Fields White For Harvest
DELIVERED ON SUNDAY EVENING, JULY 29, 1866, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE
METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"Do you notsay, 'There are yet four months, and then comes the
harvest'? Behold, Isay to you, Lift up your eyes and look at the fields
for they are already white for harvest."
John 4:35.
MANY unbelieving Christians have a very large stock of reasons for not
expecting to see many conversions. They suppose that any present
manifestation of the Divine power in connection with the Truth of God
is not to be expected. They read the history of past ages and they
wonder, and sometimes, when their eyes are sufficiently clear, they
look forward with some sort of hope to the repetition of these scenes
in future years, that is to say, when they, themselves, are dead and
buried, and a new age shall have come upon the world.
But as to God working any wonders in the world now–as to the
conversion of thousands now–they do not expect it. And if it were to
happen they would be surprised, and beyond all measure astonished. They
are forever dwelling in the past, or seeking to roost in the
future–but as for now, now seeing God's arm made bare, now setting to
work for the conversion of men, now expecting that God will win hearts
unto Himself–they are not brought up to this mark yet. Their common
reason for expecting nothing now is this–that there are yet four
months, and then comes the harvest. They say, "This is not the time. We
must have patience. We must wait. This is not the man. This is not the
hour. This is not the place. We must wait till, under other
circumstances, other men being given, we look for grander results. But
we must not expect them now–there are yet four months, and then comes
the harvest."
You know that this is the general feeling at present in the Christian
Church–not to expect any great things now, but to be waiting and
watching for something or other which may one of these days, in the
order of Providence, "turn up." Meanwhile, it is true that death does
not cease to slay! Meanwhile, it is a fact that our cemeteries and
graveyards are being crowded, and that multitudes are perishing for
lack of knowledge. Meanwhile, it is most true that error stalks like a
pestilence through the land. It is true that, as yet, Christ does not
see of the travail of His soul and that few are the travelers who go
through the strait gate.
But these good people seem indifferent to the perishing millions, and
only say, "There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest." I
have noticed that this kind of feeling has crept into the smaller
agencies–to the individual workers, too. In the Sunday school, how
many a teacher does not expect to see the children of his class
converted, but fondly hopes that perhaps, when they are grown up, the
benefit of the instruction which he imparts to them may be apparent?
"There are yet four months," they say, "and then comes the harvest."
The most of those who teach our young people have become hopeful that
perhaps before those young persons shall actually die, or before they
come to be gray-headed, some Truth that has been dropped into their
hearts may perhaps germinate, and bud, and come to perfection– but
they do not expect a present blessing. "There are yet four months, and
then comes the harvest."
Take the most of our ministers, and what are they looking for? They
hope that God may visit their congregations. But as to holding
enquirers' meetings every week, and expecting to find people crying,
"Sir, what must I do to be saved?" after their sermons–all this is not
according to their notions. "There are yet four months, and then comes
the harvest." One of these bright sunny days, one of these
long-expected months of which the Prophets have talked so long, perhaps
in the Millennium year, which some say is drawing so near, they are
expecting wonderful things, for "there are yet four months, and then
comes the harvest."
Truly, my Brethren, one's ears have been dinned and dunned with it till
one has got sick of hearing that "there are yet four months, and then
comes the harvest." Patience is a virtue, but sometimes decision is a
greater one! To wait long is well, but not when the harvest is ripe and
ready–for then it will lie upon the ground and rot! To wait may be
well, but not when men are dying–no, when Hell is filling! Not when
immortal souls are in jeopardy! Not when the plague is raging, and we
have, today, to stand between the living and the dead, and wave the
censer of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that the plague may be stopped!
Four months, indeed. Four months! Have there not been months enough
already? We have waited long! We have waited till our patience may well
have exhausted itself. It was to be four months in the days of our
grandfathers. It was to be four months in the days of our fathers! And
now it is to be four months still! Oh that we would learn the Savior's
words, and say no longer that "there are four months, and then comes
the harvest"! But let us do as He says, "Lift up your eyes and look at
the fields for they are already white for harvest." Expect a present
blessing! Believe that you will have it! Go to work to get it, and do
not be satisfied unless you do have it!
Let me dream dreams of the future and put you off from looking for a
blessing only in the future–for though it may be true that your words
will be blessed after you are dead–yet do not be content with that
hope, but want them to be blessed NOW. Though, possibly, a sermon may
bring a soul to God twenty years after it is preached, yet do not think
of that! Think of those who are present while it is preached, and be
not satisfied unless now, on the spot, you reap some of that wheat
which is already white for harvest!
We shall now come directly to our subject, and may we have strength
given by God's Grace to stir up Christian laborers to great and
instantaneous diligence. We shall take our text in three ways–signs of
harvest, needs of harvest, and fears of harvest.
I. SIGNS OF HARVEST. "Do you not say, 'There are yet four months, and
then comes harvest'? Behold, I say to you, Lift up your eyes and look
at the fields for they are already white for harvest." What signs were
there, when the Savior uttered these words, from which the disciples
might effect an immediate gathering of souls? I answer, first, that
there was this sign–that the Savior had preached a sermon and that the
whole of His congregation had been converted!
You will remind me that He had but one hearer. Yes, but that is the
first point to which I want to come. The conversion of one soul by the
Gospel should be to you a hopeful sign that God intends to convert
others! For look–the cholera is raging in certain towns, say, on the
Continent–and a physician has been studying the disease. He has
administered a variety of drugs but in every case without success. He
has prescribed different methods of treatment, but in no case has he
succeeded in effecting a cure.
At last he has hit upon the right drug, and, administering it, he sees
his patient rallying. Strength evidently given by the medicine, the
struggle ends favorably, and the patient rises to life and health.
"Now," says the physician, "I know that I shall have a harvest of men
who will be preserved from this disease because the same medicine which
heals one will heal two, will heal twenty, will heal a thousand, or
even twenty thousand! It only has to be administered–that one person
has been healed by this compound, and it is clear that as many more may
be healed as are willing to receive it."
Brethren, we do not lack this sign with regard to the Gospel! We have
had it! We have it still! It is clear to you that the Gospel has been
blessed to the conversion of some. We, as a Church, can show every week
some whom God converts by His Divine Grace. We have not been left
without our witnesses at any time. During the last twelve years God's
hand has continually been stretched out. Now we ought to take this as
an omen of good! If some have found the Savior, why not more? Christian
Soldier, you have a sword in your hand that has won one battle–why
should it not win another, and another, and another? You have the
Omnipotence of God with you which has already broken one hard
heart–why should it not break other hard hearts?
Already one stronghold of the enemy has been captured by the sounding
of the silver trumpet! Why should not the rest fall, too, when, with
the confidence of faith we sound the silver trumpet yet again? When
Napoleon landed on his return from Elba, and one man came and presented
himself as willing to serve the Emperor, "Here," said Napoleon, "is at
least one recruit." So may we say when we have converts–"Here is one
recruit, and thank God for one! For the same attractive influence which
draws one will draw multitudes more." We have got the right medicine!
We have got the right power! Therefore let us hope that there is a
harvest to be reaped now!
But, again, there was another hopeful sign, namely, that this one
convert was at that very moment diligently engaged in making more
converts. "The woman then left her water pot and went her way into the
city, and said to the men, Come, see a man which told me all things
that ever I did." We hear a great deal of strategy. It was our Savior's
strategy to bless the men of Samaria through this woman. He said to
her, "Go call your husband, and come here." This is the blessing about
the Gospel–that if it gets into one person's heart it is sure to run
from that one to all those who live in the neighborhood and who are the
surroundings of that saved one!
Just strike the match and let the spark drop in the prairie, and what a
roaring ocean of flame shall soon come from it! Let God's Grace fall
into one soul and who knows what the end shall be? When this country of
ours was all asleep and religion was at the lowest possible ebb, six
young men at Oxford felt the inspiration of God and they met together
to pray. They were expelled by the college for the horrid crime of
meeting together to pray, but what was the result of it? Soon, from the
Land's End to John o'Groat's House that same inspiration which had
fallen upon those young men had descended upon the multitudes, till
from peers of the realm down to the black-faced colliers, men of all
ranks and grades confessed the power of the God of Israel!
One of those young men, as you remember, wrote the hymn we sang just
now–
"Saw you not the cloud arise, Little as a human hand?"
It only needs a beginning! Get one soul saved and you have got a
preacher of Christ at once! There is not a plant that grows by the
hedge-side but takes care, as it dies, to scatter all down the bank the
seeds of succeeding generations of plants. And you cannot get the Grace
of God into a soul but it is sure to try to disseminate the spiritual
life, and to bring others to know the holy joy which it itself
experiences.
Here, then, were two signs of harvest–there was one saved, and that
one was trying to bring others to be saved. But there was a third sign
that was better still, namely, that the others were coming to hear.
There they came, a whole troop of them from that little town, all
anxious to listen to the Savior! Oh, it is a blessed sign in these
times of ours that men are willing to listen to the preaching of
Christ! We can scarcely find places large enough now in which to
accommodate the multitude. It is true they will not go to hear some
ministers–who would? Who cares to go to hear where the preaching is
dull?
Some charity boy being asked why the eunuch "went on his way
rejoicing," replied that, "It was because Philip had done preaching to
him," and I do not doubt that there are some now who from the same
cause go on their way rejoicing when the sermon is over. But simple
speech, plain talk about Christ, does win the ear still, and if it is
but tried, and it really is the Gospel that is preached, there will
never be a lack of hearers! See how Sunday night after Sunday night the
theatres have been filled when our Brethren have gone there to preach
to the working classes the Gospel of Jesus Christ! It is false that the
working men of London do not care to hear the Gospel–they do care to
hear it. Only preach it so that it can be understood–take the velvet
from your mouths and speak plainly–and they will be sure to come to
listen.
This is always a good sign, and we may fairly expect a harvest when
once we get the people to hear. When the fish get round the net, surely
some of them will be taken. And when the furrows lie open, surely he
who scatters good seed may have hope that he shall see it spring up.
Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I am persuaded there never was a time
when people were more willing to listen to the Gospel of Christ than
now! They will hear it if you only preach it so that it can be
understood! Do not, of course, expect them to listen to you if you are
not earnest about what you have to say. But if you have something to
tell them that is worth their hearing, never fear but what they will
give you the hearing. This was another sign of harvest.
But there was yet a better one. Our Savior knew that a harvest was
approaching because the persons who were coming to hear were the very
people who seemed the least likely to listen to His Word. They were
Samaritans who were coming. "Oh!" said the Jew, "a Samaritan!" If he
merely heard the word, "Samaritan," he turned on his heels and went his
way very much in the same style as some of our gentlemen do if they
merely hear the word, "rough," which is supposed to be the
conglomeration of everything that is horrible! And yet the person who
happens to be called a "rough" may be rough in nothing but his
garments, and may have as gentle a heart as ever beat beneath
broadcloth. But so it is. Sometimes the very people come to hearken to
the Gospel whom you would least expect to see listening to it, and this
is a good sign.
When the Samaritans will hear, when the giddy multitude are willing to
stand crowded together to listen to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, when
the working man is not ashamed to come to the House of God to hear
Christ preached, and will even stand at a corner of the street and
listen to it–it is a good sign, and it is a sign that we see now. The
publican and the harlot are willing to receive the Gospel of Jesus, and
God blesses them, and they enter into the kingdom of
Heaven! All these are good signs of a coming harvest! It is, moreover,
an omen for good when we remember the men who have labored before us.
How much of labor has been spent upon this city! How many earnest men
have wept and toiled among our teeming masses, and have gone back to
their Master with, "Who has believed our report, and to whom has the
arm of the Lord been revealed?"
Here for three centuries, I may say, since the days of old Hugh
Latimer, right on from the time of the preaching at Paul's Cross, there
has never been a lack of ministrations of God's Truth in this city of
London and in the surrounding parts of the metropolis. Some of you can
almost look back to the days when John Newton was at St. Mary Woolnoth,
and can almost remember Romaine at St. Ann's, Blackfriars–when we had
among Dissenters such men as Dr. Gill, and afterwards Dr. Rippon, and
Abraham Booth, and others who labored and toiled for Christ, and yet,
after all met with but little comparative success.
There must be some good come from all this! Has all this labor been
spent for nothing? Has the ground been watered by the sweat of these
men, and have they plowed it and sown it, and is there never to come a
harvest? Our Savior seems to say, "Those Samaritans over yonder, they
have the Word of God. They have heard something about it–even the Jews
could not keep the light of prophecy away from them–other men have
prepared them to receive our teachings." And, doubtless, the days that
are past have been preparing the population of England to receive the
Gospel. And we may hope that when it does come to them it will come
with a mighty power, for when the Holy Spirit is pleased to work
mightily we shall see something done, the like of which England has
never seen before, and which shall be the result of the accumulated
labors of many years gone by.
We have a right to expect a harvest when we remember what has been done
already. And Brethren, I think it is a sign of some good for the Church
of Christ when there is a stir among the people. The worst thing,
perhaps, for true religion is the stagnation of the human mind. When
people are not thoughtful about other things, it is very seldom that
you can get them to be thoughtful about religion. It is generally
supposed that our country friends, some of whom seem to vegetate rather
than to live, and who are not so pressed with business from morning
till night as we are in London, must have a great deal of time to give
to religion, and that they must, therefore, be the most hopeful of
congregations.
My country Brethren do not confirm the supposition, and for myself–for
I preach more in the country than I do in the town–and often spend
three or four days a week in addressing country audiences–for myself I
must say that glad as I am to address the assembled crowds in a field
or anywhere else, I do not find that the supposition that their having
less to do makes them think more of Divine things is at all correct. I
believe that where the intellect is most exerted, above other things,
there is, on the whole, the most hope of sending home some thought
about Divine things. It is true that thorns may be a hindrance, and
are, but at any rate they prove that the soil will grow something, and
I think if I were going to take a farm, I would sooner take one that
was overgrown with thistles than one which grew nothing at all.
It is better to lay hold of a man who really does think about something
than of one who thinks about nothing at all, and has nothing at all to
think about. It is said–I do not know how truly–that a singular
apathy had seized the public mind, and that there was nothing that
could stir it up. Continually it was said that was an age in which
nobody cared for anything, and I think it is pretty nearly the fact.
Nobody cared what anyone did or did not do. As long as people could be
tolerably easy, they seemed to be pretty well satisfied. If you did not
put on the income-tax too heavily, nothing else would much concern the
people.
But now it is not so. I think I see the beginning of a stir in the
public mind. Even the political stir of the last few days, with all
about it which one would deplore, shows that the public mind is
stirring, for there generally comes a waking up about every twenty
years or so. People go to sleep for a long time, but all of a sudden
they begin to rub their eyes, and to enquire about this, and about
that, and about something else. Well, now is the time when the spirit
is thus aroused to preach the Gospel to that awakened mind! It seems to
me that no nobler opportunity could present itself than now. Now is the
time when the corners of the streets should ring with ministers'
voices! When the Word of God should be distributed in every house! When
you should give away tracts, not such poor tracts as are mostly given
away, but tracts with something solid in them, and these should be
given away by millions, for just now men are thoughtful, and let them
have the grand revealed reality to think about!
I believe on this account, let others think what they will, that there
are the signs of a coming harvest. And, to conclude on this point, it
is quite certain that at the present period the old priest-crafts do
not hinder men from hearing the Gospel. Time was, I dare say, in Sychar
and Samaria, when the people dared not have come out to hear Christ.
They had to ask some Samaritan Rabbi whether it was proper for them to
go to hear the new Prophet. You know in half the country towns in
England this is the case. The people there no more dare to think for
themselves in religion than they dared to think of old in the days of
serfdom and slavery.
Squire-craft and priest-craft still tread the people in the country
down. But it is not so in London. Nobody here thinks of asking the
parish priest where he shall go. We can get at the people! We can bring
the Gospel to their doors! There is no dominant priest-craft to keep us
back, and I say, Brethren, if Martin Luther could have lived in such an
age as this, how he would have rejoiced to see it! And if John Bunyan,
after lying twelve years in Bedford Jail–if Richard Baxter, and
Alleine, and men of that stamp could have lived in days where there is
such perfect liberty that every man may hear the Gospel if he cares to
hear it–they would have been almost ready to say, "Lord, let Your
servants depart in peace, for our eyes have seen Your salvation."
This is the hour of the flowing of the tide which taken at its flood
leads on to fortune. If the Christian Church does not avail herself of
the present crisis, she deserves to have an age of infidelity to make
her mourn over her laxity and her indolence! If now the Christian
Church dares not bestir herself, now when the minds of men are ready,
when their ears are open, when there is nothing to stand between us and
the multitude–then I fear she will have cause to repent and mourn in
days of darkness and bitterness which will inevitably follow.
Up, then, Believers! If the Bible is worthy of your belief proclaim it
to others, and proclaim it especially just now. Now is the day and now
is the hour, for the fields are already white for the harvest.
II. Supposing all this to be true, we shall now speak of HARVEST NEEDS.
The needs of harvest are, first, many laborers. If many souls are to be
converted, there must be many to preach to them. If we are to expect a
great ingathering, as I think we ought, there must be much energy used
and much effort put forth. "Pray you, therefore, the Lord of the
harvest that He would send forth laborers into His harvest," and ask
Him to be pleased to stir up Christian zeal throughout the whole of
Christendom that advantage may be taken of this auspicious hour.
You cannot reap without laborers. I saw a reaping machine the other day
doing the work very well and very fast, but somehow or other one liked
the old-fashioned look of the field when the laborers were in it at
work. Certainly there is no machine that can do this work of
soul-reaping. It must be done by men–chosen men, who, filled with the
Spirit of God, shall go forth to ingather souls. The first need, then,
is more laborers. Who is there among you who will consecrate himself to
God? I do not ask for young men for the College just now. We have
enough. But I do ask for young men, old men, and all sorts of men, and
women, too, to be laborers in the great work of ingathering souls. Many
sinners perish, and many saints do nothing. Oh, you who know Christ, be
indifferent no longer!
The next thing that is needed is sharp sickles as well as more
laborers. A laborer is no good unless he has got a sickle, and if he
can keep his sickle sharp, so much the better. You must get a hold,
dear Friends, of God's Truth. You will do nothing without that Truth of
God, and you must have that Truth well understood. You must grind your
sickles–you must go to work with such cutting Truths as justification
by faith, as the total ruin of mankind–the hope that is laid up in the
Cross, the energy of the Holy Spirit.
And when you know these Truths, and know how to use them, you shall
then be made great reapers in the Master's harvest! It is idle to say,
"I will go," and then go with no tool in your hands. Get the Truth. Get
hold of it well, get it sharp and in good order, and who knows, under
the blessing of God the Holy Spirit, what you may do! The next need of
harvest is some close binders. When the wheat is cut down you must tie
it up with sheaves. We want some of you who cannot preach, who cannot
use the sickle, to go and gather up the wheat which falls under the
sickle when it is used by others.
Invite them to come into Church fellowship. Talk to them, get them into
union with the people of God. And oh, if you happen to be in the Church
yourselves, try to keep the Church knit together in love. Bind the
sheaves together! We cannot have good harvest work without loving hands
to bind the people of God in one. Then we need beside these some to
take the sheaves home. The Church of God is the barn, it is the
Master's garner here–He has another garner yonder on the hilltop in
Heaven–but here we want you to assist in bringing them into the Church
of Christ. When God has served them, try, if you can, to get them to
practice the ordinances of God, and to be joined with His people.
And we need some of you, if you cannot do anything yourselves either in
reaping, or binding, or bringing the sheaves home, at least by kind
words and loving speeches to bring refreshments to the reapers. You can
sometimes remind them of the success you know they have had in certain
places. You can cheer them when they begin to grow uneasy. You can go
to those who are working hard and say, "Be not discouraged! God has
blessed you to my soul. God has owned your work in such-and-such cases.
Persevere, and God is with you!"
As I look round this congregation I cannot help thinking what a mass of
strength there must be here for the Lord's cause if it could but be
brought out! You, young man, who are full of ability, who would take
the lead in any society into which you choose to enter–oh, young man,
how I long for you as a recruit for my Master and to enlist you in His
service! If you were a Christian, or if being a Christian, you were all
on fire with love to Christ, what might you not accomplish! I would
desire have that matron yonder, with her family about her, to enlist
for the Savior. Oh, what a position of usefulness she has!
And that great employer of labor there, how influential he is! How a
good word from him might be blessed to hundreds of people! And even you
who are servants in families, nurses and so on, you may not have so
wide a sphere of labor, but you have still your place of influence. Oh,
if every talent we possess were but consecrated to Christ! London, you
need not be in the dark if all God's lamps which are in you were but
lit! O you mighty city! You need not be ignorant of the Gospel if the
tongue of every child of God would but tell it out. If we were all
enlisted, all made soldiers for Christ, might not this country yet feel
the power of Christ? And what are we? A slender few, a handful compared
with the masses of our fellow Christians! Would God that they were all
baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire, and then we might see such
a harvest as would make Heaven itself ring as we shouted our harvest
home!
I charge you who love the Lord–I charge you by the nearness of death,
by the shortness of the time in which you can serve your Master–do not
one of you be idle! Oh, my dear Hearers, I would almost say if you are
members of my Church here, and are doing nothing, get out! Of what
service can you be? You are drags on the wheels! You are an impediment
to the Church's course! You are like the heavy baggage which impedes
the armies of Israel! Do something! In God's name I charge you, do
something, or else be ashamed of yourselves!
Hasn't Christ done much for you? Do you profess to have been bought
with His blood? Have you dared to sing–
"I love my God with zeal so great That I could give Him all" and are
you doing nothing? Some of you drink in the Doctrines of Grace, but if
they are, indeed, true to you, show the Grace of the doctrines by
spending and being spent in the Master's cause! These, then, are the
needs of harvest.
III. And now, lastly, THE FEARS OF HARVEST. The farmer sometimes fears
that through lack of laborers he may be obliged to leave the wheat out
in the field till it is considerably damaged. After a certain time the
wheat spears out and there is a loss sustained. Birds, also, will feast
upon it, and the farmer's gains are going. My dear friends and fellow
reapers, this great city is the field that is white for the harvest!
And every hour in which men are not saved there are capabilities of
usefulness that are falling out and Satan is running away with
opportunities for good!
Supposing those souls to be saved in a few years, yet there are all the
years between now and then lost for God. I am jealous, not only to have
souls saved, but to have them saved while young. Why should Satan have
so much of their time? Why should so many years of their influence be
thrown into the wrong scale? The wheat, even if you do not get it in
before it perishes, is losing part of its value every hour. Oh, should
we not be moved by this to take the sickle and go at once to the work?
But there is a worse fear than this, namely, that some other wheat may
remain unharvested and so be destroyed. It may rot in the place where
it grows! And instead of gladdening the farmer, it may be there to
become a mere mass of rottenness–the very thing which might have been
so useful! Ah, how much of London may be destroyed for want of laborers
to go and take in the harvest! Ah, the millions that never enter a
place of worship! I speak within bounds, for even if they all wished to
enter there is hardly room for one million out of three, and a great
mass never come at all–but how few of us there are who go after them!
They perish, my Brothers and Sisters, they perish! They perish with an
overwhelming destruction!
You know how they perish! You know how you were once on the brink of
perishing, and how mercy snatched you from it. You have read in that
old Book of everlasting destruction which is the portion of the men who
die unwashed in the blood, and unforgiven. I charge you, if you would
not see souls lost, rise, and with the sickle get to the harvest, for
meanwhile do you not know that there are other reapers at work? If the
Christian does not work, there are others who will labor. If the Truth
of God does not now spread among the masses, error is spreading! You
cannot silence the tongue of infidelity if you shut your own mouth. You
cannot stop the voice of priest-craft if you are quiet yourselves. You
know that the messengers of Satan are busy.
As Hugh Latimer said, "The busiest bishop in England is the devil. He
is always traveling up and down his diocese. He neither neglects town
nor village, nor hamlet, nor so much as one of those who live in his
see. He is seeking both by night and by day the ruin of souls." Other
hands–they are gathering the harvest. But it belongs to your Master,
and will you endure it, will you endure it? You servants of Christ,
will you allow it? Shall the harvest be taken away? No! By the love you
bear your Master take the prey from the mighty.
And now, lastly, perhaps the most solemn reflection is that whether we
gather in the harvest or not, there is a reaper who is silently
gathering it every hour. Just now it is whispered that he is sharpening
his sickle. That reaper is DEATH! You may look upon this great city as
the harvest field, and every week the bills of mortality tell us how
steadily and how surely the scythe of Death moves to and fro, and how a
lane is made through our population. Those who were once living men are
taken like sheaves to the garner–taken to the graveyard and laid
aside. You cannot stop their dying, but oh, that God might help you to
stop their being damned! You cannot stop the breath from going out of
their bodies, but oh, if the Gospel could but stop their souls from
going down to destruction!
It can do it, and nothing else can take its place. Just now this
cholera has come. There can be little doubt, I suppose, about it being
here already in some considerable force, and probably it may be worse.
The Christian cannot dread it–he has nothing to lose–and everything
to gain. Still, for the sake of others he may well pray that God would
avert His hand and not let His anger burn. But since it is coming, I
think it ought to be a motive for active exertion. If there ever was a
time when the mind is sensitive it is when death is abroad.
I remember when first I came to London how anxiously people listened to
the Gospel, for the cholera was raging terribly. There was little
scoffing then. All day and sometimes all night long I went about from
house to house and saw men and women dying. And oh, how glad they were
to see one's face, and when many were afraid to enter their houses for
fear of disease, we who had no fear about such things found ourselves
most gladly listened to when we spoke of Christ and of Divine things.
And now, again, is the minister's time! Now is the time for all of you
that love souls! You may see men more alarmed than now, I hope they may
not be–I pray to God that they may not be–but if they should, avail
yourselves of it. You have the balm of Gilead–when their wounds smart,
pour it in! You know of Him who died to save, tell them of Him. Lift
high the Cross before their eyes. Tell them that God became Man that
man might be lifted up to God. Tell them of Calvary, and its groans,
and cries, and sweat of blood. Tell them of Jesus hanging on the Cross
to save sinners. Tell them that there is life for a look at the
Crucified One!
Tell them that He is able to save to the uttermost, all them that come
unto God by Him. Tell them that He is able to save at the eleventh
hour, and to say to the dying thief, "Today shall you be with Me in
Paradise." Oh, dear Hearers, while I am exhorting you who are
Christians to look after strangers, I may well ask you to look over
those who are sitting in the pews with you! For there are some of you
who, if you were to die tonight–if, instead of going down yonder steps
beneath the columns you were to die in your seats–where would your
souls go? If you reached your home and staggered into your bed, and
found it your tomb, what would be your eternal fate? Will not
conscience tell you that you could not plead a Savior's blood? You have
never trusted it!
You cannot expect a living Savior to meet you in a dying moment, for
you have never loved Him! Oh, may God's Grace make you love Him now,
tonight! Sinner, look to Jesus, and you shall be saved! Trust Christ
now! Trust Him only! Trust Him wholly! Trust Him earnestly and you
shall rejoice, even tonight, and you shall be a part of that wheat
which is white already unto harvest! Oh, my Hearers, I am concerned for
your souls! I would gladly reap, myself, and bind up some sheaves to be
carried into our earthly sheltering place in prospect of our heavenly
home. I cannot bear the thought that any of you should ever be bound in
bundles to be burned!
What? Will any of you be lost, and be borne into the flame which never
can be quenched? It must not be! Turn! Turn! Why will you die? Are
there any reasons you can urge for your choice when you select
companionship with sinners here and devils hereafter, and despise the
Gospel of salvation, and reject the overtures of Grace? There are none!
You know you are wrong! You are persuaded that your present position is
false and you are not without some dread of the result at last. Are
there not at times fears which sting like serpents and poison your
peace of mind so that you would gladly be free from them if you could?
Well, listen to me, or rather hearken to God's Word as spoken by
me–"Come unto Me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest." I speak of no untried remedy! I have myself tasted it!
I am a witness of the efficacy and power of the blood of Christ to
cleanse from all sin. I am surrounded by thousands who are all so many
proofs of its value and unchanging might–
"Venture on Him, venture wholly,
Let no other trust intrude.
None but Jesus
Can do helpless sinners good."
He is waiting to be gracious, near at hand, and not afar off. There
are, in some parts of the Continent where I have traveled, places so
sparsely inhabited and the people so poor, that no medical man resides
in the district. And in such cases, if anyone falls sick he must write
to the nearest wayside inn to have a notice put up that if any doctor
or medical man is passing by, they would be glad if he would in
kindness stay and pay them a visit, so as to give them a chance of
being healed, if human help can avail in their case. Should no
physician pass that way, then the man must die–there is no help for
him. The ignorance of his friends and their poverty cannot help him–he
must go to his grave.
But here, my dear Hearers, is the difference in your case. The
Physician knocks at your door and tells you of your disease. He
proffers to you the remedy, assures you of a complete and of an
immediate cure. And you–oh madness and folly unspeakable!–you
hesitate to welcome Him! And you reject, it may be, all His offered
care. Then you must perish! For your ignorance and poverty are such
that no help of man can avail. You cannot effect your own cure and
therefore you will go down to the pit with your blood upon your own
head.
May this folly soon cease, and you be inclined to listen to Him whose
touch gives health, yes, life from the dead! In His name I proclaim
salvation! Look, then, to Him! Believe, and life everlasting shall be
yours. May God Almighty bless you, and may we meet in Heaven. Amen.