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HOSOEVER heareth these sayings of
mine and doeth them I will liken him
unto a wise man who built his house
g
upon a rock and the rain descended and
the winds blew and beat upon that house and
it fell not, for it was founded upon a. rock,
and everyone that heareth these sayings of
mine and doeth them not shall be likened unto
a foolish man that built his house upon the
sand and the rain descended and the floods
came and the winds blew and beat upon that
house and it fell, and great was the fall of
it.” Matt. 7:24-27.
Making a life is more than making a living.
Making a living means getting on in the world,
by industry and economy, it may be by talent
or genius, excelling others in obtaining a posi
tion, making what we call a success of life
Much of that can be done by the life itself,
by the character, according as it is made or
marred. So that every young person must de
cide or ought to decide as to whether he or
she shall set out to make a life primarily or
simply to make a living. To be content to
get on in the world until you have to leave
it, or will you lay your foundation deeper and
broader so that in the largest and highest sense
you can say when life closes and eternity be
gins, ‘• I have lived, not simply existed. I have
lived in the sense that God intends I should
live.” Millions make a wreck of it. But suc
cess can be brought out of failure. If we
have wrecked we can still restore and make a
life.
There are two great things in this text.
Building. Testing. Building a character.
Building a life. And then God’s methods of
testing the building after it has been erected.
Here are two men, one sought a foundation
upon a rock and built well. Another sought
or was willing to build a foundation upon the
sand. And he seems to have built firmly, but
when the testing time came the foundation gave
way and the house with it.
There are six bases of life. First is the mere
physical. Here is a man who determines to be an
athlete ,a champion athlete. He denies him
self things that he craves. He works with
great energy. He exercises. Simply with a
view to develop muscle, nerve and bone, and
he makes a splendid animal.
There is another class who makes intellect
the basis of life. He does not care much for
the body perhaps, but the mind must be sup
plied with knowledge, the memory cultivated,
the reason trained, all the faculties of the soul
must be brought into play, each one relating
to the other, and thus build up a strong intel
lectual man very much higher than the for
mer.
Here is another man who takes the moral
basis. His relation to the people about him.
He adopts the golden rule, ‘‘Do unto others
as you would that they should do to you.” He
is honest, he never cheats. He is truthful,
he never lies. He is just. He keeps the Ten
.Commandments as the young man did who
jcame to the Lord Jesus. And he is building
:his house, his character on a basis higher still
jthan the physical or the intellectual.
1 Here is another who builds upon the social
? basis. He finds himself in the midst of other
I people, and he thinks that the greatest pur
pose in life is to rise socially, to make himself
<a position in life that shall command the re-
MAKING A LIFE
A Sermon by DR. A. C. DIXON, Metropolitan Tabernacle, London, England
THE GOLDEN AGE FOR WEEK OF AUG. 21
spect of the highest social circle. He believes
that is the height of ambition, to rise above
his fellows socially. He cultivates the amen
ities of life. Uses his money and his energy
and everything he possesses for the purpose
of advancing his social position. He loves so
ciability. He is a winsome man, a man of good
cheer, carries a smile with him wherever he
goes, a man you love to meet. Ido not say he
has built higher than the intellectual or moral,
but higher than the physical.
Here is another who builds on the utilitar
ian view of life: Whatever is useful is right.
\\ hatever does good for people, to help them
physically, is right. That may be really a
higher basis than the others. A desire to
do good, to help the man that is down, to get
hold of the lad and give him a training, to
help educate the ignorant, to build the tene
ment house, solving as far as possible the
problem of poverty. Back of all there may
be a very noble movement.
Then there is another that makes the re
ligious basis a foundation. He finds himself
a religious being. He is so naturally. He
worships. There is not a man on earth that
does not worship. If he refuses to worship
God he worships himself or somebody else or
something else. It is his nature to worship.
And sometimes people decide to cultivate the
religious life. They go apart. They put them
selves in a cell. They study religious books,
meditate upon religious things. They develop
their religious nature, neglecting the moral.
ou can do it. You can cultivate the relig
ious and let the moral go. It is not exaggera
tion to say it, but the wickedest men I have
ever met are religious from head to foot. That
old Pharisee who came into the temple and
thanked God that he was not as other men
was brimful of religion. Your religious na
ture will either lift or sink you. If you link
it with God it will lift you. If with the world
about you and your selfishness and sin, it will
sink you. Building on the religious nature
does not necessarily lift.
That brings me to the last, the one who
builds upon the spiritual basis. “He that
heareth my words and doeth them.” More
than physical, intellectual, moral, social, relig
ious, is this spiritual basis, because it is given
of God. And I want to say to you young men
and women, make up your minds that you are
going to have in your character this spiritual
basis. That you will get right with God. And
first of all the sin question has to be settled,
the alienation from all that is right and true
has to be settled. Stand by the cross on the
hill outside the city where Jesus bore the guilt
of this world and look up into the marred face
and believe that your guilt has been borne, that
the sin question for you has been settled.
If you make a life that is real, that is noble,
that is inspiring, that will help others, you
must not live to self. Crucify self. Go down
in the grave with him. Let self be buried.
Come out a spiritual man by living with Christ
and for Christ and for humanity. Just as we
crucify self and live not unto self, but unto
Christ and for humanity we are making a life
that is worth living. Just as we become self
centered by enriching ourselves, by making
ourselves happy at the expense of others, we
are wrecking life. Ye are the light of the
world. And we become light by the process of
self-combustion.
It is a narrowing process. This figure in the
text is a narrow one. “Narrow is the gate
that leadeth unto life, broad is the way that
leadeth to destruction.” Now men and women
listen. God help you never to forget it. If
you make a life that will stand all rain and
flood and wind that will come, you must be
content to be narrow. Just as narrow as God.
As narrow as the ten Commandments. As nar
row as purity, honesty, chastity, truth. I know
I am striking a popular creed. We are told
we must not be narrow. Take the testimony
of a farmer’s boy from one of the Western
states of America. The only son of the farmer,
a friend used his influence and secured a good
position for him in the great city of New York.
He went. He lived there two years a Chris
tian farmers boy. I love to look at your art
galleries and statues. But more beautiful than
art galleries and statues and things of histori
cal interest is a boy that comes from a farm
in a Christian home and stays Christian for
more than two years in London. A boy who
has the wit and grace and grit to be Chris
tian in the midst of young men who are wild.
That boy went to church, to Sunday school,
read his Bible, said his prayers, and lived a
Christian life. As the annual races in New
Jersey approached one of the boys said to him,
“Let’s go to the races?” He said, “I don’t
drink. I don’t gamble. I don't swear. I
don’t smoke. I am sure I shall be out of
place.” “Oh,” they said, “You come, let’s
get the fresh air, you need not do any of those
things.” Next morning on the way to the
races a middle aged woman sat behind three
young men. She heard them talking in a
sneering way. One of them said to our Chris
tian friend, who was the third, “Does your
mother know you’re out. You are tied to your
mother’s apron strings. I would not be a baby
or a milksop.” This Christian friend picked
himself up and said, “Boys, I told you I did
not swear or drink. I am going home.” He
went to the door, and the others followed him
swearing. The Christian woman said. “God
bless you, some mother’s boy. I don’t know
who she is, but she would be thankful.” The
train rolled on, and that young man went
back to New York. He told a friend what he
saw and felt as he stood waiting for his train.
He said, “There came before my mind a vis
ion of the scene of the early morning in the
farmhouse. Mother getting breakfast. Father
getting the horse and brake to take me to the
station. I am nervous, restless. By and by
breakfast is ready, but nobody wants to eat.
Then father takes up the old family Bible
and laid it down on the white tablecloth and
read one of the Psalms. Then we knelt round
the table and mother prayed, and such a
prayer! She told God her boy was going
to the wicked city of New York, and “Wilt
thou keep him faithful to his parents Bible
and his parent’s God.” Her closing words
have been my watchword. “God make him as
narrow as his mother’s virtue and his fathers’
honesty. ’ ’
Will you help lighten our burdens by send
ing your renewal before September first?