JOHN vi. 37. “Him that
cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.”
THE whole Gospel is here in germ and type. All is but
the outgrowth and the blooming of this seed.
I. Tried by this text, let us see what true religion is.
1. True religion cannot consist of any feeling of moral
fitness. The words “him that cometh unto Me” imply
the passage of dependence upon self to dependence upon
another.
2. True religion cannot consist in the observance of any
external ritual. “Come to Me,” says Christ. The fruitful
source of the corruptions of Christianity has been the
constant tendency to put form for faith.
3. True religion cannot consist in a simple orthodoxy.
” Come to Me,” says Christ; “not to your shapely creed.”
4. True religion is a living relation with the living Christ.
If a man have the sun, he must have the day. If a man
have Christ, he must have the Gospel.
II. In the light of this text, see the method of gaining
this personal religion. It is coming to Christ. Jesus is
strangely magnetic, and every man who feels his need, who
knows he cannot help himself, and is sure that Christ can
help, and just asks Him,—that man comes, and in Christ
gains the whole blessing of the Gospel.
III. As suggested by this text, behold the proof of the
possession of the true religion. That proof does not consist
in an old experience carefully preserved and laid away in
memory, nor in a present release from the fear of death,
nor in a present fervent glow of feeling. It consists in just
this, the present proneness of the soul upon these words of
Christ, “I will in no wise cast out.”
W. H.