The Worlds Great Sermons, Volume 10 | Page 9

Its knowledge has vanished away.
You buy the old editions of the great encyclopedias for a few cents.
Their knowledge has vanished away. Look how the coach has been
superseded by the use of steam. Look how electricity has superseded
that, and swept a hundred almost new inventions into oblivion. One of
the greatest living authorities, Sir William Thompson, said the other
day, "The steam-engine is passing away." "Whether there be
knowledge, it shall vanish away." At every workshop you will see, in
the back yard, a heap of old iron, a few wheels, a few levers, a few
cranks, broken and eaten with rust. Twenty years ago that was the pride
of the city. Men flocked in from the country to see the great invention;
now it is superseded, its day is done. And all the boasted science and
philosophy of this day will soon be old. But yesterday, in the
University of Edinburgh, the greatest figure in the faculty was Sir
James Simpson, the discoverer of chloroform. The other day his
successor and nephew, Professor Simpson, was asked by the librarian
of the university to go to the library and pick out the books on his
subject that were no longer needed. And his reply to the librarian was
this: "Take every textbook that is more than ten years old, and put it
down in the cellar." Sir James Simpson was a great authority only a few
years ago; men came from all parts of the earth to consult him; and
almost the whole teaching of that time is consigned by the science of
today to oblivion. And in every branch of science it is the same. "Now
we know in part. We see through a glass darkly."
Can you tell me anything that is going to last? Many things Paul did not
condescend to name. He did not mention money, fortune, fame; but he

picked out the great things of his time, the things the best men thought
had something in them, and brushed them peremptorily aside. Paul had
no charge against these things in themselves. All he said about them
was that they would not last. They were great things, but not supreme
things. There were things beyond them. What we are stretches past
what we do, beyond what we possess. Many things that men denounce
as sins are not sins; but they are temporary. And that is a favorite
argument of the New Testament. John says of the world, not that it is
wrong, but simply that it "passeth away." There is a great deal in the
world that is delightful and beautiful; there is a great deal in it that is
great and engrossing; but it will not last. All that is in the world, the
lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, are but for a
little while. Love not the world therefore. Nothing that it contains is
worth the life and consecration of an immortal soul. The immortal soul
must give itself to something that is immortal. And the immortal things
are: "Now abideth faith, hope, love, but the greatest of these is love."
Some think the time may come when two of these three things will also
pass away--faith into sight, hope into fruition. Paul does not say so. We
know but little now about the conditions of the life that is to come. But
what is certain is that love must last. God, the eternal God, is love.
Covet therefore that everlasting gift, that one thing which it is certain is
going to stand, that one coinage which will be current in the universe
when all the other coinages of all the nations of the world shall be
useless and unhonored. You will give yourselves to many things, give
yourselves first to love. Hold things in their proportion. _Hold things in
their proportion._ Let at least the first great object of our lives be to
achieve the character defended in these words, the character--and it is
the character of Christ--which is built round love.
I have said this thing is eternal. Did you ever notice how continually
John associates love and faith with eternal life? I was not told when I
was a boy that "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
son, that whosoever believeth in him should have everlasting life."
What I was told, I remember, was, that God so loved the world that, if I
trusted in Him, I was to have a thing called peace, or I was to have rest,
or I was to have joy, or I was to have safety. But I had to find out for
myself that whosoever trusteth in Him--that is, whosoever loveth Him,
for trust is only the avenue