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About The Henry County weekly. (McDonough, GA.) 18??-1934 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 27, 1907)
THE PULPIT. AN ELOQUENT SUNDAY SERMON BY THE REV. A. B. SIMPSON. Subject: The Gospel of Tears. New York City.—The famous head of the Christian Alliance, tLe Rev. A. B. Simpson, on Sunday preached a notable sermon, having for its subject “The Gospel of Tears.” The texts were: Jesus wept.—John 11:35. And when He was come near He beheld the city, and wept over it.—• Luke 19:41. Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and sup plications with strong crying and t r ars unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared.—Heb. 5:7. Who has not wept? Weeping we begin life as helpless babes and, amid the tears of mourning friends, we pass out to the grave. Tears are the badges of sorrow. How can they be ♦he expression of the Gospel, the glad tidings of great joy and divine love? And yet redemption has trans formed the curse into a blessing and made a rainbow of our tears. “Jesus wept.” This little phrase, the shortest in the Bible, has more in it than all the books that man has written. A single drop of ink could write it, but all the world could not contain its depths of love. It tells me that my Redeemer is human. Tears are human and the tears of Jesus proclaim Him my Brother and my Friend. He is the great heroic Head of our fallen race. One has come to us who is “bone of our bone” and “flesh of our flesh" and has the right to represent who is able to right our wrongs and recover our lost heritage of happiness and blessing. When God determined to save this fallen world, He did not send some mighty angel. He did not come in His own awful deity; but He stooped to become a man that He might meet us in a gentle human form of which i we should not be afraid. How the Roman Catholic clings to the tender sympathy of the virgin mother, but we do not need even woman’s tender ness to introduce us to the Father’s heart; for Jesus/Christ, our Saviour, has a heart both of woman and of man. He has been an infant child like us. He has traversed every stage of the pilgrimage of man from the cradle to the grave. He has been everywhere that we have been. He has felt everything that we can feel. I He knows our nature. He bears our name. He wears our humanity. And for evermore the Head of this uni verse, the King of Kings, the Lord of angels shall be a Man like us, our Friend “that sticketh closer than a brother. ” Oh, what a gospel of comfort we find in the humanity of Christ. You can corr.e to Him to-night, as you would to the gentlest friend, the most Intelligent father, the noblest man you ever knew; and though we have sinned and gone far astray, “He is not ashamed to call us brethren.” They tell us that He is able to sym pathize with our sorrows. He wept those tears for others. He saw two breaking hearts before Him. He felt their agony! He groaned in spirit and was troubled and at last He broke down altogether and burst into a flood of tears. How we thank Him for those tears. , This salvation is not all for the pearly gates,,the streets of gold and the glorious Heaven that is coming bye and bye. We need a lot of it down here ,in this broken-hearted world amid our poverty and pain, our sickness and death,our broken friend f hips, our wrecked homes, our wrongs and sorrows and, thank God, He has it for us. He has experienced it and He has not forgotten it and still in His heavenly home we are told “He is able to be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” He was a child and has felt every childish sorrow. He had the hard struggle to support His mother at Nazareth and He knows all about hard work and hard times. He was despised and scorned and He under stands the sense of wrong and sting of insult. He was deceived, betrayed aud murdered and there is no wrong or insult can come to us that He has not borne and is still ready to bear for us. Yes, He has felt the awful weight of sin, for there was an hour when Ho sank under His Father’s wrath in punishment for the sins of men. He knows the cloud of spir itual darkness. He knows the weak ness and agony of death and He is with us in it all. Blessed Friend, bow we thank God for Christ and what a gospel of love and sympathy and help speaks to us through the tears of Bethany. The tears of Jesus tell us that He understands our danger, our destiny and otir estate. He shed those tears over the grave of Lazarus. They meant much more than a sense of be reavement. He was not weeping be cause He had lost Lazarus. He was not weeping because the sisters at Bethany had lost their brother. He knew that Lazarus was coming forth again in a little while and that the sorrow would be forgotten in the glad reunion. Oh, no, He saw deeper than that. He saw in the grave of Lazarus every grave that had been opened and filled through earth's forty cen turies and that would be filled in the twenty centuries that have passed since then. He saw all the horrors and agonies of the battlefield, the ocean wreck, the lingering deathbed, the scourge of famine and pestilence and the ravages of the king of terrors with the millions and billions of vic tims that he has smitten in the past six thousand years; and as He saw it all, realized it all, and the vision loomed in lurid horror before His Omniscient eye, He realized the fear ful curse of sin and His heart broke down in agony and sorrow. Nay more, He saw a sadder sight. He saw a deeper grave. He saw the eternal grave beyond all, that we be hold in death. He saw the death that never dies; the fire that never is quenched; the yawning gulf of end less woe into which the sinful soul must sink forever. It was the sight of that horror that had brought Him from Heaven to earth. It was the thought of man perishing in ever lasting darkness that had made Him glad to live and suffer and die, and as it all rose before Him as through a glass in the tomb of Lazarus “Jesus wept. ” Oh, that we might realize it a 3 He did. Did Christ o’er sinners weep And shall our tears be dry? Christ never thought or spake of eternal punishment in cold, hard words. He did it with a breaking heart. He did it with tenderness and tears, but none the less He did it; for none knew so well as He that eternal sin must bring eternal hell and that all we know and fear of death is but a paradise compared with that second death— * * * * whose pang Outlasts the fleeting breath; Oh, what eternal horrors hang Around the second death. The tears of Jesus teli us of His atonement. He did not cotfle down to earth to weep in helpless sorrow but to rise in almighty strength against our doom —and rescue us from it. When Hercules came to the place where the helpless virgin lay bound upon the rock and the dragon was coming to devour her, her parents and all around were frantic with tears, but Hercules cried, “This is no time for tears; this hour is for res cue,” and he slew the dragon and saved the maiden. So Jesus came, not merely to weep but to help, and by His own tears and His own agony and His own blood to meet our peril and our penalty and save us from eternal sorrow. And so we read of another instance of His tears in Heb. 5:7. These were the tears of Gethsemane and the an guish of His passion. These were the tears that we deserved to shed. These were the pains that we deserved to suffer. But as our great Substitute and Sacrifice, He bore our sins in His own body on the tree, and having paid the penalty and satisfied the claims of justice, He comes in the glad message of the Gospel to an nounce our pardon and salvation. O Christ, what burdens bowed Thy head; Our load was laid on Thee; Thou stoodest in the sinner’s stead, Didst bear all sin for me; Jehovah lifted up His rod, O Christ, it feil on Thee: Thou wast sore stricken of Thy God, Thy bruising healeth me. Hindu mythology has a strange tale typical of the atonement, the story of a dove pursued by a hawk until in desperation it flung itself into the bosom of Vishnu, one of their deities. But the hawk demanded sat isfaction, declaring that the dove was her lawful prey and that Vishnu must not only be merciful to the dove but just to its claims. Then Vishnu, hold ing the trembling dove in her bosom, bared her breast and bade the hawk devour of her own living flesh as much as would compensate for the dove, while all the time the dove lay fluttering there and knowing the fear ful cost of her deliverance. Yes, we are safe within His bosom, but oh, the cost to Him. “He saved us, Him self He could not save.” He wipes away our tears, but in order to do this He had to weep when there was no eye to pity and no arm to save. Don’t you think the least that you could do would be to thank Him and give Him your heart, your love, your grateful tears? We have yet one more picture, Luke 19:41. He was entering Jeru salem from Olivet. He had just turned that point where the whole city suddenly bursts upon the trav eler’s view. As He gazed upon it in its singular beauty, there arose be hind the scene another vision that a few years later was to fill all that valley: a city besieged, cruel Roman legions around on every hill top, the narrowing cordon of destruction, a breach at last in the walls of defense, the breaking in of the brutal con queror, the streets running with blood, the Temple rising in smoke and flames, the shrieks of mothers, maidens and little children in the cruel grasp of the conqueror, and then, a long train of captives going forth to distant lands while behind them lay a plowed held of desolation where once their beautiful city had been. And as He saw it all and how it might have been prevented if they had only received Him, He cried, “If i thou hadst known even now in this thy day the things that belong to thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes.” It was too late; but even yet He had for them His tears. These tears tell us of Christ’s com passion. They tell us how He longs to save. They tell us that He is here to night with infinite pity and power to l wipe away your tears, to wash away your sins and make you happy and holy through His love. But they tell us also that if you re fuse and reject Him. there may come a time, there will come a time, when He can do nothing for you but weep. They tell of a judge before whom was brought for punishment his old est friend. As he stood up to pro nounce the sentence upon him, the memory of their boyhood days to gether came upon the judge’s heart with overwhelming force and he broke out in floods of weeping. “My friend,” he said, “how can I, by a single word, consign you to a felon's cell and a life of banishment front home and friends and all that earth holds dear? But I am a judge and must be just. Why did you force me to do this thing?” And they wept to gether, but it was too late to save him from his fate. From that scene of weeping, he went forth a doomed, ruined man to spend his day 3 in fruit less tears. Oh, sinner, beware! lest some day on the Throne of Judgment you look in the face of a weeping Saviour and hear Him say: “How often would I have gathered you even as hen doth gather her brood under her wings and ye would not. Oh, that thou hadst known the thing. 3 that belong to thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes. ” SMALL PART OF BOOTY RECOVERED Letten’s Wife and Son Come Across With Over $6,000. The recovery in cash of over $6,- 000, alleged to be part of the $116,- 000 stolen from the state by Tax Clerk Charles E. Letten, was announced by the police in New Orleans Saturday. Letten’s son George was arrested when he arrived in the city from a nearby town and admitted that he has $2,001 which his father game him recently. He promised to give the money up. No charge was made against him. The police announce also that the tax clerk’s wife gave Mm $4,038 in bills which she had drawn from a bank. The tax clerk in his confession said e gave nearly all the money he stole to Virginia Reed, a negress. Legal proceedings are under way to recovei money from her. JAMESTOWN Ter-Centennial Exposition April t November, 1907. Exceedingly low rates have been authorized by the Southern Railway to Norfolk, Va., and return, account Jamestown Ter-Centennial Expos! tion. Stopovers will be allowed on sea son, sixty day and fifteen day tickets, same as granted on summer tourist lickets. Tickets will be sold daily commencing April 19th, to and moul ding November 30th, 1907. The Southern .Railway is taking a very great interest in this exposition and doing everything within their power to promote its welfare for ihe reason that it is located on historic and southern grounds, and has evi denee of being one of the most import ant and attractive affairs of this kind that has ever been held. Through train service and sleeping car service to Norfolk during the ex position has not yet been announced, but it is expected that most excel lent schedules will be put in effect so as to make the trip comfortable and satistoctory in every way. Fuil and complete information will be cheerfully furnished upon applica tion to any ticket agent of the South era Railway company. r; A“Bilious Attack.” Symptoms. Sour stomach, nasty taste in mouth, sick headache, sallow complex ion, the world your enemy. Cause. Constipation, inact ive liver, overflow of bile into the system. Relief. Treatment for two Rights before retiring with and TONIC PELLETS One a night, don’t worry, sleep well and Nature’ll do the rest. Entire Treatment 2 5 Cts. LOCUST GROVE DRUG CO. and get yom money back if not satisfied. Sample tube and Booklet by mail ioc. BROWN MF’G CO , St. Louis. M«. R. O. JACKSON, Attorney-at- Law, McDonough, ga. Office over Star Store. E. M. SHITH, Attorney at Law, Me Donctnw, Ga. Office over Star Store, south side square. All work carefully and promptly attended to. IST' Am premared to negotiate loans on real estate. Terms easy. HELP IS OFFERED TO WORTHY YOUNG PEOPLE Wc earnestly request all you ns persons, no matter how limited their means or education, who wish to obtain a thorough business training and good posi tion. to w-rite by first mail for our groat half-rat, offer. Success, independenceand probable fortune are guaranteed. Don’t delay. Write today. The Ga.-Ala. Dullness College, Macon, Ga. VERY LOW RATES TO NORFOLK, VA., AND RETURN Account Jamestown Ter-CentenniaJ Exposition VIA Southern Railway Season, 6o day and 15 day tickets on sale daily commen cing April 19th, to and including November 30th, 1907. Stop Overs will be allowed on Season, Sixty-day and fifteen-day tickets, same as on Summer Tourist Tickets. For full and complete information call on Tioket Agents Southern Railway, or write : For rates, routes and schedules or any infor mation, address, C. R. PETIT, Trav. Pass. Agent Macon. Ga. JOHN B. WATKINS, VETERNARY SURGEON, Office at flack Goodwin’s stables below county jail. Office hours: 1.30 to 2.30 p. m., Friday, Saturday and Sunday. All calls promptly attended to. Office Phone 44; Residence Phone 131, Jackson, Ga. FOR SALE-LOTS IN LOCUST GROVE, GA. 1 Acre, $l5O. Dicken Street 165 ft iront, 500 ieet Irom Southern Railway depot. I*4 Acres, SSOO. Clevelrnd Street 100 ft front, facing Railway Crossing. 400 feet from Southern Railway depot. JOHN S. CLEATOM, 408-9 Peters Bldg, Atlant a ■ FIR,ST AND LAST „ A j Mean $ $ made to all who 1 buy or wear them. In style,! ease and durability, “Shield Brand Shoes” ] toe the mark of perfection. ®OLD BY RELIABLE MERGHAMTB ONLY I t M. C. KESER CO., Manufacturers.'J ATLANTA, CA. Atlanta, Oct. 10th to 26th inclusive | jw “The Sport of Kings” 'll (I Each clay there will be five intensely thrilling running races. This ex- |t| JrttfX hibition of speed and courage of horse flesh will bring together many of ill the most noted running horses of America. pi sJbp $lO,OOO in Prizes — ls County Exhibits JHi iff! . Wednesday. Oct. 16th, will be FARMERS'UNION DAY. This will be a mil I banner day—magnificent dtsnlays ot every conceivable piece of agricultural «1 tii 1 * * ,r * ze ’ w * im * n S> ilve stock, poultry and farm products will bo at Yfil J V The Midway ~r7\ fI P Grand and gorgeous side shows; bewildering, entertaining and instructive, t/fllf 1# exhibiting the queer people of the Orient and Occident, the reproduction of a gold mine i;i operation; these, and many more, will create unlimited mer- Reduced Rates gtj all Railroads JLj. 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