Romans 9:30-33 What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness… My friends, I do not want to make an experiment about my own soul. I cannot afford to do it. I have but one soul to be saved or lost, and if you can show to me that this gospel of Jesus Christ is an experiment, I want nothing to do with it. I do not want to go on a trial trip. Some years ago, in the Canadas, there was a bridge built over an awful chasm. Far down beneath the waters rushed very violently. After this costly and beautiful bridge was done, the day for opening it came. Thousands of people assembled. Flags were flying, guns were. sounding. There was a large coach drawn by six horses, a coach loaded with passengers, and at just the advertised moment, the architect of the bridge, to show that the structure was what it pretended to be, mounted the box of this coach, took the reins in his hands, and started, amid the huzzas of thousands and thousands of people. He drove on until he came to the centre of the bridge, when the timbers cracked, and all went down — some dashed against the abutments, some whelmed in the stream. You tell me that there is a bridge built for my soul over sin, and death, and hell, and you ask me to go on it, and ask me to take all these people on it. No; unless I am sure it is a safe bridge, But this is no experiment. We are not the first to go over it. Scores, and hundreds, and thousands have gone over it. "A great multitude that no man can number," have gone over it. That bridge is buttressed at one end with the "Rock of Ages," and at the other with the throne of the Lord God Almighty, and I am not afraid to trust it. Wilt you go with me to-day? Venture on Him. Venture wholly. No experiment about it. If it had been an unsafe salvation, your fathers and mothers would long ago have found it out. Oh, what a glorious salvation from sin, and death, and hell! Peter preached it at the Pentecost, and there went up the shout of three thousand delivered captives. Paul preached it in official circles, and the knees of Felix knocked together. Robert McCheyne preached it in Dundee until all Scotland was in a blaze. Richard Baxter preached it until Lord Jeffries trembled on the judicial bench, and James II turned pale on his iniquitous throne, and hundreds of souls started from Kidderminster for the saints' everlasting rest. It has dried up rivers of tears. (T. De Witt Talmage.). Parallel Verses KJV: What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. |
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