True Words for Brave Men | Page 5

us from the power of darkness, and brought us into His kingdom. Through His blood we have redemption and forgiveness--yes! through Him who, though He was laid in a manger, was yet the image of the unseen God. And by Him, and for Him--that Babe of Bethlehem--were all things created in heaven and earth--and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist. All heaven and earth, and all the powers therein, are held together by Him. For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell; and having made peace through the blood of His cross, to reconcile by that child all things unto Himself--all things in heaven--all things in earth."
This should be our boast--this should be our glory--for this do we meet together every Christmas day.
But what is all this to us if that Blessed Man be gone away from us? Our souls want more than I have told you yet. Our souls want more than a beautiful and wonderful story about Christ. They want Christ Himself. Preaching is blessed and useful if it speaks of Christ. Our own thoughts are blessed and useful if we think of Christ. The Bible is most blessed and useful containing all things necessary to salvation, for it speaks of Christ. Our prayers are blessed and useful if in them we call and cry earnestly to Christ. But neither preaching, nor thinking, nor praying are enough. In them we think about Him and speak to Him. But we want Him to speak to us. We want not merely a man to say, your sins may be forgiven you; we want Christ Himself to say, "Your sins are forgiven you." We want not merely a wise book to tell us that the good men of old belonged to Christ's kingdom--we want Christ Himself to tell us that we belong to His kingdom. We want not merely a book that tells us that He promised always to be with us--we want Him Himself to tell us that He is really now with us. We want not merely a promise from a prophet of old that in Him all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, but a sign from Christ Himself that this nation of England is really now blest in Him. In short, we want not words, however true words, however fine words, about Christ. We want Christ Himself to forgive us our sins--to give peace and freedom to our hearts--to come to us unseen, and fill us with thoughts and longings such as our fallen nature cannot give us--such thoughts and feelings as we cannot explain in words, for they are too deep and blessed to be talked about--but thoughts which say to us, as if the blessed Jesus Himself spoke to us in the depths of our hearts, "Poor, struggling, sinful brother! thou art mine. For thee I was born--for thee I died--thee I will teach--I will guide thee and inform thee with mine eye--I will never leave thee nor forsake thee."
Well--you want Him--and you want a sign of Him--a sign of His own giving that He is among you this day--a sign of His own giving that He has taken you into His kingdom--a sign of His own giving that He died for you--that He will feed and strengthen your souls in you with His own life and His own body.
Then--there is a sign--there is the sign which has stood stedfast and sure to you--and to your fathers--and your forefathers before them--back for eighteen hundred years, over half the world. There is the bread of which He said, "Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you." There is the wine of which He said, "This cup is the New Covenant in my blood, which is shed for you, and for many, for the forgiveness of sins." There is His sign. Don't ask how. Don't try to explain it away, and fancy that you can find fitter, and soberer, and safer, and more gospel- sounding words than Jesus Christ's own, by which to speak of His own Sacrament. But say, with the great Queen Elizabeth of old, when men tried too curiously to enquire into her opinion concerning this blessed mystery--
"Christ made the Word and spake it, He took the bread and brake it, And what His Word did make it, That I believe, and take it."
He said, "This bread is my body which was broken for you." He said, "This cup is the New Testament in my blood." Is it? or is it not? And if it is, is not Christ among us now, indeed? Is not that something better than all the preaching in the world? Jesus Christ, the King of kings--the Saviour--the Deliverer--the Lamb of God--the Everlasting Son--the Word--the Light--the