---

I. IT IS POSSIBLE FOR US TO AUGMENT THE HAPPINESS OF HEAVEN. If you would this day repent and come to God, the news of your salvation would reach heaven, and then, hark to the shouts of the ransomed! Your little child went away from you into the good land. While she was here you brought her all kinds of beautiful presents. Sometimes you came home at nightfall with your pockets full of gifts for her, and no sooner did you put your night-key into the latch than she began at you, saying, "Father, what have you brought me?" She is now before the throne of God. Can you bring her a gift to-day? You may. Coming to Christ and repenting of sin, the tidings will go up to the throne of God, and your child will hear of it. Oh! what a gift for her soul today. She will skip with new gladness on the everlasting hills when she hears of it. I was at Sharpsburg during the war, and one day I saw a sergeant dash past on a lathered horse, the blood dripping from the spurs. I said: "That sergeant must be going on a very important message — he must be carrying a very important dispatch, or he wouldn't ride like that." Here are two angels of God flitting through the house, flitting toward the throne on quick dispatch. What is the news? Carrying up the story of souls repentant and forgiven, carrying the news to the throne of God, carrying the news to your kindred who are for ever saved. Oh! "there is joy in heaven among the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." And suppose this whole audience should turn to the Lord this morning? Heaven would be filled with doxologies. I was reading of a king who, after gaining a great victory, said to his army: "Now, no shouting; let everything be quiet, no shouting." But if this morning your soul should come to God, nothing could stop the shouting of the armies of God before the throne; for "there is joy in heaven among the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth."

II. HEAVEN AND EARTH ARE IN CLOSE SYMPATHY. People talk of heaven as though it were a great way off. They say it is hundreds of thousands of miles before you reach the first star, and then you go hundreds of thousands of miles before you get to the second star, and then it is millions of miles before you reach heaven. They say heaven is the centre of the universe, and we are on the rim of the universe. That is not the idea of my text. I think the heart of heaven beats very close to our world. We measure distances by the time taken to traverse those distances. It used to be a long distance to San Francisco. Many weeks and months were passed before you could reach that city. Now it is seven days. It used to be six weeks before you could voyage from here to Liverpool. Now you can go that distance in eight or nine days. And so I measure the distance between earth and heaven, and I find it is only a flash. It is one instant here, and another instant there. It is very near to-day. Christ says in one place it is not twenty-four hours' distance, when He says to the penitent thief: "This day, this day, shalt thou be with Me in Paradise." Oh! how near heaven is to earth! By oceanic cable you send a message. As it is expensive to send the message, you compress a great deal of meaning in a few words. Sometimes in two words you can put vast meaning. And it seems to me that the angels of God who carry news from earth to heaven need to take up this morning, in regard to your soul, only two words in order to kindle with gladness all the redeemed before the throne: only two words: "Father saved," "mother saved," "son saved," "daughter saved." And "there is joy in heaven among the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth."

III. THE SALVATION OF THE SOUL IS OF VAST IMPORTANCE. When the French Government passed from Thiers to McMahon, I do not suppose it was reported in heaven. When, in the recent English elections, the contest was between Conservatives and Liberals, the result, I do not suppose, was reported in heaven. But there is one item that must go up — there is one thing that must be told. Let the flying hoofs of God's courier clash through the portals, and the news fly from gate to temple, and from temple to mansion, and from mansion to throne, that one soul has been converted. Last summer, among the White Mountains, a stage driver was very reckless. He had a large company of passengers and drove six horses. Coming along a dangerous place, the leaders shied off, and the stage was thrown over the rocks. A few men leaped out and were saved, others went down and were bruised, and some were slain. When those who were saved got home, how their friends must have congratulated them that they got off from all that peril! Well! the angels of God look down, and see men driving along the edge of eternal disasters, drawn by leaping, foaming, uncontrollable perils: and when a man, just before he comes to the fatal capsize, leaps off and comes away in safety, do you wonder that the angels of God clap their hands and cry: "Good! Good! saved from hell! Saved for heaven! Saved for ever!" The redemption of a soul must be a very wonderful thing, or heaven would not make such a jubilation about it. It must be a great thing, or there would not be so much excitement in that land where coronations are every-day occurrences, and the stones of the field are amethysts and chrysoprases.

(De Witt Talmage, D. D.)

---

---

KJV: And he spake this parable unto them, saying,

WEB: He told them this parable.