and come into the ark, and so you may gather them all in, you will have them with you when the morning of the Resurrection shall come, and when Christ shall come to make up his jewels? The impression that a praying mother leaves upon her children is life-long. Perhaps when you are dead and gone your prayer will be answered. The other day I read of a mother who died, leaving her child alone and very poor. She used to pray earnestly for her boy, and left an impression upon his mind that she cared more for his soul than she cared for anything else in the world. He grew up to be a successful man in business, and became very well off. One day not long ago, after his mother had been dead for twenty years, he thought he would remove her remains and put her into his own lot in the cemetery, and put up a little monumeut to her memory. As he came to remove them and to lay her away the thought came to him, that while his mother was alive she had prayed for him, and he wondered why her prayers were not answered. That very night that man was saved. After his mother had been buried so long a time, the act of removing her body to another resting place, brought up all the recollections of his childhood, and he became a Christian. O, you mothers! Many of you have children in heaven watching and waiting for you who are still outside of the ark, and you cannot meet your loved ones unless you turn and go in. Oh, for the sake of your own soul, for the sake of these children, for the sake of the Son of God, come into the ark this day. A friend told me of a Christian child who died, whose father and mother were not Christians. When the little thing was dying she called her her and took their hands, and plead Christ, and so meet her in heaven. moments and her dying strength to father and mother to with them to come to She spent her dying plead with her father and mother to come into the ark. I would take the place of your departed ones if I could and speak for them to you to come to Christ. Everything that is pure and holy and lovely is beckoning us to come to that world of peace and joy. THE TWO ADAMS. I WANT to speak to-day upon the subject of the two Adams. Every person in this hall to-day is either in the first or second Adam, and I want for a little while just to draw the contrast between the two Adams. In the first chapter of Genesis, 26th verse, we will find the Lord made the first Adam lord over everything, over creation. They have now in the old country a great many titled men, and a good many whom they call lords. You might say that Adam was the first lord; he was the first man that was lord over creation. God had made him lord, or you might say king, and the whole world was his kingdom. He was the father of all. The second Adam you will find if you turn to the first of Mark. You will see that when Christ commenced his ministry, after He had been baptized by John, He went off into the wilderness, and there He was among the wild beasts for forty days. He was not made lord over everything. He came not as the first Adam did, but He that was rich became poor for our sakes. Then in the second chapter of Genesis, the 17th verse, you will find the first Adam introduces sin into the world. I used to stumble over that verse more than any other verse in the whole Bible. I could not understand how God said Adam should die the day he ate that fruit, and yet he lived a thousand years. I didn't understand then, as I do now, that the life of the body is not anything in comparison with the death of the soul. Adam died in his soul right there and then. Death is just being banished from God's sight; for God is the author of life, and the moment the communication was cut off between Adam and God that was the end of life. It was then "Eat and die." Thank God! It is now eat and live. If we eat of the bread of heaven we shall live forever. Then in the third chapter of the 6th verse God told him not to do it, and when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eye, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. Now, there is the first sin that came into the world. The second Man, instead of yielding to sin-He that knew no sin-became sin for us. The first man brought sin upon us and brought sin into the world, but the second Man, who was without sin, became sin for us. A great many complain because Adam's sin comes down upon the human race all these six thousand years. They seem to think it is unjust in God that Adam's sin should be visited upon the whole human race, but they forget that the very day Adam fell God gave us a Saviour and a way of escape, so that instead of complaining about God being unjust, it seems to me every one of us ought to look on the other side and see what a God of Grace and love we have. God was under no obligations to do that. If it had been any one of us, we would have come down and pulled the rebel from the face of the earth. We would have created another man, it might have been, but God made a way for Adam and all his posterity to be saved. He gave us another man from heaven, and through Him all of us could be saved just by accepting life. Through the disobedience of one many were made sinners, but thank God, through the obedience of another many are made heirs of eternal life. I want every one in this hall 66 to just turn away from this first Adam. He has brought all the misery into this world. It came by Adam's disobedience and transgression. He disobeyed, and sin came, and death came by sin. God's word must be kept, but you turn to the eleventh chapter of John, and you find Christ is the Resurrection and the Life. One brought death, and the other brought immortality to life. If it were not for Christ we could know nothing about resurrection. I pity the poor man who ignores Christ, who rejects the Son of God. What has he got to do at the resurrection? In the third chapter of Genesis the first Adam lost life. In the first chapter of John the second Adam gives it back to us if we will only take it. The gift of God is eternal life and all we have to do is just to take it. All the pain and sickness in this world came by the first Adam, but thank God the second Adam came to bear away our griefs and sorrows. Surely, He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." And you will find in the seventeenth chapter of Matthew that He cures our sicknesses. Now, when the first Adam had done this, had sinned and brought death upon the world, had brought a curse upon it, he ran away and hid in the bushes; but when the second Adam came to take his place and suffer his guilt, instead of hiding away in the bushes of Gethsemane, He came out and said to these men who were seeking for Him, "Whom seek ye?" and they said, "Jesus of Nazareth;" and He answered, 'Here am I." He delivered himself up. The first man was disobedient unto death, but the second man Through the obedience of one, shall be made alive, many shall live forever. Turn back to Corinthians, 15th chapter, 45th verse. That is the most wonderful chapter, almost, in the whole Word of God. You ought to be well acquainted with the fifteenth chapter. And so it is written, "The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last was made a quickening spirit." Now was obedient unto death. many |