen millions of suns in the Milky Way are eighteen million coursers of fire, by Christ’s hand held to their path as they fly up the steeps of heaven. The comet of 1811, that was one hundred and thirty-three million miles long, answered the bit of light, and by his hand was turned anywhither. Jesus shepherds all the great flock of worlds. All these doves of light flew out of his bosom. Christ set one leg of the compass at the foot of the throne, and swung the other around to mark the orbits of the worlds. Standing to-night in the observatory of Mount Zion, I take a telescope mightier than that of Herschel or of Ross — namely, the Word of God — and I see impressed on nearest and farthest star, I am the Alpha!
It is exciting to see a ship launched. The people gather in a temporary gallery erected for their accommodation. The spectators are breathless, waiting for the im-THE A AND THE Z.
pediments to be removed, when down the ship rushes with terrific velocity, the planks smoking, the water tossing, the flags flying, the people huzzaing, bands of music playing. But my Lord Jesus saw this ship of a wrorld launched, with its furnaces of volcano, and flags of cloud, and masts of mountain, and walking-beams of thunder¬ bolt, while the morning stars shouted, and the orchestras of heaven played, “Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty!”
The same hand that put up this universe will pull it down. I think the time will come when the wTorlds will have done their work, and must be removed, so that but two worlds will remain: the one a vast desert of suffer¬ ing, swinging through immensity — the abode of the bad; the other a blooming paradise for all the good. For eternal ages will the two swing around in their orbits of light and darkness. We know not by what process any of the worlds will be taken down, save one: that wTill go by fire. Perhaps the most of the worlds will shatter in collision. Sirius and the North Star, Capella and Aldebaran, colliding into eternal ruin. The furnaces already on fire in the heart of the earth will burst their bounds, and the mountains kindle, and the great forests begin to crackle, and the wild beasts tumble off the crags in an avalanche of terror, and the metals melt, flowing in liquid down the gulches, and the ocean to steam and bubble, and finally to flame, and the round earth from all sides shoot out forked tongues of fire. All the universe will know wdio set on fire the one world, and who shattered the others, for Christ, my Lord, will stand amid the roar, and crackle, and thunder, and crash of that final un¬ doing, proclaiming, I am the Omega!
II. Christ is the A and the Z of the Bible. Here is a long lane, overshadowed by fine trees, leading up to a mansion. What is the use of the lane if there were no mansion at the end? There is no use in the Old Testament except as a grand avenue to lead us up to the Gospel Dispensation. You may go early to a concert. Be¬ fore the curtain is hoisted, you hear the musicians tun¬ ing up the violins, and getting ready all the instruments. After a while the curtain is hoisted, and the concert be¬ gins. All the statements, parables, orations, and miracles of the Old Testament wTere merel y preparatory, and when all wTas ready, in the time of Christ, the curtain hoists, and there pours forth the Oratorio of the Messiah — all nations joining in the Hallelujah chorus.
Moses, in his account of the creation, shows the plat¬ form on which Christ wTas to act. Prophets and apostles took subordinate parts in the tragedy v The first act was a manger and a babe; the last a cross and its victim. The Bethlehem star in the first scenery shifted for the crimson upholstery of a crucifixion. Earth, and heaven, and hell the spectators. Angels applauding in the galleries; devils hissing in the pit.
Christ is the Beginning and the End of the Bible.
In Genesis, who wTas Isaac, bound amid the fagots? Type of Christ, the Alpha. In Bevelation, what was the water of life? Christ, the Omega. In Genesis, what was the ladder over Jacob’s pillow? Christ, the Alpha. In Bevelation, who was the conqueror on the white horse? Christ, the Omega. In Exodus, what was the smitten rock? Christ, the Alpha. In Bevelation, who was the Lamb before the throne? Christ, the Omega. Take Christ out of this book, and there are other books I would M2
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rather have than the Bible. Take him out, and you have the Louvre without the pictures; you have the Tower of London without the jewels. Take him out, and man is a failure, and the world a carcass, and eternity a vast horror.
III. Christ is the A and the Z of the Christian ministry. A sermon that has no Christ in it is a dead failure. The minister who devotes his pulpit to any thing but Christ is an impostor. Whatever great themes we may discuss, Christ must be the beginning and Christ the end. From his hand we get our commission at first, and to that same hand we at last surrender it. Though the col¬ leges may give you a diploma, and Presbytery lay their hands on your head, if Christ send you not forth, you go on a fool’s errand; and though the schools reject you as incompetent, if the Lord God tells you to preach, you have a right to go, and there is at least one pulpit in the land where your right to proclaim the Gospel is acknowledged. A sermon devoted to metaphysics is a stack of dry corn-stalks after the corn has been ripped out with the husking-peg. A sermon given up to sentimental and flowery speech is as a nosegay flung to a drowning sailor. A sermon devoted to moral essay is a basket of chips to help on the great burning. What the world wrants now is to be told in the most flat-footed way of Jesus Christ, who comes to save men from eternal damnation. Christ the Light, Christ the Sacrifice, Christ the Kock, Christ the Star, Christ the Balm, Christ the Guide. If a minister should live one thousand years, and preach ten sermons each day, those subjects would not be exhausted. Do you find men tempted? Tell them of Christ the Shield. Or troubled? Tell them of Christ the Comfort. Or guilty? Tell them of Christ the Pardon. Or dying? Tell them of Christ the Life.
Scores of ministers, yielding to the demands of the age for elegant rhetoric, and soft speech, and flattering apostrophe, have surrendered their pulpits to the devil, “horse, foot, and dragoon.” If these city exquisites won’t take the old-fasliioned Gospel, then let them go on the downward road where they want to go, and we will give our time to the great masses who want to hear the plain Gospel, and who are dying by the millions because they do not hear it. Be Christ the burden of our talk; Christ the inspiration of our prayers; Christ the theme of our songs; Christ now, and Christ forever. Oh for more consecration! After Luther was prepared to preach, he said to his professor, Dr. Staupitz, “I can not preach. I should die in three months. Indeed, I can not do it.” “Well,” said the professor, “if you must die, you must; but preach, man — preach, man — and then live or die, as it happens.” In that stern hour when we feel that we shall never preach again, and we have ascended for the last time the pulpit, the gown will be nothing, the surplice will be nothing, philosophy nothing, Presbyteries nothing, Conferences nothing, General Assemblies nothing, but Christ evert thing!
“Let Zion’s watchmen all awake,
And take the alarm they give;
Now let them, from the mouth of God,
Their awful charge receive.
“May they that Jesus, whom they preach,
Their own Redeemer see;
And watch thou daily o’er their souls,
That they may watch for thee.”
IV. Christ is the A and the Z in the world’s rescue.
2 IQ
When the world broke loose, the only hand swung out to catch it was that of Jesus. At Long Branch, on the beach, on a summer’s day, hundreds of people are sport¬ ing; but suddenly some one cries, “Look there! A man is drowning.” Out of hundreds, perhaps there is only one strong swimmer. He plunges in, and brings the man safely ashore. On the beach of heaven, one day, there sat myriads of immortals, merry with a great glad¬ ness; but the voice of one of the immortals cried out, “See there! A world is drowning! To the rescue! Where are the wreckers? Launch the life-boats! Who will go?” Angels did not dare venture. Heaven it¬ self stands helpless before the scene. It knows how to wave a palm or shout in a coronation, but not how to take out of the floods a drowning world. Jesus bounds from the throne, and thrown his robe on one side, his crown on the other. Swift as a roe on the mountains, he comes down over the hills. The shining ones stand back as lie says, “Lo! I come.” Amid the wTrathf ul surges he beats his way out to the dying world; and while, out in the deep waters, with bloody agony he wrestled with it, and it seemed for a little wrhile uncertain whether it would take him down or he would lift it up, those on the beach trembled, and in an hour grew ages older; and when at last, in his great strength, he lifted it in his right hand and brought it back, there went up a hosanna from all the cloud of witnesses. He began the work, and he shall complete it. King all the bells of earth and heaven to-day in honor of Christ the Alpha and Christ the Omega!
Y. Christ is the A and the Z in heaven. He is the most honored personage in all that land. He is known as a World-Liberator. The first one that a soul entering heaven looks for is Jesus. The great populations of heaven seek him out, follow him over the hills, and shout at his chariot- wheel. Passing along those streets, spirits blessed cry out to one another, “Look! that -is Jesus.” Methinks that if the hosts of heaven go forth in some other realm to fight, their battle-cry is “Jesus.” Jesus on the banners. Jesus in the song. At his feet break the doxologies. Around his throne circle the chief glories. Where the white Lamb of heaven goes, there go all the flocks. The first tree in the heavenly paradise Jesus planted. The first fountain he struck from the rock. The first pillar of light he lifted. At heaven’s beginning — Christ, the Alpha. Then travel far on down the years of eternity, and stop at the end of the remotest age, and see if the song has not taken up some other burden, and some other throne has not become the centre of heaven’s chief attractions. But no; you hear it thrummed on the harps, and poured from the trumpets, and shouted in universal acclaim, Christ, the Omega.
Now, what is this glorious One to you, my hearer? Have you seen him? Have you heard his voice? Have you walked this earth, and never seen in the bent grass where his feet had just been? Of all the stars in the midnight heavens, has not one pointed you to where he lay? Trudging on across this desert with thy burden of sins, have you ever made the camels kneel? Is this one, the First and the Last of heaven, nothing to thee? Poor wanderer, without Christ, what of thy death-hour? what of the judgment day? wThat of eternity? If it shall be found at the last that thou hast rejected this thy only
hope, in what dark hole of the universe wilt thou lay thyself down to suffer, and gnash thy teeth, and howl forever? You must have Christ or die. But one lad¬ der out of the pit! But one life-boat from the wreck! Get in it. Lay hold of the oars with both hands, and pull, if need be, until the blood starts. The world is after you. The devil is after you. The avenger of blood is after you. But, more than all, Christ is after you, and his cry is, “O Israel! thou hast destroyed thy¬ self, but in me is thy help!”