A Gospel Address, delivered at the Victoria Hall, Exeter,
by Heyman Wreford.
“As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips. Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. And the way of peace have they not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.” —Romans 3:10-19.
MANY of my readers have a camera of their own; well nigh all have had their photograph taken, some standing, some sitting, some with the head and shoulders only, while others prefer a full-length photograph. We have been taken to please ourselves, and to please our friends. Some of our photographs are more priceless to us than gold. There is a child’s empty chair in the corner of the room in a home; the little one who used to sit there has gone to heaven; upstairs are the little garments and the broken toys, and the empty cot. The little voice that made such music in the home will be heard on earth no more — there is a little grave in the cemetery, flower-decked by loving hands, and the epitaph, “Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” And at home when they talk of the babe in Paradise, the photograph is brought out. There are marks of tears upon it; and the sunny eyes look out from the cloud of curly hair about the brow, and the half-opened lips seem almost speaking, and the mother cries, “My little boy! My little boy!” She would not part with the likeness of her child for anything, and she thanks God that she can still see her baby as he was.
Yes, the family album is a cherished possession. There the wife can gaze upon the husband she has lost, and the husband see again the wife whom God has taken; and children can view the loved faces of their parents.
Well do I remember, after twenty years and more, the awful grief that swept across my soul when my father died. He was a man of God, and when the summons came he could say to us, “I have not a doubt, I have not a fear.” I never saw such radiant happiness as was his in speaking of the Lord Jesus. “Is it not wonderful?” he said to me, “ ‘Though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor, that we through His poverty might be rich.’” Sing, he cried:—
“Glory, glory everlasting
Be to Him Who bore the cross,
Who redeemed our souls by tasting
Death, the death deserved by us.
Spread His glory,
Who redeemed His people thus.”
We sang the verse, his voice joining in the hymn of praise. When the verse was done we paused, but the feeble voice went on:
“His is love, ‘tis love unbounded,
Without measure, without end;
Human thought is here confounded,
‘Tis too vast to comprehend.
Praise the Saviour!
Magnify the sinners’ Friend.”
With rapt face turned to heaven, he communed with the Lord in wonderful and exalted communion. He passed from us with the light of heaven on his face, leaving his blessing to every one of his children, and the memory of his godly life and triumphant departure. And now, often and often, I thank God for the lineaments of the dear loved face left us in his likeness.
My Convert’s Album.
I have an album filled with the faces of those who have been brought to God at our meetings. Many have gone to be with Christ, but it is a pleasure to gaze upon them, and remember their coming to the Saviour, and their words of prayer and sympathy; “though they are dead, yet they speak,” and I love to listen to the silent voices of my departed friends.
One photo I especially love. It is of a Christian whose prayers helped on our work mightily. A man poor and uneducated, yet rich in faith and full of understanding of God’s love to sinners. I remember one Sunday evening we had wonderful blessing; nearly every unsaved one seemed to have been converted. Next day I saw this dear Christian and I said to him, “Last night, ―, God gave us marvelous blessing, and I cannot understand it.” “I can, sir,” he answered, “on Friday evening God told me to pray for the gospel and you, and I was on my knees nearly all the time from Friday until Sunday, praying. I knew you would have the power and the blessing.” And often when cast down because of coldness and deadness in the meetings, I look upon his photograph and remember his words — the words of a man of prayer — and I am comforted. He used to show me the elbows of his coat and the knees of his trousers, worn out by kneeling in prayer.
ButI1 must not linger on these themes, pleasant as they are, but come more directly to my subject.
Let me ask you a question first. Have you been to God for your likeness? Have you seen yourselves upon the sensitive plate of the Word of God?
God has taken everyone’s photograph. We get a full-length portrait of the sinner in the third chapter of Romans. From head to foot, inside and out, the sinner is exposed― his outward expression, his innermost thoughts, his motives and his actions are all plainly shown. And a terrible picture it is. Not at all the sort of portrait we should expect of ourselves if we went to a photographer. But the truth of God deals with things as they are, and the portraits and biographies of the Bible are the only true records of humanity we possess.
God is no respecter of persons, and therefore we have this comprehensive statement given about all the human race: “There is none righteous, no not one; they are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.”
This stern condemnation of man in his natural condition has been sought to be set aside in all the ages. The absolute depravity of man, his total departure from God, his profitless existence, and his utter inability to be good or to do good in his natural condition has called forth all the sophistry of hell to palliate this sweeping denunciation. Man believes in his fellow man, but God will not allow that there is anything but evil in him. Man has many names for all his chosen heroes. God has one name for the human race — sinner. It is the portrait of a sinner that God has given us here; and divine photography with infinite exactitude has Forayed the sinner as he is before his God. Man has sinned under law, and he has sinned under grace. He is “born in sin and shapen in iniquity.” Jew and Gentile, “all under sin.” “Every mouth stopped”; —all the world guilty before God.
It is not a question of degrees of guilt, for sin is sin in God’s sight. We measure men by our standards of right and wrong; we say, “he is a good man,” or “he is a bad man,” but God says, “all have sinned.” There is
“None righteous — No, NOT ONE,
None that understandeth,
None that seeketh after God,
None that doeth good — NO, NOT ONE.”
Do you begin to see your likeness now? in what manner you appear before a holy God?
Your throat “is an open sepulcher,” and from that place of death come forth these foul emanations recorded here—deceit, the poison of asps, words like drops of deadly poison distilled in hell, cursing and bitterness; everything that speaks of death as regards holiness and righteousness, nothing for God can come forth from an open sepulcher. And, furthermore, we have other characteristics of the sinner―
Their feet swift to shed blood,
Destruction and misery in their way;
The way of peace have they not known,
No fear of God before their eyes.
From Cain to Caiaphas, and onwards to the present, the feet of the sinner have been “swift to shed blood.” Ten thousand battlefields testify to the truth of this: the blood of millions of martyrs attest the justice of these words. Judas was swift to shed the “innocent blood” when he took the thirty pieces of silver. And in Gethsemane they came to take the Saviour to His death. And at Calvary the multitudes cry, “Crucify! Crucify!” “His blood be upon us and upon our children.” “Swift to shed blood.” And in your heart, sinner, these same evil passions reign, and if you have been kept from shedding blood, it is because of the restraint of a nation’s law upon your life, and the fear of the punishment that would be meted to your crime. But your sins have crucified the Lord; and that holy blood, shed on Calvary on account of you, will either be your salvation or damnation. Think of this in the presence of God now.
(To be continued, D. V.)