And yet further, not to keep you longer, we believe that in Adam we lost sonship, but in Christ we have received the adoption. In Adam we lost safe standing; but he hath plucked us out of the miry clay, and set our feet upon a rock. In Adam we lost righteousness; but he that believeth is justified from all things. Whatever Adam lost, Christ has found, and infinitely more.
A man once wrote a book to prove the devil a fool. Certainly, when all matters shall come to their destined consummation, Satan will prove to have been a magnificent fool. Folly, magnified to he highest degree by subtlety, shall be developed in Satan. Ah! thou trailing serpent, what hast thou now after all? I saw thee but a few thousand years ago, twining around the tree of life, and hissing out thy deceptive words. Ah! how glorious was the serpent then—a winged creature, with his azure scales. Ay, and thou didst triumph over God. I heard thee as thou didst go hissing down to thy den, I heard thee say to thy rood,—vipers in the nest as they are,—”My children, I have stained the Almighty’s works: I have turned aside his liege subjects; I have injected my poison into the heart of Eve, and Adam hath fallen too; my children let us hold a jubilee, for I have defeated God.” Ah! fiend; I think I see thee now, with thy head all broken, and thy jaw-teeth smashed, and thy venom-bags all emptied, and thou thyself a weary length of agony, rolling miles afloat along a sea of fire tortured, destroyed, overcome, tormented, ashamed, hacked, hewed, dashed in pieces, and made a hissing, and a scorn for children to laugh at, and made a scoff throughout eternity. Ah! well, brethren, the great Goliath hath gained nothing by his vauntings: Christ and his people have really lost nothing by Satan. All hey lost once, has been re-taken. The victory has not simply been capture of that which was lost, but a gaining of something more. We are in Christ more than we were before we fell. “Not a hoof shall be left behind.”
IV. I shall want your patience and your prayers while I now attempt to dwell upon my last illustration. CHRIST WILL HAVE THE WHOLE EARTH—”not a hoof shall be left behind.” God hath made this world for himself, and when he made it he looked around on all his works, and he said, “They were very good.” All creation was meant to be a grand orchestra, the angels occupying the higher seats, and sounding the higher notes; while descending in the scale, the inhabitants of the divers worlds, which are perhaps countless in multitude, taking their places in the one harmonious song. In one place there was an old and almost empty spot without a singer; blessed be God, the singers have many of them taken their places already, and there are others on the way. That spot was left for men to sing in, for men who should praise God, and magnify his name always. Ay, but Satan came and took away all the singers, spoiled their voices, and ruined them, and now this world, instead of being an orchestra for God’s praise, has become an arena for evil passions, a battle field for lust and rapine, and murder and sin. But mark this, God will not be disappointed of his purpose; this ruined world shall yet sing forth his praises, and without a marring or a jarring voice, the whole of his creatures shall magnify his holy name. Satan is now lord of the most of the world, and he seems to say to-day, “Thou King of kings, take England for thyself, and America be thine, here and there thou shalt take an island, or a city, but let me have the masses of mankind; I will be lord of China’s teeming multitudes, and India shall lie within my coils.” Brethren, shall it be so? Shall it be so?—are you content in your Master’s name to resign those mighty empires to the prince of darkness? Unanimously your hearts speak out your Master’s language; it must not, and it shall not be. The tramp of Christian heroes shall yet shake those nations, and the trumpet of Jubilee shall proclaim liberty to the bondaged sons of Adam that are weeping there. They must—they shall belong to Christ. And now the black prince comes forward, and he proposes another thing. “Oh!” saith he, “great King, why this perpetual duel, why must thy servants fight and live, and my servants continually be defeated? Let us divide the empire.” You remember that in the olden times of England, when Canute and the Danes were fighting against the Saxons under Edmund, it was decided at last that the two kings should fight it out. A most agreeable and proper method, I only would that it were always taken in hand, and that all kings who choose to engage in warfare, had to fight their own battles. I am sure we should all be patrons of their encounters, and we should sincerely thank God that there was such a saving of blood; let them fight if they will, but why should their poor subjects die? The fight went on with various success, and at last, the champions having parted, it was decided that one should take one part of England, and the other the other, and so a truce was made. And so, black fiend, thou proposest this to the king of heaven, dost thou?—a division, shall it be; shall the fight be suspended, shall Christ have half, and Satan the other half? No, listen to the cry of that half, which we might give up. “Ye men, ye men of Israel, come hither, help! Help! Come ye to the help of the Lord against the mighty! Why should we be give up to intolerable tyranny, and devoted for ever to hell’s monarch and his mighty power”? Nay, we cannot consent, thou fiend! That thou shouldst have one half. Imagine, then, that the gospel has spread in ever country but one, and now Satan pleads, “No missionaries shall be sent there to disturb their unhallowed peacefulness. Let me reign there,” saith he, “and I will be content.”
But it must not be: Soldiers of Christ, to the battle, to the battle. All the line, all the rampart must be stormed. Not a single castle must be left in the possession of the enemy. We must dash him down from his hills, and rend him up from his valleys. He must not have a single spot whereon to place his foot. Now I hear him flap his broken wings and fly into the grim north. “There are a few Esquimaux,” saith he, “who live in the dreary region long consecrated to my power. I will betake myself to the land of icebergs and of rocks, of the wild bear and of the dog, and there will I keep my last resting place.” Brethren, shall it be, shall it be? Shall he reign king of the icebergs and lord even of the frozn north? No, by heaven, and him that redeemed the earth. Out even of that region must he be dashed; as of old he fell from heaven, so must he fall from earth. And now I see the Icelanders bowing before Christ, and the vilest and most depraved of men submitting to Jehovah’s sway; but Satan has one dark-souled being; the last man that is left unconverted. Ring your Sabbath bells, my brethren! Go up to your house of prayer! Be happy! But I see a gloom upon your face. What means it? You reply, there is one man left unsaved; Satan has still a lodging-place in the heart of one man, surely our songs would lose their melody if that were the case. Nay, Master, nay, “Not a hoof shall be left behind.” Thou shalt walk through this world and meet no more with sin. There shall not be found one inhabitant of this globe who is not thy subject; not a single being who is not fully consecrated to thy will. That were a consummation devoutly to be wished. Equally may I say, it is a consummation confidently to be expected. Wait a little while, labour a little longer, and he that will come shall come and will not tarry; then shall the world see, and hell shall tremble at the sight, that Christ has conquered and has taken back all his possessions. “Not a hoof shall be left behind.”
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
