Speaker 1: Saying, what think ye of Christ? Whose son is he?
Speaker 2: They say? Unto him?
Speaker 1: The Son of David Matthew twenty two forty two, first
published by Drummonds Tract Depot, Stirling, Scotland. Christmas is a
season which almost all Christians observe in one way or another.
Some keep it as a religious season, some keep it
as a holiday. But all over the world, wherever there
are Christians, in one way or another, Christmas is kept.
Perhaps there is no country in which Christmas is so
much observed as it is in England. Christmas holidays, Christmas parties,
Christmas family gatherings, Christmas services and churches, Christmas hymns and carols,
Christmas holly and misseltoe. Who has not heard of these things?
They are as familiar to English people as anything in
our lives. They are among the first things we remember
when we were children. Our grandfathers and grandmothers were used
to them long before we were born. They have been
going on in England for many hundred years. They seem
likely to go on as long as the world stands.
But reader, how many of those who keep Christmas ever
consider why Christmas is kept? How many, in their Christmas
plans and arrangements. Give a thought to him, without whom
there would have been no Christmas at all. How Many, ever,
remember that the Lord Jesus Christ is the cause of Christmas.
How Many ever, reflect that the first intention of Christmas
was to remind Christians of Christ's birth and coming into
the world. Reader, how is it with you? What do
you think of at Christmas? Bear with me a few
minutes while I try to press upon you the question
which heads this tract. I do not want to make
your Christmas merriment less. I do not wish to spoil
your Christmas cheer. I only wish to put things in
their right places. I want Christ himself to be remembered
at Christs. Give me your attention while I unfold the question.
What think ye of Christ? One? Let us consider firstly
why all men ought to think of Christ? Two, let
us examine secondly the common thoughts of many about Christ.
Three let us count up lastly the thoughts of true
Christians about Christ. Reader, I dare say, the demands upon
your time this Christmas are many, Your holidays are short.
You have friends to see, you have much to talk about.
But still, in the midst of all your hurry and excitement.
Give a little time to your soul. There will be
a Christmas some year when your place will be empty.
Before that time comes, suffer me as a friend to
press home on your conscience the inquiry, what think ye
of Christ? One? First, then let us consider why all
men ought to think of Christ? This is a question
which to be answered at the very outset of this tract.
I know the minds of some people when they are
asked about such things as I am handling today. I
know that many are ready to say, why should we
think about Christ at all? We want meat and drink,
and money, and clothes and amusements. We have no time
to think about these high subjects. We do not understand them.
Let parsons and old women and Sunday school children mind
such things if they like. We have no time in
a world like this to be thinking of Christ. Such
is the talk of thousands in this country. They never
go either to church or chapel. They never read their Bibles.
The world is their god. They think themselves very wise
and clever. They despise those whom they call religious people.
But whether they like it or not, they will all
have to die one day.
Speaker 2: They have all souls to be lost or saved.
Speaker 1: In the world to come, they will all have to
rise again from their graves and to have a reckoning
with God. And shall their scoffing and contempt stop our
mouths and make us ashamed? No, indeed, not for a moment.
Listen to me, and I will tell you why all
men ought to think of Christ. Because of the office
Christ fills between God and man. He is the eternal
son of God through whom alone the Father can be known, approached,
and served. He is the appointed mediator between God and man,
through whom alone we can be reconciled with God, pardoned, justified,
and saved. He is the divine person whom God the
Father has sealed to be the giver of everything that
man requires for his soul. To him are committed the
keys of death and hell. In his favor is life.
In him alone, there is hope of salvation for mankind.
Without him, no child of Adam can be saved. Quote
other foundation can no man lay than that is laid,
which is Jesus Christ. He that hath the Son hath life,
And he that hath not the Son of God hath
not life. End. First Corinthians three eleven first John five twelve,
and ought not man to think of Christ. Shall God
the Father honor him, and shall not man. I tell
every reader of this tract that there is no person,
living or dead, of such immense importance to all men
as Christ. There is no person that men ought to
think about so much as Christ. All men ought to
think of Christ because of what Christ has done for
all men. He thought upon man when man was lost,
bankrupt and helpless by the fall and undertook to come
into the world to save sinners. In the fullness of time.
He was born of the virgin Mary and lived for
man thirty three years in this evil world. At the
end of that time, he suffered for sin on the
cross as man substitute. He bore man's sins in his
own body and shed his own life blood to pay
man's debt to God. He was made a curse for
man that man might be blessed. He died for man
that man might live. He was counted a sinner for
man that man might be counted righteous. And ought not
man to think of Christ. I tell every reader of
this tract that if Christ had not died for us,
we might all of us for anything we know be
lying at this moment in hell, all men ought to
think of Christ because of what Christ will yet do
to all men. He shall come again one day to
this earth with power and glory, and raise the dead
from their graves. All shall come forth at his bidding.
Those who would not move when they heard the church
going bell shall obey the voice of the archangel.
Speaker 2: And the trump of God.
Speaker 1: He shall set up his judgment seat and summon all
mankind to stand before it to him. Every knee shall bow,
and every tongue shall confess that he is Lord. Not
one shall be able to escape that solemn assize, not
one but shall receive it the mouth of Christ, an
eternal sentence. Every one shall receive, according to what He
has done in the body, whether it be good or bad.
And ought not men to think of Christ. I tell
every reader of this tract that whatever he may choose
to think now, a day is soon coming when his
eternal condition will hinge entirely on his relations to Christ.
Speaker 2: But why should I say more on this subject?
Speaker 1: The time would fail me if I were to set
down all the reasons why all men ought to think
of Christ. Christ is the grand subject of the Bible.
The scriptures testify of him. Christ is the great object
to whom all the churches in Christendom profess to give honor.
Even the worst and most corrupt branches of it will
tell you that they are built on. Christ is the
end and substance of all sacraments and ordinances. Christ is
the grand subject which every faithful minister exalts in the pulpit.
Christ is the object that every true pastor sets before
dying people on their death beds. Christ is the great
source of light and peace and hope. There is not
a spark of spiritual comfort that has ever illumined a
sinner's heart that has not come from Christ. Surely it
never can be a small matter whether we have any
thoughts about Christ. Reader, I leave this part of my
subject here. There are many things which swallow up men's
thoughts while they live, which they will think little of
when they are dying. Hundreds are wholly absorbed in political
schemes and seem to care for nothing but the advancement
of their own party. Myriads are buried in business and
money matters, and seem to neglect everything else but this world.
Thousands are always wrangling about the forms and ceremonies of religion,
and are ready to cry down everybody who does not
use their shibaleths and worship in their way. But an
hour is fast coming when only one subject will be minded,
and that subject will be Christ. We shall all find,
and many, perhaps too late, that it mattered little what
we thought about other things, so long as we did
not think about Christ. Reader, I tell you this Christmas,
that all men ought to think about Christ. There is
no one in whom all the world has such a
deep interest. There is no one to whom all the
world owes so much. High and low, rich and poor,
old and young, gentle and simple, all ought to think
about Christ. Two, let us examine secondly the common thoughts
of many about Christ. To set down the whole list
of thoughts about Christ would indeed be thankless labor. It
must content us to range them under a few general heads.
This will save us both time and trouble. There were
many strange thoughts about Christ when he was on earth.
There are many strange and wrong thoughts about Christ now
when he is in heaven. The thoughts of some people
about Christ are simply blasphemous. They are not ashamed to
deny his divinity. They refuse to believe the miracles recorded
of him. They pretend to find fault with not a
few of his sayings and doings. They even question the
perfect honesty and sincerity of some things that he did.
They tell us that he ought to be ranked with
great reformers and philosophers like Socrates, Seneca, and Confucius, but
no higher. Thoughts like these are purely ridiculous and absurd.
They utterly fail to explain the enormous influence which Christ
and Christianity have had for eighteen hundred years in this world.
There is not the slightest comparison to be made between
Christ and any other teacher of mankind lived. The difference
between him and others is a gulf that cannot be spanned,
and a height that cannot be measured. It is the
difference between gold and clay, between the sun and a candle.
Nothing can account for Christ and Christianity but the old
belief that Christ is very God. Reader, are the thoughts
I have just described your own?
Speaker 2: If they are take care.
Speaker 1: The thoughts of some people about Christ are vague, dim misty,
and indistinct that there was such a person. They do
not for a moment deny that he was the founder
of Christianity and the object of Christian worship. They are
quite aware that they hear of him every time they
go to public worship, and ought to have some opinion
or belief about him, they will fully admit, but they
could not tell you what it is they believe. They
could not accurately describe and define it. They have not
thoroughly considered the subject. They have not made up their minds.
Thoughts such as these are foolish, silly, and unreasonable. To
be a dying sinner with an immortal soul, and to
go on living without making up one's mind about the
only person who can save us, the person who will
at last judge us. Is the conduct of a lunatic
or an idiot, and not of a rational man. Reader,
are the thoughts I have just described your own?
Speaker 2: If they are take care.
Speaker 1: The thoughts of some men about Christ are mean and low.
They have no doubt a distinct opinion about his position
in their system of Christianity. They consider that if they
do their best and live moral lives, and go to
church pretty regularly and use the ordinances of religion, Christ
will deal mercifully with them. At last and make up
any deficiencies. Thoughts such as these utterly fail to explain
why Christ died on the cross. They take the crown
off Christ's head and degrade him into a kind of
make weight to man's soul. They overthrow the whole system
of the Gospel and pull up all its leading doctrines
by the roots. They exalt man to an absurdly high position,
as if he could pay some part of the price
of his soul. They rob man of all the comfort
of the Gospel, as if he must needs do something
and perform some work to justify his own soul. They
make Christ a sort of judge, far more than a savior,
and place the Cross and the Atonement in a degraded
and inferior position. Reader, are the thoughts I have just
described your own?
Speaker 2: If they are take care.
Speaker 1: The thoughts of some men about Christ are dishonoring and libelous.
They seem to think that we need a mediator between
ourselves and our Savior. They appear to suppose that Christ
is so high and awful and exalted a person that
poor sinful man may not approach him, that we must
employ an episcopacy ordained minister as a kind of go
between to stand between us and.
Speaker 2: Jesus and manage for our souls.
Speaker 1: They send us to saints, or angels or the Virgin Mary,
as if they were more kind and accessible than Christ.
Thoughts such as these are a practical denial of Christ's
priestly office. They overthrow the whole doctrine of his peculiar
business as man's intercessor. They hide and bury out of
sight his especial love to sinners and his boundless willingness
to receive them. Instead of a gracious savior, they make
him out in austere and hard king, Reader, are the
thoughts I have just described your own? If they are
take care. The thoughts of some men about Christ are
wicked and unholy. They seem to think that they may
live as they please because Christ died for sinners. They
will indulge every kind of wickedness and yet flatter themselves
that they are not blameworthy for it, because Christ is
a merciful savior. They will talk complacently of God's election
and the necessity of grace, and the impossibility of being
justified by works, and the fullness of Christ, and then
make these glorious doctrines, an excuse for lying, cheating, drunkenness, fornication,
and every kind of immorality. Thoughts such as these are
as blasphemous and profane, as downright infidelity. They actually make
Christ the patron of sin. Reader, are these thoughts I
have described your own? If they are take care? Reader.
Two general remarks apply to all these thoughts about Christ
of which I have just been speaking. They all show
a deplorable ignorance of scripture. I defy anyone to read
the Bible honestly and find any warrant for them in
that blessed book. Men cannot know their Bibles when they
hold such opinions. They all help to prove the corruption
and darkness of human nature. Man is ready to believe
anything about Christ except the simple truth. He loves to
set up an idol of his own and bow down
to it, rather than accept the savior whom God puts
before him. I leave this part of my subject here.
It is a sorrowful and painful one, but not without
its use. It is necessary to study morbid anatomy if
we would understand health. The ground must be cleared of
rubbish before we build.
Speaker 2: Three.
Speaker 1: Let us now count up lastly, the thoughts of true
Christians about Christ. The thoughts I am going to describe,
are not the thoughts of many. I admit this most fully.
It would be vain to deny it. The number of
right thinkers about Christ in every age has been small.
The true Christians among professing Christians have always been few.
If it were not so, the Bible would have told
an untruth. Straight is the gate, says the Lord Jesus.
And narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and
few there be that find it. Why does the gate?
And broad is the way that leadeth to destruction? And
many there be which go in thereat many walk, says Paul,
of whom I tell you even weeping, that they are
enemies of the Cross of Christ, whose end is destruction.
Matthew seven thirteen and fourteen, Philippians three, eighteen and nineteen.
True Christians have high thoughts of Christ. They see in
him a wondrous person far above all other beings in
his nature, a person who is at one and the
same time perfect God, mighty to save, and perfect man
able to feel. They see in him an all powerful
redeemer who has paid their countless debts to God and
delivered their souls from guilt and hell. They see in
him and almighty friend who left heaven for them, lived
for them, died for them, rose again for them, that
He might save them forevermore. They see in him an
almighty physician who washed away their sins in his own blood,
put his own spirit in their hearts, delivered them from
the power of sin, and gave them power to become
God's children. Happy are they who have such thoughts?
Speaker 2: Reader?
Speaker 1: Have you true Christians have trustful thoughts of Christ? They
daily lean the weight of their souls upon Him by
faith for pardon in peace. They daily commit the care
of their souls to Him, as a man commits a
treasure to a safe keeper. They daily cling to Him
by faith, as a child in a crowd clings to
its mother's hand. They looked to Him daily for mercy, grace, comfort, help,
and strength, as Israel looked to the pillar of cloud
and fire in the wilderness for guidance. Christ is the
rock under their feet and the staff in their hands,
their ark and their city of refuge, their son and
their shield, their bread and their medicine, their health and
their light, their fountain and their shelter, their portion and
their home, their door and their ladder, their root and
their head, their advocate and their physician, their captain and
their elder brother, their life, their hope, and their awe.
Happy are they who have such thoughts?
Speaker 2: Reader?
Speaker 1: Have you.
Speaker 2: True?
Speaker 1: Christians have experimental thoughts of Christ? The things that they
think of Him. They do not merely think with their heads.
They have not learned them from schools or picked them
up from others. They think them because they have found
them true by their own heart's experience. They have proved them,
and tasted them, and tried them. They think out for
themselves what they have felt. There is all the difference
in the world between knowing that a man is a
doctor or a lawyer while we never have occasion to
employ him, and knowing him as our own because we
have gone to him for medicine or law. Just in
the same way, there is a wide difference between head
knowledge and experimental thoughts of Christ. Happy are they who
have such thoughts?
Speaker 2: Reader?
Speaker 1: Have you? True? Christians have loving and reverent thoughts of Christ.
They love to do the things that please Him. They like,
in their poor weak way, to show their affection to
Him by keeping his words. They love everything belonging to him,
his day, his house, his ordinances, his people, his book.
They never find his yoke heavy, or his burden painful
to bear, or his commandments grieve us. Love lightens all.
They know something of the mind of mister Standfast in
Pilgrim's progress, when he said, as he stood in the river,
I have loved to hear my Lord spoken of. And
whenever I have seen the print of his shoe in
the earth, then I have coveted to set my foot
over it. Happy are they who have such thoughts? Reader,
have you true?
Speaker 2: Christians?
Speaker 1: Have hopeful thoughts of Christ. They expect to receive far
more from Him one day than they have ever received.
Speaker 2: Yet.
Speaker 1: They hope that they shall be kept to the end
and never perish.
Speaker 2: But this is not all.
Speaker 1: They look forward to Christ's second coming and expect that
then they shall see far more than they have seen,
and enjoy far more than they have yet enjoyed. They
have an earnest of an inheritance now in the spirit
dwelling in their heart, but they hope for a far
fuller possession when this world has passed away. They have
hopeful thoughts of Christ's second advent of their own resurrection
from the grave, of their reunion with all the saints
who have gone before them, of eternal blessedness in Christ
Rist's kingdom. Happy are they who have such thoughts? They
sweeten life and lift men over many cares. Reader, have
you such thoughts?
Speaker 2: Reader?
Speaker 1: Thoughts such as these are the property of all true Christians.
Some of them know more of them, and some of
them know less, But they all know something about them.
They do not always feel them equally at all time.
They do not always find such thoughts equally fresh.
Speaker 2: And green in their minds.
Speaker 1: They have their winter as well as their summer, and
their low tide as well as their high water. But
all true Christians are more or less acquainted with these
thoughts in this matter. Churchmen and dissenters, rich and poor,
are all agreed if they are true Christians. In other
things they may be unable to agree and see alike,
but they all agree in their thoughts about Christ. One
word they can all say, which is the same in
every tongue. That word is Hallelujah, praise to the Lord Christ.
One answer they can all make, which in every tongue
is equally the same. That word is amen, So be it.
And now, reader, I shall wind up my Christmas tract
by simply bringing before your conscience the question which forms
its title. I ask you this day, what think ye
of Christ? What others think about him is not the
question now. Their mistakes are no excuse for you. Their
correct views will not save your soul. The point you
have before you is simply this, what do you think yourself?
Speaker 2: Reader?
Speaker 1: This Christmas may possibly be your last? Who can tell you,
but you may never live to see another December come round?
Who can tell? But your place may be empty when
the family party next Christmas is gathered together. Do not
I entreat you put off my question or turn away
from it. It can do you no harm to look
at it and consider it.
Speaker 2: What do you think of Christ? Again?
Speaker 1: I beseech you this day to have right thoughts of Christ,
if you never had them before. Let the time past
suffice you to have lived without real and heartfelt religion.
Let this present Christmas be a starting point in your
soul's history. Awake to see the value of your soul
and the immense importance of being saved. Break off sharp
from sin in the world, Get down your Bible and
begin to read it, Call upon the Lord Jesus Christ
in prayer and beseech him to save your soul. Rest
not rest not till you have trustful, loving, experimental, hopeful
thoughts of Christ. Reader, mark my words, If you will
only take the advice I have now given you, you
will never repent it. Your life in future will be happier,
your heart will be lighter, Your Christmas gathering will be
more truly joyful. Nothing makes Christmas meetings so happy as
to feel that we are all traveling on towards an
eternal gathering in heaven. Reader, I say, for the last time,
if you would have a happy Christmas, have right thoughts
about Christ.