ought not to do—that is the wonder of his
revelation; that is what proclaims him to be the Son
of God and the Son of man. Think, as you sit
here, of anything that you are doing that is wrong,
of any habit of your life, of your self-indulgence,
or of that great, pervasive habit of your life which
makes you a creature of the present instead of the
eternities, a creature of the material earth instead
of the glorious skies. Ask of yourself of any
habit that belongs to your own personal life, and
bring it face to face with Jesus Christ and see if
it is not judged. A judgment day that is far away,
that is off in the dim distance when this world is
done—it shall come, no doubt. I know
none of us can know much with regard to it, except
that it is sure. But the judgment day that is
here now is Christ; the judgment day that is right
close to your life and rebukes you, if you will let
Him rebuke you every time you sin, the judgment day
that is here and praises you and bids you be of good
courage, when you do a thing that men disown and despise,
is Christ. Therefore it is no figure of speech,
it is no mere ecstasy of the imagination of the preacher,
when we say that in the midst of these streets of
ours, more real than the men that walk in them, more
real than the sidewalks that are under our feet, and
the buildings that tower over us, there walks an unseen
presence. An unseen presence? Yes.
Are you and I going to be such creatures of our senses
that we shall not believe that there are powers that
touch us that we cannot see? Am I going to be
so bound down to these poor fingers and to these poor
eyes that I shall know myself in no larger connection
with the great, unseen world? I will not.
No great man, no manly man, has ever allowed such
a limitation of himself. There is the unseen presence
in the midst of our life, and he who will feel it may
feel it, and that unseen presence speaks to him continually.
It knows every one of us. It knows the rich man
and knows what his wealth has made of him. It
knows whether it has made him selfish. Shall
I say it? He, the Christ, the present Christ,
knows whether the rich man’s riches have made
him selfish and base and mean, covetous and poor and
little-souled, or whether he has been glad to rise
to the greatness of his privilege, and be the very
utterance of the beneficence of God upon the earth.
He knows the poor man and his struggles, he knows
the poor man and his self-respect. He speaks
to the poor man’s soul, who has been kept poor
because he will not enter into the baser methods and
motives of our modern life, and is despised, and says
to him, “Be of good courage, for I know what
you are.” He speaks to the poor in distress
and poverty. He speaks to the wretched in their
disappointment and their pain. He is their comforter.
He knows every sin. He knows every sorrow of our
life. He goes, unseen on earth, into the chambers
where the dead lie dead, and where the sick lie dying,
and He speaks His words of consolation, He opens up