Christ, and that is pride. I believe that there are thousands and tens
out of your heart?" She replied, "I am." Then I said, "Kneel down and ask Him;" As she knelt down, and scarcely had her knees touched the floor, when she burst into tears, as she felt the feeling of hate taken away. Are you going to reject Jesus Christ and eternal life for the sake of hating somebody? God have mercy upon you. 6. Selfwill stands between many a person and Christ and eternal life. There are a great many people in this world who are not willing to surrender their wills to anybody, not even to God. They are bound to have their own way. A woman told me that on Friday night. She said, "I cannot give my will up to anybody." What foolishness! Who is this God to whom we ask you to surrender your will? God is love. Is it not wisdom to surrender our wills to infinite love and wisdom? Oh, the folly of those who will not surrender their wills to God and His love. 7. There is one more thing that is keeping people from coming to Jesus Christ, and that is pride. I believe that there are thousands and tens of thousands of people in London tonight that are kept from Him because of the pride in their hearts. Pride manifests itself in many ways. It makes men and women, who have led moral and respectable lives, unwilling to admit that they are lost sinners, and must come into the Kingdom of God through the same door as the thief or the harlot or the drunkard. You will all have to get into the kingdom in that way. Look at Christ's parable of the publican and sinner. First there came the Pharisee to the temple to pray, a moral, upright, prominent citizen. But what is his prayer? It is just a parade of his own virtues. "God, I thank thee, that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I possess." Do you know what Jesus Christ says about him? He says that this man went down to his house unforgiven. Then came the publican an outcast, despised by everybody, but a man who had been brought to the consciousness of his sin. He would not lift up so much as his eyes unto Heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, "God be merciful to me a sinner" the sinner. Do you know what Jesus Christ says? "I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." I believe that very many people are being kept from Christ and eternal life by the pride of their hearts. In Chicago I was once telling the story of a woman who had been away down in sin and been saved; and afterwards a refined lady came to me and said, "You do not mean to say that that woman was saved?" The strange thing was that the lady was a Universalist, and believed that everybody could be saved. I told her "the woman was saved, and what is more, she was saved in precisely the same way that you will be saved if ever you are saved." That is God's truth. Ah! but some of you people are not willing to lay your pride in the dust. You are not willing to throw your pride to the winds, and go to God and seek pardon through the atoning blood of the Son of God. You will never
be saved any other way. A lady once came to me and said, "My Christian experience is not satisfactory." I said, "I don't think you have any Christian experience." "Why," she said, "I have. I am the widow of a minister and a member of a church." "Well," I responded, "I don't think that you ever were saved in your life. No, you never were, for you never saw yourself as a lost sinner in your life." She said, "I never did, because I am not." I replied, "Let me deal frankly with you. You are just full of conceit." Unless God opens your eyes to see that you are not essentially better than the vilest sinner, and unless you come to God and cry for mercy, through the atoning blood of Christ, you will never be saved." She said "You are cruel." "No " I said, "I am kind. You are a physician, I believe?" She replied, "Yes." Then I said, "Suppose a patient had a tumor, and you cut it out to save her life. Would you call that cruel?" "No," she said, "I should say that was the kindest thing I could do." "Well," I said, "you have a tumor. Your pride and conceit are blinding your eyes so that you cannot see that you are a poor, vile, worthless sinner, and Jesus Christ died for you on the Cross." The woman had the good sense at last to see it, but that more than some of you have. I tell you among the people who are in this hall there are a lot of people who are being kept away from Christ by spiritual pride. But pride operates in another way. Oh, that by the help of God I could tear these awful scales from your eyes. Pride makes people set themselves not to do certain things which they are asked to do. I am not coming," they say, "to the meeting," or "I am not going to the front seats," or "I am not going to the inquiry room. A person can be saved without that." They can, beyond a doubt; but if you make it a point that you won't do something of that kind, you won't be saved until you do. In Mr. Finney's day many people found salvation under a certain tree. One prominent man said he would not go out there. It was not necessary, of course. He did all sorts of things, but he would not do that. He got no peace however, and one day he stole out of the town the back way, and made his way to the place where the tree was, and climbed the fence around it. When he went to kneel down the wind shook a leaf and frightened him. But as soon as he knelt down and asked God, He saved him right there. There are some of you men and women like that. Do not misunderstand me. I want to make it as clear as day. It is not necessary for you to do anything except to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but if you say I won't do a thing, you will never be saved until you do. You have got to lay your pride in the dust before you can find Jesus Christ. I remember the first time I went to hold a mission. The last meeting had come, and the last person had stood up, and I got up to dismiss the meeting, when a lady rose. She was the leading society woman in the town. She rose slowly to her feet and said, "Before you dismiss this meeting, may I say something?" And then, turning round to face the audience, she said, "When Mr. Torrey came, I
said he would never get me to stand up, but I now wish to most humbly take it an back, and ask you to pray for me." The power of God fell on that meeting. Some of you men and women think your position in society is too exalted for you to come up to the front with common folks and accept the Saviour just as ordinary men and women do, but if you think that, you will never be saved until you humble your pride in the dust, and are willing to go anywhere to find peace and pardon. Let us throw away everything that stands between us and Jesus Christ. He stands in this building tonight with outstretched hands. Oh, see Him! Hear the tender tones that fall from His lips, the heartbreaking tones: "Ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life." The Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the Cross of Calvary, is standing here, with His thorncrowned brow and pierced hands, saying, "Ye will not come to Me that ye might have life." Men and women rise and say, "I will come, Lord Jesus; I come now." *************************************************************** XIV. WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? "And now why tarriest thou? Arise and be baptized, washing away thy sin, calling on the name of the Lord" (especially the first part of the verse, "Why tarriest thou?").Acts xxii. 16. It was God who asked the question, through His servant Ananias, of Saul of Tarsus; and I believe that God is asking that same question tonight through me of every man and woman and child in this building that is not an openly confessed, outandout follower of Jesus Christ. God is saying to you tonight, "Why tarriest thou? What are you waiting for? Why do you not come out tonight on the side of Jesus Christ?" You remember that Saul of Tarsus hated Jesus Christ Saul of Tarsus thought that Jesus of Nazareth was an impostor; he did not believe that He was the Christ and the Son of God as He claimed to be. But away down in the depths of his heart Saul of Tarsus had an uneasy feeling that perhaps He was the Christ, perhaps He was the Son of God, but he never admitted it even to himself. As far as big admitted convictions were concerned, Saul of Tarsus thought Jesus was an impostor, and he hated Jesus with a very intense hatred; and he said, "I am going to stamp out this religion of the followers of Jesus." And he not only hated Jesus Christ, but he hated everybody that bore the name of Christ, and whenever he saw a man or woman or child that believes in Jesus and followed Him, he hated them. He did everything in his power to stamp out the religion of Jesus. He went from house to house in Jerusalem, and arrested men and women and children, sparing neither age nor sex, and dragged them before the courts to be tried; and when they were sentenced to death, he gave his vote for their execution. But at last Saul of Tarsus had exhausted all the opportunities for murder in Jerusalem, but he had not exhausted the hatred of his heart. He breathed an atmosphere of murder and slaughter, and hearing that a
hundred and more miles away, in the city of Damascus, there were followers of Jesus, he went, with a heart full of hatred, to the High Priest, and said, "Give me letters to Damascus, and I will go and do in Damascus what I have done in Jerusalem. I will arrest all the Christians, whether men or women or children, and I will bring them down here to Jerusalem to be punished." His request was quickly granted. It was a long journey across the barren, desolate, dreary desert, whether on foot or on horseback, but day after day Saul of Tarsus pressed on, not even staying for the burning heart of the noonday sun. At last he has almost reached Damascus, and he stands on the last hilltop, and there Damascus lies before him, in all its beauty, a city of olive groves, a city of vineyards, a city of gardens, and of flashing fountains, a city of glittering palaces and dashing rivers, a city of which poets loved to sing, and of which one Persian poet says, "Damascus is a diamond in a setting of emeralds." But as Saul looks down on Damascus in all its farfamed beauty, he has no eye for its beauty; his only thought is that in that city are some of there accursed Christians, and he adds to himself as he stands there, "I will soon have them in my power, and be dragging them back to be punished at Jerusalem." He starts to press on towards the city, to do the hellish work for which he has come, when suddenly there shines round about him a marvelous light with a brightness about that of the noonday sun, and there in the midst of it he beholds the most wondrous face and form his eyes had ever gazed upon, the face and form of the glorified Christ. He is blinded by the glory of it and falls on his face to the ground. He hears a voice speaking to him, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" and the humbled man cries back from the ground, "Who art Thou, Lord?" and back comes the crushing and overwhelming answer, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest." Men, thoroughly subdued and awed, he cries back, "What wilt Thou have me to do, Lord? " And the answer comes, "Arise, stand upon thy feet, and go into Damascus, and there it shall be told you what thou must do." He rises to his feet, but everything is black. He turns his eyes hither and thither, but he sees nothing. He has to hold out his hand and be led like a helpless child into the city he expected to enter as a conqueror. He goes to the house of Judas, and there for three days and three nights he shuts himself up and sees no one, neither eating, sleeping, nor drinking; but still he does not yield himself up to Christ. At last, God, weary of waiting, sends His servant Ananias with the message, "Why do you not come out openly and confess Him whom you know to be the Christ?" Men and women, God is putting the some question to you: "Why tarriest thou? Why do you not come out openly and accept Christ, and confess Him before the world as your Saviour and Lord and Master?" I wish it were possible for me to go down from this platform, and to go from seat to