By Gipsy Smith
Romans 6:23 -- "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord."
The man who sins, the woman who sins, will have to pay the bill. That is the law of life, as well as the law of God, so be not deceived. God is not mocked.
"Whatsoever a man soweth that also shall he reap." If you sow to the flesh, you will of the flesh reap corruption. If you sow to the Spirit, you will reap life everlasting. You can't do wrong and then live as though nothing had happened. It is absolutely impossible.
A little boy in London was caught trying to kill his baby sister with a pair of scissors. He was trying to cut the throat of his little sister. The mother was so alarmed that she called in a specialist. The specialist said to the little fellow, "Why do you want to hurt your sister?" "I just want to kill some one all the time," was the answer.
The specialist, looking at the father, who was in the room, said, "Do you drink?" He answered, "Occasionally."
"Some day this boy of yours will murder some one and it is because of your drinking," the specialist said. Don't you be deceived -- the wages of sin is death.
A beautiful woman, nearly a life-long friend of mine and of my wife, was taken sick at 8 o'clock one night and was dead at 8 o'clock the next morning. Her husband sent for a specialist as well as the family doctor, for he wanted to find Out all he could even after she was gone. The specialist said to the husband, "What did her mother die of?"
"Pneumonia," was the answer. "And what did her father die of?... Chronic asthma." "Did her father ever drink?" the specialist asked.
"Yes, heavily in his youth," came the answer.
"That was what has killed his daughter," the specialist said.
A husband and father in one of your own cities came to me one day and said, "You are right, the wages of sin is death. I have two lovely daughters. If you saw them out driving, you would think they were beautiful. But both are blind. They are blind through my sin. 'The wages of sin is death.' "
How do you expect to think pure thoughts when you love smutty stories and love to tell them and love to listen to them and are never so happy as when reading filthy, suggestive literature? How can your soul soar in the light when you love the filth of hell?
The wages of sin is death. Don't be deceived, if you will do wrong, it is coming back. You may try to chain up the lion, chain up the tiger within you, and you may think you have, because they behave themselves. But once in a while they get their claws far enough through the bars of the cage to show what they would do if they had their liberty.
The only thing for you to do is to bring that heart to Jesus Christ and let Him clean it for you. You can't live a spiritual life without a spiritual heart. The apostle in this same chapter talks about the marvelous changing grace of Jesus Christ. "Being made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness."
"But now being made free from sin, and become servants of God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life."
If you yield yourself to the world, you are the world's servants. If you yield yourself to false customs, you are the servants of false customs. If you yield yourself to conventionalities, you are the servants of conventionalities. If you yield yourself to the habits of the world, you are the servants of those habits.
If you yield yourself to lust, you are the servant of lust. If you yield yourself to your appetite, you are the servant of your appetite. If you yield yourself to Jesus Christ, you are the servant, the slave, -- no, I want to change that word -- you are the free man of the Son of God.
Where are you this morning? What are you following? Whose property are you? What is your life-what kind of a life are you living? Is it the life of Christ, or are you held down by the bondage of the Devil? If you are, there is One who can emancipate you and make you a free man this morning in Christ Jesus.
Jesus Christ can save you; that is my message. For I believe in a full Christ. I do not believe in a mutilated Christ. I believe in the Christ of Bethlehem, but I also believe in the Christ of the great White Throne. I believe in the Christ from the cross, the Christ of the open grave. I believe in the Christ from the heart of the Eternal God from all eternity. I preach God's Christ, God's Son and Saviour of the world.
I wonder if you mutilate Christ. He can't save anybody who limits Him and specifies boundaries for Him and mutilates Him. The Christ I am preaching is the Christ of the New Testament. It is the Christ of the ages.
And I can have no fellowship, my brother, with any man who denies my Christ, the royal Christ. And Jesus is what He says He is, or He is the biggest liar the world ever knew. I take Him for the Saviour of the world. I accept Him as the Prince of Peace, my Saviour, my Lord and my God. That is the Christ I am preaching because that is the Christ the world needs. Oh I that we might obey Him!
I know only a Saviour who saves to the uttermost and I don't care what your sin is, if you will bring it to Christ, you will find Him mighty to save. He will blot out your past and He will see you in the Beloved this morning, a new creature. That is the gospel. That is God's gift -- Christ; God's gift to us. The bleeding Christ; He was God's gift to a lost world and there is no other message that the world cares for, and anything less than that is only a tantalization and an insult to its needs.
And you who are preachers, you and I, have got the greatest job and the greatest privilege the world ever saw, to preach Christ to its hungry heart. God help us to do it!
And we must know the real Jesus Christ before we can pass Him on to the world. To know God's gift of life eternal and to be able to interpret that gift to the world is one of the greatest honors, if not the greatest, that can come to a human soul, for the gift of God is eternal life.
A preacher friend of mine, whose name some of you know, was the first man called to succeed Henry Ward Beecher when he passed away in Brooklyn. He was Dr. Charles Berry, a young Congregationalist minister.
When Dr. Berry received the call, he said to me, "Mr. Smith, almost anybody can jump into Beecher's shoes, but it is not everybody who can wear his hat. If I went over there I should be known as Henry Ward Beecher's successor. If I stay here I shall be known as somebody's predecessor. And I have decided to stay."
One night my young friend, in his first pastorate was sitting in his study, with his house slippers on, and thinking. It was after 12 o'clock and he was very cozy. Presently the bell rang and he went to the door. At the door stood a typical Lancashire girl with a shawl over her head and clogs on her feet.
"Are you a minister?" she asked. "Yes," he answered.
"You must come with me quickly; I want you to get my mother in."
And in telling the story to Dr. Jowett and me later, he said that he naturally thought the mother was intoxicated and that aid was needed to get her home.
"Why, you must go and get a policeman," he said to her.
"My mother is dying," she said, "and I must bring you to get her into heaven."
"Where do you live?" and she named a place that was about a mile and a half away.
"Isn't there a minister nearer that you can get?" he asked. "Yes, but I want you, and you must come. My mother is dying."
And he stood hesitating, for he thought, what would the people think of a minister going through the streets with a girl dressed as she was dressed and with a shawl over her head, and he was wondering whether he should go.
But the girl took hold of his arm, and said, "Oh, man of God, make haste; my mother is dying."
"I went with her," he said, "and the house where she lived was a house of shame. Downstairs there was rowdyish singing and dancing and upstairs a woman was dying. And when I got to her bedside I began to talk to her of what I believed. I told her of Jesus, the example, the teacher, but she tossed about on her pillow, like a ship in a storm."
"Mister," she cried, "that is no use for the likes of me. I am a sinner. I have lived my life. Can't you tell me of somebody who can have mercy upon me and save my poor soul?"
"I stood in the presence of the dying woman and I had nothing to tell her. In the midst of sin and death I had no message and I was up against it. And in order to bring something to that dying woman, I jumped back to my mother's knee, to my cradle faith, and began with the story of the cross and the Christ, who was able to save unto the uttermost."
And she looked through her tears, and said, "Now you are getting at it. Now you are helping me."
"I told her the story and got her in, and, blessed be God, I got in myself."
The Christ of the text is Jesus Christ, the gift of God. He is the Saviour who saves to. the uttermost and He can save you. How do I know? He saved me, and He can save you. Try Him, test Him, put Him to the proof. In these glorious days, put Him to the test. "The gift of God is eternal life," and that gift is Christ. For he that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son, hath not life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.
