What Have I Done?
A Sermon
(No. 169)
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, December 27, 1857, by the
REV. C.H. SPURGEON
at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.
"What have I done?"–Jeremiah 8:6.
PERHAPS NO FIGURE represents God in a more gracious light than those
figures of speech, which represent him as stooping from his throne, and
as coming down from heaven to attend to the wants and to behold the
woes of mankind. We must have love for that God, who, when Sodom and
Gomorrah were reeking with iniquity, would not destroy those cities,
although he knew their guilt and their wickedness, until he had made an
actual visitation to them and had sojourned for awhile in their
streets. Methinks we can not help pouring out our heart in affection to
that God, of whom we are told that he inclines his ear from the highest
glory, and puts it to the lip of the faintest that breathes out the
true desire. How can we resist feeling that he is a God whom we must
love, when we know that he regards everything that concerns us, numbers
the very hairs of our heads, bids his angels protect our footsteps lest
we dash our feet against stones, marks our path end ordereth our ways.
But especially is this great truth brought near to man's heart, when we
recollect how attentive God is, not merely to the temporal interests of
his creatures, but to their spiritual concerns. God is represented in
Scripture as waiting to be gracious, or, in the language of the
parable, when his prodigals are yet a great way off he sees them; he
runs and falls upon their neck and kisses them. He is so attentive to
everything that is good, even in the poor sinner's heart, that to him
there is music in a sigh, and beauty in a tear; and in this verse that
I have just read, he represents himself as looking upon man's heart and
listening–listening, if possibly he may hear something that is good.
"I hearkened and heard; I listened; I stood still, and I attended to
them." And how amiable does God appear, when he is represented as
turning aside, and as it were with grief in his heart, exclaiming, "I
did listen, I did hearken, but they spake not aright; no man repented
of his wickedness, saying, "What shall I do?" Ah! my hearer, thou never
hast a desire toward God which does not excite God's hope; thou dost
never breathe a prayer toward heaven which he does not notice; and
though thou hast very often uttered prayers which have been as the
morning cloud and as the early dew that soon passeth away, yet all
these things have moved Jehovah's bowels; for he has been hearkening to
thy cry and noticing the breathing of thy soul, and though it all hath
passed away, yet it did not pass away unnoticed, for he remembers it
even now. And oh! thou that art this day seeking a Saviour, remember,
that Saviour's eyes are on thy seeking soul to-day. Thou art not
looking after one who can not see thee; thou art coming to thy Father,
but thy Father sees thee even in the distance. It was but one tear that
trickled down thy cheek, but thy Father noticed that as a hopeful sign;
it was but one throb that went through thy heart just now during the
singing of the hymn, but God, the Loving, noticed even that, and
thought upon it as at least some omen that thou wast not yet quite
hardened by sin, nor yet given up by love and mercy.
The text is "What have I done?" I shall just introduce that by a few
words of affectionate persuasion, urging all now present to ask that
question: secondly, I shall give them a few words of assistance in
trying to answer it; and when I have so done, I shall finish by a few
sentences of solemn admonition to those who have had to answer the
question against themselves.
I. First, then, a few words of EARNEST PERSUASION, requesting every one
now present, and more especially every unconverted person, to ask this
question of himself, and answer it solemnly: "What have I done?"
Few men like to take the trouble to review their own lives, most men
are so near bankruptcy that they are ashamed to look at their own
books. The great mass of mankind are like the silly ostrich, which,
when hard pressed by the hunters, buries its head in the sand and shuts
its eyes, and then thinks, because it does not see its pursuers, that
therefore it is safe. The great mass of mankind, I repeat, are ashamed
to review their own biographies; and if conscience and memory together
could turn joint authors of a history of their lives throughout, they
would buy a huge iron clasp and a padlock to it, and lock the volume
up, for they dare not read it. They know it to be a book full of
lamentation and woe, which they dare not read, and still go on in their
iniquities. I have therefore a hard task in endeavoring to persuade you
one and all to take down that book, and be its pages few or many, be
they white or be they black, I have some difficulty in getting you to
read them through. But may the Holy Spirit persuade you now, so that
you may answer this question, "What have I done?" For remember, my dear
friend, that searching yourself can do you no hurt. No tradesman ever
gets the poorer by looking to his books; he may find himself to be
poorer than he thought he was, but it is not the looking to the books
that hath hurt him; he hath hurt himself by some ill trading before.
Better, my friend, for you to know the past whilst there is yet time
for repairing it, than that you should go blindfolded, hoping to enter
the gates of Paradise and find out your mistake when alas! it is too
late, because the door is shut. There is nothing to be lost by taking
stock; you can not be any the worse for a little self examination. This
of itself shall be one strong argument to induce you to do it; but
remember you may be a great deal the better; for suppose your affairs
are all right with God, why then you may make good cheer and comfort
yourself for he that is right with his God has no cause to be sad. But
ah! remember there are many probabilities that you are wrong. There are
so many in this world that are deceived, that there are many chances
that you are deceived too. You may have a name to live and yet be dead;
you may be like John Bunyan's tree, of which he said "twas fair to look
upon and green outside, but the inside of it was rotten enough to be
tinder for the devils tinder box." You may this day thus stand before
yourself your fellow creatures well whitewashed, and exceeding fair,
but you may be like that Pharisee of whom Christ said, "Thou art a
whited sepulcher, for inwardly thou art full of rottenness and dead
men's bones." Now, man, however thou mayest wish to be self-deceived,
for my own part I feel that I would a thousand times rather know my own
state really than have the most pleasing conceptions about it and find
myself deceived. Many a time have I solemnly prayed that prayer, "Lord,
help me to know the worst of my own case; if I be still an apostate
from thee, without God and without Christ, at least let me be honest to
myself and know what I am." Remember, my friend, that the time you have
for self-examination is, after all, very short. Soon thou wilt know the
great secret. I perhaps may not say words rough enough to rend off the
mask which thou now hast upon thee, but there is one called Death who
will stand no compliment. You may masquerade it out to-day in the dress
of the saint, but death will soon strip you, and you must stand before
the judgment seat after death has discovered you in all your nakedness,
be that naked innocence or naked guilt. Remember, too, though you may
deceive yourself, you will not deceive your God. You may have light
weights, and the beam of the scale in which you weigh yourself may not
be honest, and may not therefore tell the truth; but when God shall try
you he will make no allowances; when the everlasting Jehovah grasps the
balances of justice and puts his law into one scale, ah, sinner, how
wilt thou tremble when he shall put thee into the other; for unless
Christ be thy Christ thou wilt be found light weight–thou wilt be
weighed in the balances and found wanting, and be cast away for ever.
Oh! what words shall I adopt to induce every one of you now to search
yourselves! I know the various excuses that some of you will make. Some
of you will plead that you are members of churches, and that,
therefore, all is right with you. Perhaps you look across from the
gallery, and you say to me, "Mr. Spurgeon, your hands baptized me but
this year into the Lord Jesus, and you have often passed to me the
sacramental bread and wine. Ah, my hearer, I know that, and I have
baptized, I fear, many of you that the Lord hath never baptized; and
some of you have been received into the church fellowship on earth who
were never received by God. If Jesus Christ had one hypocrite in his
twelve, how many hypocrites must I have here in nearly twelve hundred?
Ah! my hearers, in this age it is a very easy thing to make a
profession of religion: many churches receive candidates into their
fellowship without examination at all; I have had such come to me, and
I have told them, "I must treat you just the same as if you came from
the world," because they said, "I never saw the minister; I wrote a
note to the Church, and they took me in." Verily, in this age of
profession, a man may make the highest profession in the world, and yet
be at last found with damned apostates. Do not put off the question for
that; and do not say, "I am too busy to attend to my spiritual
concerns; there is time enough yet." Many have said that, and before
their "time enough" has come, they have found themselves where time
shall be no more. O! thou that sayest thou hast time enough, how little
dost thou know how near death is to thee. There are some present that
will not see New Year's Day; there is every probability that a very
large number will never see another year. O, may the Lord our God
prepare us each for death and for judgment, and bless this mornings
exhortation to our preparation, by leading us to ask the
question–"What have I done?"
II. Now, then, I am to help you to answer the question–"What have I
done?"
Christian, true Christian, I have little to say to thee this morning. I
will not multiply words, but leave the inquiry with thine own
conscience. What hast thou done? I hear thee reply, "I have done
nothing to save myself; for that was done for me in the eternal
covenant, from before the foundation of the world. I have done nothing
to make a righteousness for myself, for Christ said, It is finished;' I
have done nothing to procure heaven by my merits, for all that Jesus
did for me before I was born." But, say, brother, what hast thou done
for him who died to save thy wretched soul? What hast thou done for his
church? What hast thou done for the salvation of the world? What hast
thou done to promote thine own spiritual growth in grace? Ah! I might
hit some of you that are true Christians very hard here; but I will
leave you with your God. God will chastise his own children. I will,
however, put a pointed question. Are there not many Christians now
present who can not recollect that they have been the means of the
salvation of one soul during this year? Come, now; turn back. Have you
any reason to believe that directly or indirectly you have been made
the means this year of the salvation of a soul? I will go further.
There are some of you who are old Christians, and I will ask you this
question: Have you any reason to believe that ever since you were
converted you have ever been the means of the salvation of a soul? It
was reckoned in the East, in the time of the patriarchs, to be a
disgrace to a woman that she had no children–to have none born unto
God through his instrumentality! And yet, there are some of you here
that have been spiritually barren, and have never brought one convert
to Christ; you have not one star in your crown of glory, and must wear
a starless crown in heaven. Oh! I think I see the joy and gladness with
which a good child of God looked upon me last week, when we had heard
some one who had been converted to God by her instrumentality. I took
her by the hand and said, "Well, now, you have reason to thank God."
"Yes, sir," she said, "I feel a happy and an honored woman now. I have
never, that I know of, before been the means of bringing a soul to
Christ." And the good woman looked so happy; the tears were in her eyes
for gladness. How many have you brought during this year? Come,
Christian, what have you done? Alas! alas! you have not been barren
fig-trees, but still your fruit is such that it can not be seen. You
may be alive unto God, but how many of you have been very unprofitable
and exceedingly unfruitful? And do not think that while I thus deal
hardly with you I would escape myself. No, I ask myself the question,
"What have I done?" And when I think of the zeal of Whitfield, and of
the earnestness of many of those great evangelists of former times, I
stand here astounded at myself, and I ask myself the question, "What
have I done?" And I can only answer it with some confusion of face. How
often have I preached to you, my hearers, the Word of God, and yet how
seldom have I wept over you as a pastor should? How often ought I to
have warned you of the wrath to come, when I have forgotten to be so
earnest as I might have been. I fear lest the blood of souls should lie
at my door, when I come to be judged of my God at last. I beseech you,
pray for your minister in this thing, that he may be forgiven, if there
has ever been a lack of earnestness, and energy, and prayerfulness, and
pray that during the next year I may always preach as though I ne'er
might preach again.
"A dying man to dying men."
I heard the moralist whilst I was questioning the Christian, say, "What
have I done? Sir, I have done all I ought to have done. You may, as a
Gospeller, stand there and talk to me about sins; but I tell you, Sir,
I have done all that was my duty; I have always attended my church or
chapel regularly every Sunday as ever a man or woman could; I have
always read prayers in the family, and I always say prayers before I go
to bed and when I get up in the morning. I don't know that I owe
anybody anything, or that I have been unkind to anybody; I give a fair
share to the poor, and I think if good works have any merit I certainly
have done a great deal." Quite right, my friend, very right, indeed, if
good works have any merit; but then it is very unfortunate that they
have not any; for our good works, if we do them to save ourselves by
them, are no better than our sins. You might as well hope to go to
heaven by cursing and swearing, as by the merits of your own good
works; for although good works are infinitely preferable to cursing and
swearing in a moral point of view, yet there is no more merit in one
than there is in the other, though there is less sin in one than in the
other. Will you please to remember, then, that all you have been doing
all these years is good for nothing? "Well, but, sir, I have trusted in
Christ." Now, stop! Let me ask you a question. Do you mean to say, that
you have trusted partly in Christ, and partly in your own good works?
"Yes, sir." Well, then, let me tell you, the Lord Jesus Christ will
never be a make weight; you must take Christ wholly, or else no Christ
at all, for Christ will never go shares with you in the work of
salvation. So, I repeat, all you have ever done is good for nothing.
You have been building a card-house, and the tempest will blow it down;
you have been building a house upon the sand, and when the rains
descend and the floods come, the last vestige of it will be swept away
forever. Hear ye the word of the Lord! "By the works of the law shall
no flesh living be justified." "Cursed is every one that continueth not
in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them;" and
in as much as you have not continued in all things that are written in
the law you are transgressors of the law, and you are under the curse,
and all that the law has to say to you is, "Cursed, cursed, cursed!
Your morality is of no help to you whatever, as to eternal things."
I turn to another character. He says, "Well, I don't trust in my
morality nor in anything else; I say,
'Begone dull care, I pray thee begone from me.'
I have nothing to do with talking about eternity, as you would have me.
But, sir, I am not a bad fellow after all. It is a very little that I
ever do amiss; now and then a peccadillo, just a little folly, but
neither my country, nor my friends, nor my own conscience, can say
anything against me. True, I am none of your saints; I don't profess to
be too strict; I may go a little too far sometimes, but it is only a
little; and I dare say we shall be able to set all matters straight
before the end comes." Well, friend, but I wish you had asked yourself
the question, "What have I done?"–it strikes me that if each of you
would just take off that film, that films your heart and your life
over, you might see a grievous leprosy lurking behind what you have
done. "Well, for the matter of that," says one, "perhaps I may have
taken a glass or two too much sometimes." Stop a bit! What is the name
of that? Stutter as much as you like! Out with it! What is the name of
it? "Why, it is just a little mirth, sir." Stop, let us have the right
name of it. What do you call it in any one else? "Drunkenness, I
suppose." Says another, "I have been a little loose in my talk
sometimes." What is that? "It has been just a merry spree." Yes, but
please to call it what it ought to be called–lascivious conversation.
Write that down. "Oh! no, sir; things are looking serious." Yes, they
are indeed; but they do not look any more serious than they really are.
Sometimes you have been out on the Sabbath day haven't you? "Oh! yes;
but that has been only now and then–just sometimes." Yes, but let us
put it down what it is, and we will see what the list comes to.
Sabbath-breaking! "Stop," you say, "I have gone no further, sir;
certainly I have gone no further." I suppose in your conversation,
sometimes during your life, you have quoted texts of Scripture to make
jokes of them, haven't you? And sometimes you have cried out, when you
have been a little surprised, "Lord, have mercy upon me, and such
things. I don't venture to say you swear; though there is a Christian
way of swearing that some people get into, and they think it is not
quite swearing, but what it is besides nobody knows, and so we will put
it down as swearing–cursing and swearing. "Oh! sir, it was only when
somebody trod on my toes, or I was angry." Never mind, put it down by
its right name: we shall get a pretty good list against you by and by.
I suppose that in trade you never adulterate your articles. "Well that
is a matter of business in which you ought not to interfere." Well, it
so happens I am going to interfere–and if you please we will call it
by its right name–stealing. We will put that down. I suppose you have
never been hard with a debtor, have you? You have never at any time
wished that you were richer, and sometimes half wished that your
opposite neighbor would lose part of his custom, so that you might have
it? Well, we will call it by its right name: that is "covetousness,
which is idolatry." Now, the list seems to be getting black indeed.
Besides that, how have you spent all this year; and though you have
pretended sometimes to say prayers, have you ever really prayed? No,
you have not. Well, then there is prayerlessness to put down. You have
sometimes read the Bible, you have sometimes listened to the ministry
but have you not, after all, let all these things pass away? Then I
want to know whether that is not despising God, and whether we must not
put that down under that name. Truly we need go but very little
further; for the list already when summed up is most fearful, and few
of us can escape from sins so great as these, if our conscience be but
a little awake.
But there is one man here who has grown very careless and indifferent
to every point of morality, and he says, "Ah! young man, I could tell
you what I have done during the year." Stop, sir, I don't particularly
wish to know just now; you may as well tell it to yourself when you get
home. There are young people here: it would not do them much good to
know what you have done perhaps. You are no better than you should be,
some people say; which means, you are so bad they would not like to say
what you are. Do you suppose in all this congregation we have no
debauched men–none that indulge in the vilest sin and lust? Why, God's
angel seems even now to be flying through our midst, and touching the
conscience of some, to let them know in what iniquities they have
indulged during the year. I pray God that my just simply alluding to
them may be the means of startling your conscience. Ah! ye may hide
your sins; the coverlet of darkness may be your shelter; you may think
they shall never be discovered; but remember, every sin that you have
done shall be read before the sun, and men, and angels shall hear it in
the day of final account. Ah! my hearer, be thou moral or be thou
dissolute, I beseech thee, answer this question solemnly to-day: "What
have I done?" It would be as well if you took a piece of paper when you
went home, and just wrote down what you have done from last January to
December; and if some of you do not get frightened at it I must say you
have got pretty strong nerves, and are not likely to be frightened at
much yet.
Now I specially address myself to the unconverted man and I would help
him to answer this question in another point of view. "What have I
done?" Ah! man, thou that livest in sin, thou that art a lover of
pleasure more than a lover of God, what hast thou done? Dost thou not
know that one sin is enough to damn a soul for ever? Hast thou never
read in Holy Scripture that cursed is he that sins but once? How damned
then, art thou by the myriad sins of this one year! Recall, I beseech
thee, the sins of thy youth and thy former transgressions up till now;
and if one sin would ruin thee for ever, how ruined art thou now! Why,
man, one wave of sin may swamp thee. What will these oceans of thy
guilt do? One witness against thee will be enough to condemn thee:
behold the crowds of follies and of crimes now gathered round the
judgment-seat that have gone before thee into judgment. How wilt thou
escape from their testimonies, when God shall call thee to his bar.
What hast thou done? Come, man, answer this question. There are many
consequences involved in thy sin, and in order to answer this question
rightly thou must reply to every consequence, what hast thou done to
thine own soul? Why, thou hast destroyed it; thou hast done thy best to
ruin it for ever. For thine own poor soul thou hast been digging
dungeons; thou hast been piling faggots; thou hast been forging chains
of iron–faggots with which to burn it, and fetters with which to bind
it for ever.
Remember, thy sins are like sowing for a harvest. What a harvest is
that which thou hast sown for thy poor soul! Thou hast sown the wind,
thou shalt reap the whirlwind; thou hast sown iniquity, thou shalt reap
damnation. But what hast thou done against the gospel? Remember, how
many times this year thou hast heard it preached? Why, since thy birth
there have been wagon-loads of sermons wasted on thee. Thy parents
prayed for thee in thy youth; thy friends instructed thee till thou
didst come to manhood. Since then how many a tear has been wept by the
minister for thee! How many an earnest appeal has been shot into thine
heart! But thou hast rent out the arrow. Ministers have been concerned
to save thee, and thou cast never been concerned about thyself. What
hast thou done against Christ? Remember, Christ has been a good Christ
to sinners here; but as there is nothing that burns so well as that
soft substance, oil, so there is nothing that will be so furious as
that gentle-hearted Saviour, when he comes to be your Judge. Fiercer
than a lion on his prey is rejected love. Despise Christ on the cross,
and it will be a terrible thing to be judged by Christ on his throne.
But again: what have you done for your children this year? Oh! there be
some here present that have been doing all they could to ruin their
children's souls. Tis solemn what responsibility rests upon a father;
and what shall be said of a drunken father?–the father that sets his
children an example of drunkenness. Swearer, what have you done for
your family? Haven't you, too, been twisting the rope for their eternal
destruction? Will they not be sure to do as you do? Mother, you have
several children, but this year you have never prayed for one of them,
never put your arms round their necks as they kneeled at their little
chair at night, and said, "Our Father;" you have never told them of
Jesus that loved children, and once became a child like them. Ah, then,
you too have neglected your children. I remember a mother who was
converted to God in her old age, and she said to me–and I shall never
forget the womanly grief–"God has forgiven me, but I shall never
forgive myself. For sir," she said, "I have nourished and brought up
children but I have done it without any respect to religion." And then
she burst into tears, and said, "I have been a cruel mother, sir; I
have been a wretch!" "Why," said I, "my good woman, you have brought
your children up." "Yes," said she, "my husband died when they were
young, and left me with six of them, and these hands have earned their
bread and found them clothes; no one," she said, "can accuse me of
being unkind to them in anything but this; but this is the worst of
all; I have been a cruel mother to them, for while I fed their bodies I
neglected their souls. But some have gone further than this. Ah, young
man, you have not only done your best this year to damn yourself, but
you have done your best to damn others! Remember, last January, you
took that young man into the tavern for the first time, and laughed at
all his boyish scruples, as you called them, and told him to drink
away, as you did. Remember, when in the darkness of night you first led
astray one young man whose principles were virtuous, and who had not
known lust unless you had revealed it to him; you said at the time,
"Come with me; I'll show you London life, I'll let you see pleasure!"
That young man, when he first came to your shop, used to go to the
house of God on Sunday, and seemed to bid fair for heaven–"Ah," you
say, "I have laughed religion out of Jackson, he doesn't go any where
on a Sunday now except for a spree, and he is just as merry as any of
us." Ah! sir, and you will have two hells when you are damned; you will
have your own hell and his too, for he will look through the lurid
flames upon you, and say, "Mayhap, I had never been here if you had not
brought me here!" And ah! seducer, what eyes will be those that will
glare at you through hell's horror?–The eyes of one whom you led into
iniquity! what double hells they will be to you as they glare on you
like two stars, whose light is fury, and wither your blood for ever!
Pause, ye that have led others astray, and tremble now. I paused
myself, and prayed to God when I first knew a Saviour, that he would
help me to lead those to Christ that I had ever in any way led astray.
And I remember George Whitfield says when he began to pray, his first
prayer was that God would convert those with whom he used to play at
cards and waste his Sundays. "And blessed be God," he says, "I got
every one of them."
O my God, can I not detect in some face here astonishment and terror.
Doth no man's knees knock together? Doth no man's heart quail within
him because of his iniquity? Surely it cannot be so, else were your
hearts turned to steel, and your bowels become as iron in the midst of
you. Surely, if it be so, the words of God are most certainly true,
wherein he saith, in the seventh verse of this chapter–"The stork in
the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle, and the crane,
and the swallow, observe the time of their coming; but my people know
not the judgment of the Lord;" and certainly that prophet was true who
said, "The ox knoweth its owner, and the ass his masters crib; but my
people doth not know, Israel doth not consider." Oh, are ye so brutish
as to let the reflections of that guilt pass over you without causing
astonishment and terror? Then, surely we who feel our guilt have need
to bend our knees for you, and pray that God might yet bring you to
know yourselves; for, living and dying as you are, hardened and without
hope, your lot must be horrible in the extreme.
How happy should I be if I might hope that the great mass of you could
accompany me in this humble confession of our faith; may I speak as if
I were speaking for each one of you? It shall be at your option, either
to accept what I say, or to reject it; but, I trust, the great
multitude of you will follow me. "Oh, Lord! I this morning confess that
my sins are greater than I can bear; I have deserved thy hottest wrath,
and thine infinite displeasure; and I hardly dare to hope that thou
canst have mercy upon me; but inasmuch as thou didst give thy Son to
die upon the cross for sinners, thou hast also said, Look unto me and
be ye saved all the ends of the earth,' Lord, I look to thee this
morning, though I never looked before, yet I look now; though I have
been a slave of sin to this moment, yet Lord, accept me, sinner though
I be, through the blood and righteousness of thy Son, Jesus Christ. Oh
Father, frown not on me; thou mayest well do so, but I plead that
promise which says, Whosoever cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast
out. Lord, I come–
Just as I am, without one plea,
But that thy blood was shed for me,
And that thou bid'st me come to thee,
O Lamb of God, I come.
My faith doth lay its hand,
On that dear head of thine,
While like a penitent I stand,
And there confess my sin.
"Lord accept me, Lord pardon me, and take me as I am, from this time
forth and for ever, to be thy servant whilst I live, to be thy redeemed
when I die." Can you say that? Did not many a heart say it? Did I not
hear many a lip in silence utter it? Be of good cheer, my brother, my
sister, that if that came from your heart, you are as safe as the
angels of heaven, for you are a child of God, and you shall never
perish.
III. Now I have to address a few words of AFFECTIONATE ADMONITION, and
then I have done. It is a very solemn thing to think how years roll
away. I never spent a shorter year in my life than this one, and the
older I grow, the shorter the years get; and you, old men, I dare say,
look back on your sixty and seventy years, and you say, "Ah, young man,
they will seem shorter, soon!" No doubt, they will. "So teach us to
number our days, O God, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." But,
is it not a solemn thing, that there is another year nearly gone; and
yet many of you are unsaved? You are just where you were last year. No,
you are not, you are nearer death, and you are nearer hell, except you
repent; and, perhaps, even what I have said this morning will have no
effect upon you. You are not altogether hardened, for you have had many
serious impressions. Scores of times you have wept under discourses,
and yet all has been in vain, for you are what you were. I beseech you,
answer this question, "What have I done?" for, remember, there will be
a time when you will ask this question, but it will be too late. When
Is that–say you–on the death bed? No, it is not too late there.
"While the lamp holds out to burn,
The vilest sinner may return."
But it will be too late to ask, "What have I done?" when the breath has
gone out of your body. Just suppose the monument as it used to be,
before they caged it round. Suppose a man going up the winding
staircase to the top, with a full determination to destroy himself. He
has got on the outside of the railings. Can you imagine him for a
moment saying, "What have I done?" just after he has taken his leap.
Why, methinks some spirit in the air might whisper, "Done? you have
done what you can never undo. You are lost–lost–lost!" Now, remember
that you that have not Christ, are to-day going up that spiral
stair-case; perhaps, to-morrow you will be standing in the article of
death upon the palisading, and when death has gotten you, and you are
just leaping from that monument of life down to the gulf of despair,
that question will be full of horror to you. "What have you done?" But
the answer for it will not be profitable, but full of terror. Methinks,
I see a spirit launched upon the sea of eternity. I hear it say, "What
have I done?" It is plunged in flaming waves, and cries, "What have I
done?" It sees before it a long eternity; but it asks the question
again, "What have I done?" The dread answer comes; thou hast earned all
this for thyself. Thou knewest thy duty, but thou didst it not; Thou
wast warned, but thou didst despise the warning. Ah! hear the doleful
soliloquy of such a spirit. The last great day is come; the flaming
throne is set, and the great book is opened. I hear the leaves as with
terrible rustle they are turned over. I see men motioned to the right
or to the left, according to the result of that great book. And what
have I done? I know that to me sin will be destruction, for I have
never sought a Saviour. What is that? The Judge has fixed his eye on
me. Now, it is on me turned. Will he say, "Depart ye cursed," unto me?
Oh! let me be crushed for ever, rather than bear that sight. There is
no noise, but the finger is lifted, and I am dragged out of the crowd,
and singly I stand before the Judge. He turns to my page, and before he
reads it, my heart quakes within me. "Be it so," says he, "it has never
been blotted with my blood. You despised my calls; you laughed at my
people; you would have none of my mercy; you said that you would take
the wages of unrighteousness. You shall have them, the wages of sin is
death." Ah! me, and is he about to say, "Depart, ye cursed?" Yes, with
a voice louder than a thousand thunders, he says, "Depart, ye cursed,
into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." Ah! it
is all true now. I laughed at the minister, because he preached about
hell; and here am I in hell, myself. Ah! I used to wonder why he wanted
to frighten us so. Ah! I would to God he had frightened me more, if he
might but have frightened me out of this place. But now, here am I
lost, and there is no escape. I am in darkness so dark, there is not a
ray of light can ever reach me. I am shut up so close, that not one of
the bolts and bars can ever be removed. I am damned for ever. Ah! that
is a dreary soliloquy. I cannot tell it to you. Oh! if you were there,
yourselves, if you could only know what they feel, and see what they
endure, then would you wonder that I am not more earnest in preaching
the Gospels and you would marvel, not that I wish to make you weep, but
that I did not weep far more myself, and preach more solemnly. Ah! my
hearers, as the Lord my God liveth, before whom I stand, I shall one
day stand acknowledged by our conscience as having been a true witness
unto you this morning; for there is not one of you here today, but will
be without excuse, if you perish. You have been warned, I have warned
you as earnestly as I can. I have no more powers to spend, no more arts
to try, no more persuasion that I can use. I can only conclude by
saying, I beseech you, fly to Jesus. I entreat you, as immortal spirits
that are bound for endless weal or woe, fly ye to Christ; seek for
mercy at his hands; trust in him, and be saved; and, at your peril,
reject my solemn warning. Remember, ye may reject it, but ye reject not
me, but him that sent me. Ye may despise it, but ye despise not me, but
a greater than Moses, even Jesus Christ the Lord; and when ye come
before his bar, piercing will be his language, and terrible his words,
when he condemns you for ever, for ever, for ever, without hope, for
ever, for ever, for ever. May God deliver us from that, for Jesus'
sake. Amen.
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