There Is No Difference

ROMANS III. 2 2.

That is one of the hardest truths man has to learn. We are apt to think that we are just a little better than our neighbors, and if we find they arg a little better than ourselves, we go to work and try to pull them down to our level. If you want to find out who and what man is, go to the third chapter of Romans, and there the whole story is told. “There is none righteous, no not one.” “All have sinned and come short.” A//. Some men like to have their lives written before they die; if any of you would like to read your biography, turn ii this chapter, and you will find it already written.

I can imagine some one saying, “I wonder if he really pretends to say that * there is no difference.’” The teetotaller says, “Am I no better than the drunkard .?” Well, I want to say right here, that it is a good deal better to be temperate than intemperate; a good deal better to be honest than dishonest; it is better for a man to be upright in all his transactions than to cheat right and left, even in this life. But when it comes to the great question of salvation, that does not touch the question at all, because “all have sinned and com short of the glory of God.” Men are all bad by nature; the old Adam-stock is bad, and we cannot bring forth good fruit until we are grafted into the one True Vine. If I have an orchard, and two apple trees in it, which both bear some bitter apples, perfectly worthless, does it make any difference to me that

THERE IS NO DIFFEREKCEr ti

the one tree has got perhaps five hundred apples, all bad, and the other only two, both bad? There is no difference; only one tree has more fruit than the othR-. But it is all bad. So it is with man. One thinks he has got one or two very little sins — God woft’t notice that; why, that other man has broken every one of the ten commandments! No matter, there is no difference; they are both guilty; they have both broken the law. The law demands complete and perfect fulfilment, and if you cannot do that, you are lost, as far as the law is concerned.” Whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.’’ Suppose you were to hang up a man to the roof with a chain of ten links; if one were to break, does it matter that the other nine are all sound and whole y Not the least. One link breaks, and down comes the man. But is it not rather hard that he should fall when the other nine are perfect, when only one is broken y Why, of course not; if one is broken, it is just the same to the man as if all had been broken; he falls. So the man who breaks one commandment is guilty of all. He is a criminal in God’s sight. Look at yonder prison, with its thousand victims. Some are there for murder, some for stealing, some for forgery, some for one thing and some for another. You may classify them, but every man is a criminal. They have all broken the law, and they are all paying the penalty. So the law has brought every man in a criminal in the sight of God.

If a man should advertise that he could take a correct photograph of people’s hearts, do you believe he would find a customer y There is not a man among us Thom you could hire to have his photograph taken, if you could photograph the real man. We go to have our faces taken, and carefully arrange our toilet, and if the artist flatters us, we say, “Oh, yes, that’s a first-rate likeness, as we pass it around among our friends. But let the real man be brought out, the photograph of the heart, and see if a man will pass that round among his neighbors. Why, you would not want your own wife to see it! You would be frightened even to look at it yourself. Nobody 18” THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE:’

knows what is in that heart but Christ, heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? “We do not know our own hearts; none of us have any idea how bad they are. Some bitter things le written against me, but I know a good many more things about myself that are bad than any other man. There is nothing good in the old Adam nature. “VVe have got a heart in rebellion against God by nature, and we do not even love God unless we arc born of the Spirit. I can understand why men do not like this third chapter of Romans — it is too strong for them. It speaks the truth too plainly. But just because we do not like it, we shall be all the better for having a look it; very likely we shall find that it is exactly what we want, after all. It’s a truth that men do tiot at all like, but I have noticed that the medicine we do not like is the medicine that will do us most good. If we do not think we are as bad as the description, we must just take a closer look at ourselves. Here is a man who thinks he is not just so bad as it makes him out to be. He is sure he is a little better than his neighbour next door; why, he goes to church regularly, and his neighbour never goes to church at all! “Of course,” he congratulates himself, “I’ll certainly get saved easier.” But there is no use trying to evade it. God has given us the law to measure ourselves by, and by this most perfect rule “we have all sinned and come short,” and “there is no difference.”

Paul brings in the law to show man that he is lost and ruined. God, being a perfect God, had to give a perfect law, and the law was given not to save men, but to measure them by. I want you to understand this clearly, because I believe hundreds and thousands stumble there. They try to save themselves tpy trying to keep the law: but it was never meant for men to save themselves by. The law has never saved a single man since the world began. Men have been trying to keep it, but they have never succeeded, and never will. Ask Paul what it was given for. Here is his answer, “That every mouth might be •topped, and the whole world become guilty before God.* In this third chapter of Romans the world has been put on its trial, and found guilty. The verdict has been brought in against us all — these ministers and elders and churoh members, just as much as the ])rodigal and the drunkard — “All have sinned and come short.”

The law stops every man’s mouth. God will have a man humble himself down on his face before Him, with not a word to say for himself. Then God will speak to him, when he owns that he is a sinner, and gets rid of all his own righteousness. I can always tell a man who has got near the kingdom of God: his mouth is stopped. If you will allow me the expression, God always shuts up a man’s li])s before he saves Him. Job was not saved until he stopped talking about himself. Just see how God dealt with him. First of all, He afflicts him, and Job begins to talk about his own goodness. “I delivered the poor,” he says, “and the fatherless, and him who had none to help him. I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame. I was a father to the poor! “Why, they would have made Job an elder, if there had been elders in those days! He had been a wonderfully good man! But now God says,” I’ll put a few questions to you. Gird up .now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou Me.” And Job is down directly; he is ashamed of himself; he cannot speak of his works any more. “Behold,” he cries, “I am vile; what shall I answer Thee .-^ I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.” But he is not low enough yet, perhaps, and God puts a few more questions. “Ah! “says Job,” I never understood these things before — I never saw it in that light.” He is thoroughly humbled now; he can’t help confessing it. “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes Now he has found his right position before God, and now God can talk to him. And God helps him and raises him up, and gives him the double of all that he had before. The clouds, and the mist, and the darkness round his path are driven away, and so” THERE IS NO DIFEEKENCEr

light from eternity bursts into his soul when he sees his nothingness in the siyht of a pure and holy God.

This, then, is what God gives us the law for — to show us ourselves in our true colours.”

I said to my little family, one morning, a few weeks before the Chicago fire, “I am coming home this afternoon to give you a re.” My little boy clapped his hands. “Oh, papa, will you Take me to see the bears in Lincoln Park?” “Yes.” Vou know boys are very fond of seeing bears. I had not been gone long when ray little boy said, “Mamma, I wish you would get me ready.” “Oh,” she said, “it will be a long time before papa comes.” “But I want to get ready, mamma.” At last he was ready to have the ride, face washed, and clothes all nice and clean. “Now, you must take good care and not get yourself dirty again,” said mamma. Oh, of course he was going to take care; he wasn’t going to get dirty. So off he ran to watch for me. However, it was a long time yet until the afternoon, and after a little he began to play. When I got home, 1 found him outside, with his face all covered with dirt. “I can’t take you to the Park that way, Willie.” “Why, papa y you said you would take me.” “Ah, but I can’t; you’re all over mud. I couldn’t be seen with such a dirty little boy.” “Why, J’se clean, papa; mamma washed me.” “Well, you’ve got dirty since.” But he began to cry, and I could not convince him that he was dirty. “I’se clean; mamma washed me!” he cried. Do you think I argued with him y No. I just took him up in my arms, and carried him into the house, and showed him his face in the looking-glass. He had not a word to say. He could not take my word for it; but one look at the glass was enough; he saw it for himself. He didn’t say he wasn’t dirty after that!

Now the looking-glass showed him that his face was dirty — but I did not take the looking-glass to wash it; of course not. Yet that is just what thousands of people do. The law is the looking-glass to see ourselves in, to show us how vile and worthless we are in the sight of God; but they take the law, and try” THERE IS NO DlFFERENCEr ai

to wash themselves with it! Man has been irying that for six thousand years, and has miserably failed. By tJu deeds of tht law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight. Only one Man ever lived on the earth who could say He had kept the law, and that was the Lord Jesus Christ. If he had committed one sin, and came short in the smallest degree, his offering Himself for us would have been useless. But men have tried to do what He did, and have failed, instead of sheltering under his righteousness, they have offered (iod their own. And God knew what a miserable failure it would be. “There is none that doeth righteous, no, not one.”

I don’t care where you put man, everywhere he has been tried he has proved a total failure. He was put in Eden on trial; and some men sa’ they wish they had Adam’s chance. If you had, you would go down as quickly as he did. You put five hundred children into this hall, and give them ten thousand toys; tell them they can run all over the hall, and they can have anything they want except one thing, placed, let us say, in one of the corners of Mr. Sankey’s organ. You go out for a little while, and do you think that is not the very first place they will go to.-* Why, nothing else in the room would have any attraction for them but just the thing they were told not to touch. And so let us not think Adam was any worse than ourselves. Adam was put on trial, and Satan walks into Eden. I do not know how long he was there, but I should think he had not been there twenty minutes before he stripped Adam of everything he had. There he is, fresh from the hands of his Creator: Satan comes upon the scene, and presents a temptation, and down he goes. He was a failure.

Then God took man into covenant with Him. He said to Abraham, “Look yonder at the stars in the heavens and the sands on the seashore; I will make your seed like that. I will bless thee and multiply thee upon the earth.” But what a stupendous failure man was under the covenant. Go back and read about it.

They are brought out of Egypt, see many signs and wonders and stand at last at the foot of Mount Sinai. Then God’s holy law is given them. Did they not promise to keep it? “O yes,” they cry, “we’ll keep the law, certainly! “To hear them talk you might think it was going to be all right now. But just wait till Joshua and Moses have turned their backs! No sooner have their leaders gone up the mountain to have an interview with God than they begin saying,” Wonder what’s become ol this man Moses y we don’t know where he’s got to. Come, let us make unto us another God. Aaron! make us a golden calf; here are the golden ornaments we got from the Egyptians, come and make us another God.” So when it is made, the peoj)le raise a great shout, and fall down and worship it. “Hark! listen; what shout is that I hear y “says Moses, as he comes down the mountain side.” Alas,” says Joshua, ‘* there’s war in the camp, it is the shout of the victor.” “Ah, no,” says Moses, “it isn’t the shout of victory or of war, Joshua, it is the cry of the idolaters. They have forgotten the God who delivered them from the Egyptians, who led them through the Red Sea, who fed them with bread from heaven — angel’s food. They have forgotten their promises to keep the commandments. Already the first two of them are broken, ‘no other gods,’ * no graven image.’ They’ve made them another god — a golden god!” And that’s what men have been doing ever since.

There are more men in the land worshipping the golden calf than the God of heaven. Look around you. They bring before it health, and happiness, and peace. “Give me thirty pieces of silver, and I will sell you Christ,” is the world’s cry to-day. “Give me fashion, and I will sell you Christ!” “I will sacrifice my wife, my children, my life, my all, for a little drink. 1 will sell my soul for drink!” It is easy to blame these men for worshipping the golden calf. But what are we doing ourselves? Ah, man was a failure then, and he has been a failure ever since.

Then God put him under the judges, and wonderful judges they were; but once more, what a failure he was! After that came the prophets, and what a failure he was under them ‘” THERE IS NO DIFFERENCES 23

Then came the Son from heaven himself, right out of the bosom of the Father. He left the throne and came down here, to teach us how to live. We took Him and murdered Him on Calvary! Man was 2i failure in Christ’s time.

And now we are living under the dispensation of grace — a wonderful dispensation. God is showering down blessings from above. But what is man under grace! A stupendous failure. Look at that man reeling on his way to a drunkard’s grave, and his soul to a drunkard’s hell. Look at the wretched harlots on your streets. Look at the profligacy, and the pauperism and the loathsome sickness. Look at the vice and crime that festers everywhere, and tell me is it not true that man is a failure under grace?

Yes, man is a failure. I can see right down the other side of the millennium; Christ has swayed his sceptre over the earth for a thousand years; but man is a failure still. For” when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather

them together to battle and they compassed the camp

of the saints about, and the beloved city; and the fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.” What man wants is another nature; he must be born again. What a foolish saying, “Experience teaches.” Man has been a long time at that school, and has never learned his lesson yet — his own weakness and inability. He still thinks great things of his own strength. “I am going to stand after this,” he says, “I have hit upon the right plan this time. I am able to keep the law now.” But the first temptation comes, and he is down. Man will not believe in God’s strength. Man will not acknowledge himself a failure, and surrender to Christ to save him from his sins.

But is it not better to find out in this world that we are a failure, and to go to Christ for deliverance, than to sleep on and go down to hell without knowing we are sinners y

I know this doctrine that we have all failed, that we have ti THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE:

all sinned, and come short, is exceedingly objectionable to the natural man. If I had tried to find out the most disagreeable verse in the whole Bible, perhaps I could not have fastened upon one more universally disliked than” There is no differenced

I can imagine — and I think I have a right to imagine it — Noah, leaving his ark and going off preaching for once in a while. As the passers-by stop to listen, there is no sound of the hammer or the plane. Noah has stopped work. He has gone off on a preaching tour, to warn his countrymen. Perhaps he was telling them that there was a great deluge coming to sweep away all the workers of iniquity; perhaps he was warning them that every man who was not in the ark must perish; that there would be no difference. I can imagine one man saying, “You had better go back and finish your work. Noah, rather than come here preaching. You don’t think we are going to believe in such nonsense as that. You tell us that all are going to perish alike! Do you really expect us to believe that the kings and governors, the sheriffs and the princes, the rulers, the beggars and thieves and harlots, are all going to be alike lost?” “Yes,” says Noah; “the deluge that is coming by and by will take you all away — every man that is not in the ark must die. There will be no difference.” Doubtless they. thought Noah had gone raving mad. But did not the flood come and take them all away y Princes and paupers, and knaves and kings — was there any difference? No difference.

When the destroying angel was about to pass through Egypt, no doubt the haughty Egyptian laughed at the poor Israelite putting the blood on his door-post and lintel. “What a foolish notion,” he would say derisively; “the very idea of sprinkling blood on a door-post! If there were anything coming, that would never keep it away I don’t believe there is any death coming at all; and if it did, it might touch these poor people, but it would certainly never come near us.” But when the night came, there was no difference. The king in his palace, the captive in his prison, the beggar by the wayside — they were all alike. Into every house the king of terrors had come, ‘’THERE IS NO DIFFERENCEr 25

and there was universal mourning in the land. In the home of the poor and the lowly, in the home of the prince and the noble, in the home of the governor and ruler, the eldest son lay dead. Only the poor Israelite escaped who had the blood on the door-post and lintel. And when God comes to us in judgment, if we are not in Christ, all will be alike. Learned or unlearned, high or low, priest or scribe — there will be no difference.

Once more, I can imagine Abraham going down from the hills to Sodom. He stands up, let us say, at the corners of the streets, before Sodom was destroyed — “Ye men of Sodom, I have a message from my God to you.” The people stand and look at the old man — you can see his white locks as the wind sweeps through them — “I have a warning for you,” he cries. * God is going to destroy the five cities of the plain, and every man who does not escape to yonder mountain must perish. When he comes to deal in judgment with you there will be no difference; every man must die. The Lord Mayor, the princes, the chief men, the mighty men, the judges, the treasurers — all must perish. The thief and the vagabond and the drunkard — yes, all must perish alike. There can be ‘no difference.’ “But these Sodomites answer,” You had better go back to your tent on the hills, Abraham. We don’t believe a word of it. Sodom was never so prosperous; business was never so flourishing as now. The sun never shone any brighter than it does to-day. The lambs are skipping on the hills, and everything moving on as it has done for centuries. Don’t preach that stuff to us; we don’t believe it.” A few hours pass, and Sodom is in ashes! Did God make any difference among those who would not believe? No, God never utters any opinion; what He says is there is no difference.” I read of a deluge of fire that is going to roll over this earth, and when God comes to deal in jiulgment, there will be no difference, and every man who is out of Christ must perish.

a6 ‘’THERE IS NO DIFFERENCEr

It was my sad lot to be in the Chicago fire. As the flames rolled down our streets, destroying everything in their onward march, I saw the great and the honourable, the learned and the wise, fleeing before the fire with the beggar, and the thief, and the harlot; All were alike. As the flames swept through the city it was like the judgment day. The mayor, nor the mighty men, nor wise men could stop these flames. They were all on a level then, and many who were worth hundreds of thousands* were left paupers that night. When the day of judgment comes, there will be no difference. When the deluge came there was no difference; Noah’s ark was worth more than all the world. The day before, it was the world’s laughing-stock, and if it had been put up to auction, you could not have got anybody to buy it except for firewood. But the deluge came, and then it was worth more than all the world together. And when the -day of judgment comes, Christ will be worth more than all this world, more than ten thousand worlds. And if it was a terrible thing in t)ie days of Noah to die outside the ark, it will be far more terrible for us to go down in our sins to a Christless grave.

Now I hope that you have seen what I have been trying to prove — that we are all sinners alike. If I have failed to prove that, then the meeting to-night has been a failure. I should like to use another illustration or two. I should like to make this truth so plain that a child might know it. In the olden times in England, we are told, they used to have a game of firing arrows through a ring on the top of a pole. The man that failed to get all his arrows through the ring was called a “sinner.” Now I should like for a moment to take up that illustration. Suppose our pole to be up in the gallery, and on the top of it the ring. I have got ten arrows, let us say, and Mr. Sankey has got another ten. I take up the first arrow, nd take a good aim. Alas I I miss the mark. Therefore I am a “sinner.” “But,” I say, “I will do the best I can with th other nine; I have only missed with one.” Like some mcf who try to keep all the commandments but one! I fire agxir and miss the mark a second time. “Ah, but,” I say,” I hjiT< ‘’THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE:’ a;

got eight arrows still,” and away goes an other arrow — migs. I fire all the ten arrows and do not get one through the ring. Well, I was a “sinner “after the first miss, and I can only be a” sinner “after the tenth. Now Mr. Sankey comes with his ten arrows. He fires and gets his first arrow through.” Do you see that.’* “he says. “Well,” I reply, “go on; don’t boast until you get them all through.” He takes the second arrow and gets that through. ‘” Ha! do you see that? “” Don’t boast,” I repeat, “until all ten are through jr” if a man has not broken the law at all then he has got something to boast of! Away goes the third, and it goes through. Then another and another all right, and another until nine are through. “Now,” he says, “one more arrow, and I am not a sinner.” He takes up the last arrow, and his hand trembles a little; ht Just misses the mark. And he is a ‘sinner” as well as I a?n. My friend, have you never missed the mark? Have you not come short y I should like to see the man who never missed the mark. He nrver lived.

Let me give you just one more illustration. When Chicago was a small town, it was incorporated and made a city. When we got our charter for the city, there was one clause in the constitution that allowed the Mayor to appoint all the police. It worked very well when it was a small city; but when it had three or four hundred thousand inhabitants, it put too much power in the hands of one man. So our leading citizens got a new bill passed that took the power out of the hands of the Mayor, and put it into the hands of Commissioners appointed by Government. There was one clause in the new law that no man should be a policeman who was not a certain height — 5 feet 6 inches, let us say. When the Commissioners got into power, they advertised for men as candidates, and in the advertisement they stated that lio man need apply who cuuld not bring good credentials to recommend Him. I remember going past the office one day, and there was a crowd of them waiting to get in. They quite blocked up the side of the street; and they were comparing notes as to their chances of success. One says to another, “I have got a good letter of recommendation from the Mayor, and one from the supreme judge.” Another says, “And I have got a good letter from Senator So-and-so. I’m sure to get in.” The two men come on together, and lay their letters down on the Commissioners’ desk. “Well,” say the officials, “you have certainly a good many letters, but we won’t read them till we measure you.” Ah! they forgot all about that. So the first man is measured, and he is only five feet. “No chance for you, sir; the law says the men must be 5 feet 6 inches, and you don’t come up to the standard.” The other says, “Well, my chance is a good deal better than his. I’m a good bit taller than he is” — he begins to measure himself by the other man. That is what people are always doing, measuring themselves by others. Measure yourselves by the law of God, or by the Son of God Himself; and if you do that, you will find you have come short. He goes up to the officers, and they measure him; he is 5 feet 5 inches and nine-tenths of an inch. “No good,” they tell him; “you’re not up to the standard.” “But I’m only one-tenth of an inch short,” he remonstrates. “It’s no matter,” they say; “there’s no difference.” He goes with the man who was five feet. One comes short six inches, and the other only one-tenth of an inch, but the law cannot be changed. And the law of God is that no man shall go into the kingdom of heaven with one sin on him. He that has broken the least law is guilty of all.

“Then, is there any hope for me V you say. “What star is there to relieve the midnight darkness and gloom y What is to become of me y If all this is true, I am a poor lost soul. I have committed sin from my earliest childhood.” Thank God, my friends, this is just where the gospel comes in. “Pie was made sin for us who knew no sin.” “He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for ou» iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with his stripes we are healed.” “We all like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.”

“THERE rS NO DIFFERENCEr 39

You ask me what my hope is; it is, that Christ died for my sins, in my stead, in my place, and therefore 1 can enter into life eternal. You ask Paul what his hope was. “Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture.” This is the hope in which died all the glorious martyrs of old, in which all who have* entered heaven’s gate have found their only comfort. Take that doctrine of substitution out of the Bible, and my hope is lost. With the law, without Christ, we are all undone. The law we have broken, and it can only hang over our head the sharp sword of justice. Even if we could keep it from this moment, there remains the unforgiven past. “Without shedding of blood there is no remission.”

He only is safe for eternity who is sheltered behind the finished work of Christ. What the law cannot do for us, He can do. He obeyed it to the very letter, and under His obedience we can take our stand. For us He has suffered all its penalties, and paid all that the law demands. “His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree.” He saw the awful end from the beginning; He knew what death, what ruin, what misery lay before us if we were left to ourselves. And He came from heaven to teach us the new and living way by which “all that believe are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses.”

There is a well-known story told of Napoleon the First’s time. In one of the conscriptions, during one of his many wars, a man was balloted as a conscript who did not want to go, but he had a friend who ofi“ered to go in his place. His friend joined the regiment in his name, and was sent off to the war. By and by a battle came on, in which he was killed, and they buried him on the battle-field. Some time after the Emperor wanted more men, and by some mistake the first man was balloted the second time. They went to take him, but he remonstrated. “You cannot take me.” “Why not!” “I am dead,” was the reply. “You are not dead; you are alive and well.” “But I am dead,” he said. “Why, man, you must be mad. Where did you die?” ‘*At such a battle, and you left me buried on such a battle-field.” “You talk like a mad-man,” they cried; but the man stuck to his point that he had been dead and buried some months. “You look up your books,” he said, “and see if it is not so.” They looked, and found that he was right. They found the man’s name entered as drafted, sent to the war, and marked off as killed. “Look here,” they said, “you didn’t die; you must have got some one to go for you; It must have been your substitutey “I know that,” he said; “he died in my stead. You cannot touch me; I died in that man, and I go free. The law has no claim against me.” They would not recognize the doctrine of substitution, and the case was carried to the Emperor. But he said that the man was right, that he was dead and buried in the eyes of the law, and that France had no claim against him.

The story may be true, or it may not, but one thing I know to be true, that the Emperor of heaven recognizes the doctrine of substitution, Christ died for me; that is my hope of eternal life. “There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” If you ask me what you must do to share this blessing, I answer, go and deal personally with Christ about it. iike the sinner’s place at the foot of the cross. Strip yourself of all your own righteousness, and put on Christ’s. Wrap yourself up in his perfect robe, and receive Him by simple trust as your own Saviour. Thus you inherit the priceless treasures that Christ hath purchased with his blood. ‘As many as received I limy to ihetn gave He pcnver to become the sorts of God.’’ Yes, sons of God; power to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil; power to crucify every besetting sin, passion, lust; power to shout in triumph over every trouble and temptation of your life, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”

I have been trying to tell you the old, old tale that men are sinners. I may be speaking to some one, perhaps, who thinks it a waste of time. “God knows I’m a sinner,” he cries; “you don’t need to prove it. Since I could speak, I’ve done nothing but break every law of earth and heaven.” Well, my friend, ‘’THERE IS NO DIFEERENCEr 31

I have good news for you. It is just as easy for God to save you, who have Uroken the whole decalogue, as the man who has only broken one of the commandments. Both are dead — dead In sins. It is no matter how dead you are, or how long you have been dead; Christ can bring you to life just the same. There is no difference. When Christ met that poor widow coming out of Nain, following the body of her darling boy to the grave — he was just newly dead — His loving heart could not pass her; He stopped the funeral, and bade the dead arise. He was obeyed at once, and the mother was clasped once more in the living embrace of her son. And when Jesus stood by the grave of Lazarus, who had been dead four days was it not just as easy for Him to say, “Lazarus, come forth y” Was it not as easy for Him, to bring Lazarus from his tomb, who had beer dead four days, as the son of the widow, who had been dead but one.** Yes, it was just as easy; there was no difference. They were both alike dead, and Christ saved the one just as easily, and as willingly, and as lovingly as the other. And therefore, my friend, you need not complain that Christ cannot save you. Why, Christ died for the ungodly. And if you turn to Him at this moment with an honest heart, and rece’ive Him simply as your Saviour and your God, I have the authority of his Word for telling you that He will in no wise cast out.

And you who have never felt the burden of your sin — you who think there is a great deal of difference — you who thank God that you are not as other men — beware. God has nothing to say to the self-righteous. And unless you humble yourself before Him in the dust, and confess before Him your iniquities and sins, the gate of heaven, which is open only for sinners., saved by grace., must be shut against you for ever.