Rev. L. K. Peacock, One of Mr. Sunday's Assistants, Preaching in a Machine Shop in One of the Noonday Meetings that Form an Important Part of All Campaigns.
Supposing a man owed you $5,000 and he had nothing to pay it with. You would seize him and put him in jail, and supposing while there, your own son would come and say: "Father, how much does he owe you?" "Five thousand dollars." And your son would pay it and the man would be released.
Ah, my friends, hear me! We were all mortgaged to God, had nothing with which to pay, and inflexible justice seized upon us and put us in the prison of condemnation. God took pity on us. He looked around to find some one to pay our debts. Jesus Christ stepped forward and said: "I'll go; I'll become bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh." God gave man the Mosaic law. Man broke the law.
If a Jew violated the law he was compelled to bring a turtle dove, or pigeon, or heifer, or bullock to the high priest for a sacrifice, and the shedding of its blood made atonement for his sins. Once a year the high priest would kill the sacrifice, putting it on the altar. That made atonement for the sins of the people during the year. Then they would put their hand on the head of the scape-goat, and lead it out into the wilderness.
The Atonement of Christ
Jesus Christ came into the world, born of a woman. When he shed his blood, he made atonement for our sins. God says, "If you will accept Jesus Christ as your Saviour, I will put it to your credit as though you kept the law." And it's Jesus Christ or hell for every man or woman on God Almighty's dirt. There is no other way whereby you can be saved. It's good news that you don't have to go to hell, unless you want to.
When the North German Lloyd steamer, the Elbe, went down in the North Sea, years and years ago, only nineteen of her passengers and crew were saved. Among them was a county commissioner who lived in Cleveland, Ohio, and when he reached the little English town he sent a cablegram to his wife, in which he said, "The Elbe is lost; I am saved." She crumpled that cablegram, ran down the street to her neighbors, and as she ran she waved it above her head and cried, "He's saved! He's saved!" That cablegram is framed, and hangs upon the walls of their beautiful Euclid Avenue home. It was good news to her that he whom she loved was saved.
Good news I bring you. Good news I bring you, people. You need not go to hell if you will accept the Christ that I preach to you.
"What shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel?" And the gospel of God is, "Repent or you will go to hell." "What shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel?" What is the gospel, and what is it to obey the gospel? We have seen that it is good news; now what is it to obey? What was it for Israel to obey? Look at the brazen serpent on the pole. What was it for Noah to obey? Build the ark and get into it. What was it for Rahab to obey? Hang a scarlet line out of the window, and God would pass her by when he took the city of Jericho. All that was obeying. It was believing God's message and obeying.
Ah! I see a man. He walks to the banks of the Seine, in Paris, to end his life. He walked to the bank four times, but he didn't plunge in. He filled a cup with poison, three times raised it to his lips, but he did not drink. He cocked the pistol, put it against his temple. He did that twice, but he didn't pull the trigger. He heard the story of Jesus Christ and dropped on his knees, and William Cowper wrote: