But there are a great many of you, my friends, who do not act in that way.  You all want to get the truth, but you want the truth to come to-you; you do not want to go to it.  There are people who fold their arms and say:  “I am ready to become a Christian at any time; if I am to be saved I shall be saved, and if I am to be lost I shall be lost.”  A man who says that and keeps on saying it, will be lost.  Jerusalem will never come to you; you must go to Jerusalem.  The religion of the Lord Jesus Christ will not come to you; you must go and get religion.  Bring out the camels; put on all the sweet spices, all the treasures of the heart’s affection.  Start for the throne.  Go in and hear the waters of salvation dashing in fountains all around about the throne.  Sit down at the banquet—­the wine pressed from the grapes of the heavenly Eschol, the angels of God the cup-bearers.  Goad on the camels; Jerusalem will never come to you; you must go to Jerusalem.  The Bible declares it:  “The Queen of the South”—­that is, this very woman I am speaking of—­“the Queen of the South shall rise up in judgment against this generation and condemn it; for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon:  and, behold! a greater than Solomon is here.”  God help me to break up the infatuation of those people who are sitting down in idleness expecting to be saved.  “Strive to enter in at the strait gate.  Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you.”  Take the Kingdom of Heaven by violence.  Urge on the camels!

Again, my subject impresses me with the fact that religion is a surprise to any one that gets it.  This story of the new religion in Jerusalem, and of the glory of King Solomon, who was a type of Christ—­that story rolls on and on, and is told by every traveler coming back from Jerusalem.  The news goes on the wing of every ship and with every caravan, and you know a story enlarges as it is retold, and by the time that story gets down into the southern part of Arabia Felix, and the Queen of Sheba hears it, it must be a tremendous story.  And yet this queen declares in regard to it, although she had heard so much and had her anticipations raised so high, the half—­the half was not told her.

So religion is always a surprise to any one that gets it.  The story of grace—­an old story.  Apostles preached it with rattle of chain; martyrs declared it with arm of fire; death-beds have affirmed it with visions of glory, and ministers of religion have sounded it through the lanes, and the highways, and the chapels, and the cathedrals.  It has been cut into stone with chisel, and spread on the canvas with pencil; and it has been recited in the doxology of great congregations.  And yet when a man first comes to look on the palace of God’s mercy, and to see the royalty of Christ, and the wealth of this banquet, and the luxuriance of His attendants, and the loveliness of His face, and the joy of His service, he exclaims with prayers, with tears, with sighs, with triumphs:  “The half—­the half was not told me!”