the highest, deepest, purest, holiest, most overflowing joy that can be
minutes' honest consideration, What it Costs to Live and Die without Jesus Christ. Now I am going to ask you to do some thinking tonight, some hard, serious, honest thinking. What I am going to ask you to think about is this: what it costs not to be a Christian, what it costs to live and die without Jesus Christ. And if when I get through you think you are willing to pay the price of a Christless life, I have nothing more to say. But if, when you have thought it all out, you come to the conclusion that it costs too much to live and die without Christ, I am going to ask you to do the only intelligent thing there is to do in the circumstances, that is, to stand up here tonight and declare your purpose to accept Jesus Christ right now. What does it cost not to be a Christian? First of all, what is it to be a Christian? By a Christian, I understand, any man, woman, or child, that comes to God as a lost sinner, takes Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour, surrenders to Him as their Lord and Master, confesses Him as such publicly before the world, and strives to live to please Him in everything day by day. Let me repeat that definition. A Christian is any man, woman or child that comes to God as a lost sinner, takes Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour, surrenders to Him as their Lord and Master, confesses Him as such publicly before the world, and strives to live to please him in everything day by day. What does it cost not to do it? 1. In the first place not to be a Christian costs the sacrifice of peace.A Christian has peace: "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ."Romans, v. 1. And having peace with God we have peace in our hearts, but no man out of Christ has peace. "There is no peace for the wicked, saith my God." One night in Chicago, after a meeting like this, when the congregation had gone out, I went and sat down in a scat by the side of a gentleman about thirtyfive years of age, and I said, "My friend, why are you not a Christian?" "Oh," he said, with a shrug of his shoulders, "I am very well satisfied as I am." I said, "You haven't peace." He said, "How do you know that?" I said, "Because God says so; `There is no peace for the wicked, saith my God. '" The man dropped his head, and said, "You are right, sir, I haven't peace." And there is not a man or woman in this audience tonight out of Christ that has peace. Money won't give you peace; the pleasures of this life won't give you peace; no number of good earthly friends will give you peace; not to be a Christian costs the sacrifice of peace. 2. In the second place, not to be a Christian costs the sacrifice of the highest, deepest, purest, holiest, most overflowing joy that can be known right here on earth. As we read, in the Scripture lesson tonight, in 1 Peter i. 8: "Though now ye see Him not, yet believing in Him ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." That was Peter's testimony. That is the experience of every true Christian. A real living faith in Jesus Christ gives a man joy unspeakable and full
of glory. Nobody out of Christ has joy unspeakable and full of glory. "Oh," but you say, "I know many a Christian that has not joy unspeakable and full of glory." A real Christian? You know there are two kindsprofessing Christians and real Christians. Now I will admit that there are a great many people in the world that call themselves Christians, who have just enough religion to make themselves miserable. They are bolding to the world with one hand, generally the right hand, and to Jesus Christ with the other. Of course they have not joy unspeakable and full of glory. But show me a Christian who has dropped the world with both hands, and laid hold of Jesus Christ with both hands, and I will show you a man or woman that has joy unspeakable and full of glory, every time. But nobody out of Christ has joy unspeakable and full of glory. How Satan deceived me along that line for many years when I was a mere lad! I went one day up to the third story of our home, where we had a great storeroom where we put away the old books out of the library, and as a boy I loved to go and sit on the floor of that room, and get the books around me and look through them, and one day I came across the covenant of the church of my mother, and commenced to read it, and I said to myself, "I wonder if I cannot be a Christian?" I can say "Yes" to that, and can say "Yes" to that, and that, and after a time I came to a place where it said something to this effect, "If I became a Christian I was to be willing to do anything God said, and go anywhere He said." I shut up the book and said, "No, just as likely as not I'll have to be a preacher if I say `Yes, to that, and then life won't be worth living." And I threw that book away and deliberately refused to take Jesus Christ, and deliberately refused to think about it any more. Then I said to myself, "I am g oing in for all the pleasure I can get"; and I had a good opportunity to get it. My father was well off in this world's goods; and as a boy of fifteen I was sent off to the university and matriculated for a degree, and my father sent me up all the money I wanted. Now, if you put a boy into a university, who learns easily and has no trouble to keep up with his class, a boy with a rich father, who does not ask him how he spends his money I have often thought it would have been a good thing for me if he had if anybody can have a good time, he can, and I went in for a good time. Did I find it? Yon know whether I did or not. I did not. And I went deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper into dissipation and sin to find joy to satisfy my unsatisfied heart. I did not find it, and one awful night, a mere boy still, with all hope gone, with life desolate and bare, life so barren that there was just one step between me and hell, in fact, that very night I started to take that awful step, to take my life by my own hand. I sprang out of bed and drew open a drawer to take out the instrument that would end my. life. For some reason or other I could not find it. God did not let me find it, and I dropped upon my knees, and said, "O God, if you will take this awful burden from my heart, I will preach