A SHOT ACROSS THE BOW by Theodore L. Cuyler

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 8, 1901

A SHOT ACROSS THE BOW.

By Theodore L. Cuyler

Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, in the Independent.

SOMETIMES a man-of-war encounters on the open sea a merchant ship which the commodore suspects may belong to a hostile Power. So he sends a cannon-shot across the bow of the merchantman, in order to “bring her to” for an interview. In like manner the word of God sends some solid shots across the bows of wandering souls, not to sink them, but to stop them, and bring them to reflection. “To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts;” “Turn ye, turn ye . . . for why will ye die?” are specimens of these weighty warnings. They are sent in love, and not in wrath; they are earnest admonitions to halt and to “put about ship” and steer Godward, or heavenward.

One of the mightiest questions in the Bible is, “What think ye of Christ?” On this question pivots the soul’s destiny. Another very solemn Bible statement is, “Ye were without Christ.” This may be the actual condition of more than one who is now reading this article. My friend, let me say to you in loving frankness, that a soul without Christ suffers badly from moral weakness. Intellectually you may be very strong; spiritually very feeble. For instance, I once saw a man of colossal intellect utterly besotted by the brandy bottle—which he was morally too weak to abstain from. The evidence of moral weakness is the inability to withstand the seductions of selfishness, the gales of passion, or the onsets of temptation. Perhaps you have resolved a thousand times to break off from certain besetting sins, and to lead a truer and a better life. You have failed. Your purposes had no staying power from on high. Jesus Christ offers it to you; He says: “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”

Whoever is without Christ is a wandering soul. Strike your own little match if you choose; it will soon go out and leave you in the dark. All the Christ-denying books of these days—whatever brilliant name may be on their title-page—are only lucifer-matches. You would not dare to have one of them beside your dying pillow. You need an unerring, infallible guide, one whom you can implicitly trust, and whom millions of the wisest and best people have trusted, and been led aright. Jesus, the Son of God, very kindly says to you: “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” Try Him, my friends; and the very instant that you find Christ leading you into evil thoughts or crooked paths or wicked ways, you are welcome to halt and desert Him. Did you ever hear of such a case?

But you are not only weak and wandering; you are often worried with a sense of sinfulness and guiltiness and moral failure. Conscience pricks you. We can bear almost anything—pain, poverty, loss, disappointment, or bereavement—as long as our soul is at rest with God. Sin is the only unendurable tormentor. Over and over again you have been tormented by it, and have tried to drown your convictions of sin. But just as the cannonading in a naval battle brings up dead bodies from the bottom of the sea, so the artillery of God’s word keeps bringing up your sins to your memory. How to get rid of sin and its condemnation without Jesus Christ is the question. It is impossible. His blood “cleanseth us from all sin;” “there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” Friend, confess your sins to Christ, and give Him an honest trial; I have never heard of any doing this, and ending in wretched disappointment or skepticism. Infidels uniformly belong to the class who have not honestly made a practical test of Christ for themselves. Blind and deaf people are no judges of Niagara.

In addition to the weakness and the wandering and the want of all true peace without Christ, is the certainty of perdition. Jesus saves; there is none other name under heaven that is given among men whereby we must be saved. Whosoever is not saved goes to wreck. We hear much in these days of the “larger hope.” Certainly no sinful soul could ask for a larger hope or a stronger one than is held out in the glorious offer: “Trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men.” You could not ask for a fairer probation or a fuller opportunity. Do you imagine that you would work at better advantage on a second trial in the next world if you should strive to build a better life of the shattered wreck and remnants of a misspent life in this world? It is in mercy that God pushes you up to the necessity of accepting Christ and building your eternal character on Him; and no other opportunity to do this is even hinted at in the Bible. There is infinite loving-kindness in the persistence with which God presses on you the fact that “now is the accepted time; . . . now is the day of salvation.”

There is only one thing that keeps you without Christ, or, as the Revised Version has it, “separate from Christ;” and that is sin. You cannot plead ignorance of Christ or inability to accept Him, nor hide behind any decree of

the Almighty; for God is long-suffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. The Saviour stands knocking at the door of your heart, with infinite blessings in His hands for you, and you bolt Him out. Perhaps some favorite sins hold the door; they and He cannot dwell together there. Perhaps self-righteousness has piled your own good deeds against the door, and you insist that you can be just as useful without Christ as with Him. Perhaps willful unbelief refuses to lift the latch; or mayhap it is only a delaying spirit that fully intends to open the door to Him before the footsteps of death are overheard outside, No matter what excuse may keep a sick man from taking the only medicine that can cure him, he may dislike it, or disbelieve in it, or delay the taking of it,—death comes just the same. “Without Christ” means to be without pardon of past sins, without power to resist present temptations, without peace toward God, without hope for eternity. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.”

Do you inquire what you will gain by accepting Christ? Let me tell you some things you will gain. First of all, you will secure the forgiveness of your sins. If a man were in prison, it would be a kind act to take him a good book or a good dinner or a bunch of flowers; but it would be an immeasurably greater kindness to take him the governor’s pardon. Sin unforgiven, sin unrenounced, means hell. Penitence on your part and pardon on Christ’s part means the first step toward heaven.

With Christ comes a supernatural strength to resist temptation. He that is within you is infinitely stronger than any force that may assail you. The secret of every noble, true, holy, and victorious life, from the days of Paul to this hour, has been just this: “Not I, but Christ liveth in me.” This divine power to resist sin, to conquer selfishness, and to achieve success is not an occasional visitant; it is a resident force, “Lo, I am with you alway.”

With Jesus Christ you have the purest and sweetest of joys. The possession of Christ is itself an indescribable source of happiness.

“Wealth as a source of happiness is sheer humbug,” said a millionaire to me the other day; “mine never gave me an ounce of pleasure until I began to do good with it.” We ministers often find that the happiest souls are they who have the least of earthly goods and the most of Christ.

A pastor once called to see an old woman on the ground floor of a dingy rookery: she lay helpless and alone on her bed, and poked the scanty fire with a long iron rod; a kind neighbor came in occasionally to feed the fire. Her solace was her Bible, her one companion was her Saviour. Cheerful, uncomplaining, joyful, she was a living witness how little a human soul depends for its richest happiness on mere externals, and how supremely happy it may be when it has the continual presence of the Lord of glory. “These things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.” Put this promise to the test, my friend, and then tell me—when we get to heaven—if you were disappointed.