Deep Calls Unto Deep
A sermon
(No. 865)
Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, APRIL 11, 1869, by
C.H.SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"Deep calls unto deep."- Psalm 42:7.
IN the grandeur of Nature there are awful harmonies. When the storm
agitates the ocean below, the heavens above hear the tumult and answer
to the clamor. Down comes a deluge of sonorous hail or swift-descending
rain, attended with peals of thunder and flashes of flame. Frequently
the waterspout, of which David speaks in the next sentence, evidences
the sympathy of the two great waters above and beneath the
firmament–the great deep above stretches out its hands to the great
deep below and in voice of thunder their old relationship is
recognized. It is almost as if the twin seas remembered how once they
lay together in the same cradle of confusion till the decree of the
Eternal appointed each his bounds and place.
"Deep calls unto deep"–one splendor of creation holds fellowship with
another. Amazed and overwhelmed by the spectacle of some tremendous
tempest upon land, you have yet been able to observe how the clouds
appear to be emptying themselves each into each and the successive
volleys of Heaven's artillery are answered by rival clamors, the whole
chorus of sublimities lifting up their voices. It has seemed to me that
a strange wild joy was moving all the elements and that the angels of
wind and tempest were clapping their awful hands in glorious glee.
Among the Alps, in the day of tempest, the solemnly silent peaks break
through their sacred quiet and speak to each other in that dread
language which is echoing the voice of God–
"Far along,
From peak to peak the rattling crags among,
Leaps the live thunder!
Not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now has found a tongue,
And Jura answers, through her misty shroud,
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud." Height calls unto
height even as "deep calls unto deep." David, perceiving these solemn
harmonies, uses the metaphor to describe his own unhappy experience. I
suppose that when he wrote this Psalm he was an exile from his throne
and country, driven out by the rebellion of his favorite son. He
crossed the brook Jabbok in fear and hastened by night over Jordan and
withdrew to a dry and thirsty land where there was no water. He was
saddened, most of all, at the remembrance of the sacred shrine to which
he had so often gone with the multitude that kept holy day, because he
was now unable to join with that hallowed throng in worship so
refreshing to his soul.
Everything around the Psalmist was like an ocean tossed with
tempest–his outlook was unmingled trouble. His sorrows were like Job's
messengers followed on one another's heels. His griefs came wave upon
wave. There was no intermission to his woe. At the same time his heart
sank within him. The deep outside called to the deep within.
Conscience, as with a lightning flash, lit up the abyss of the
sufferer's inward depravity and made him see the darkness of the sin
into which he had fallen with the wife of Uriah in days gone by and
filled him with despondency and sad forebodings.
While outside everything was comfortless, within him there was nothing
to cheer him. Bitterly did he enquire, "Why are you cast down, O my
Soul? Why are you disquieted within me?" Externally and internally,
rest was removed far from him. Outside were fights, within were fears.
Deep called unto deep at the noise of God's waterspouts–all the waves
and billows of God's Providence had gone over him.
But now, no longer confining so grand a thought to the mere manner in
which David employed it, namely, to the double trouble of many of God's
saints when two seas meet and when internal and external sorrows
combine, I purpose to use the general principle in other directions and
to show that everywhere where there is one deep it calls to another and
that especially in the moral and spiritual world every vast and sublime
truth has its correspondent, which, like another deep, calls to it
responsively.
I. First, we shall consider this fact in connection with THE ETERNAL
PURPOSES OF GOD AND THEIR FULFILMENT IN FACT. The eternal purpose–what
a deep! He who pretends to understand predestination, misunderstands
himself! We have no unit for measurement when we strive to fathom the
decrees of God. We are like the astronomers in attempting to measure
the distances of those stars which are as remote from the ordinary
fixed stars as the fixed stars are from us–they fail from lack of a
measuring-line which may serve as a unit–scarcely does the diameter of
the earth's orbit suffice for a basis of numeration. They have no unit
by which to estimate.
What do you and I know of infinity, Omnipresence, and self-existence?
We are far beyond our depth when we come to the ocean of Divine
purposes. We may gaze into the mystery with awe, but to profess to
comprehend it is vanity itself. What a depth! What an inscrutable
mystery, that the infinitely pure and holy God should have determined
to allow the intrusion of sin into His universe! That He should allow
evil to drag down an angel and debase him into a devil! That the
adoring hosts of Heaven should be thinned by sinful desertion from a
loyalty so well deserved! How came it that moral evil was suffered to
come into this fair world, to spoil Eden, to pollute mankind, to fill
the grave and populate Hell?
Why was it that after sin had broken out in the universe, it was
permitted to remain in existence? Why not shut up the first devil as in
a plague ward, build a jail in Tophet–surround it with walls of flame
and never let the demon wander forth? Why should the Evil One be
permitted, like a roaring lion, to roam abroad seeking whom he may
devour? When sin infected the race of men, why not destroy them all and
stamp out the disease, as we did lately when the disease came among our
cattle? Why not purge it with fire till the last speck of the leprosy
was burned out? What mattered the destruction of a race if sin were
destroyed with them?
Strange decree that sin should be tolerated–permitted first, to
enter–and then allowed afterwards to spread its mischievous poison.
What a depth, my Brethren, is revealed in the Divine decree of
election, that there should be vessels unto honor, fitted for the
Master's use–men chosen to show forth the riches of His Grace, not for
any good thing in them–but because the Lord will have mercy upon whom
He will have mercy and will have compassion on whom He will have
compassion! And what a more solemn depth, still, is revealed in those
whom He passed by–that there should be vessels of wrath fitted to
destruction–men permitted to continue in sin and to harden themselves
against the Gospel and so to illustrate the awful wrath of God
throughout eternity!
Brothers and Sisters, I cannot contemplate the doctrines connected with
predestination, true as they are, without a shudder of reverential awe!
Read that ninth chapter of Romans and while you are silenced by the
voice of Paul, "No, but O man, who are you that replies against God?
Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why have You made me
thus?" Yet a thrill of awe passes through your souls and you whisper–
"Great God, how infinite are You, What worthless worms are we!"
If we could turn over those awful pages in which every event has been
recorded. If it were permitted to us to see that book of fate chained
to the Throne of God, in which every angel's form and size is drawn by
the eternal pen. In which everything is written down–from the falling
of a sere leaf from an oak to the tumbling of an avalanche from its
Alp–in which God has as much arranged the course of yonder dust blown
in the wind as of the planet which He steers in its mighty orbit. If we
could see it all, we should exclaim, "O wondrous depth, how can I
measure you? My plummet utterly fails. I will adore, for I cannot
comprehend."
Beloved Friends, we need not allow ourselves to be depressed by the
mystery of the doctrine of Eternal Decrees, for even if these decrees
were not in existence, there would still remain the other deep, the
mystery offact. It is a fact that sin is in the world. It is a fact
that sorrow is here. It is a fact that death is here–and how can you
understand these things? Shut your eyes to the depth above the
firmament if you will, but here is depth nearer home which will still
amaze you! Remember that all men are not saved. It is a dreadful Truth
of God that multitudes tread the broad road and reach eternal
destruction! Why is this when God is good and Omnipotent? Can you
understand Providence?
Is not Providence, as we see it, quite as mysterious as predestination?
Are not the mysteries rather in the facts, themselves, than in the
purposes which ordained them? Are they not, both the facts and the
decrees, mysteries and equal mysteries? But what a wonderful harmony
there is between the two depths! And to this it is I call your
attention. Observe how deep has called unto deep! Whatever God ordained
has been accomplished! His will has been done! You will tell me that
this is nothing amazing, since God is Omnipotent. I reply, yes, but you
will remember that He was pleased to create beings who should be free
agents and to that extent actors independent of Himself.
Therefore, it is not to the solitary attribute of Omnipotence that you
can refer the fact that Providence coincides with predestination. Here
were angels free in their will and yet they sinned. Here are men upon
this stage of action willful and resolute and yet fulfilling the
unknown foreordination. Herein lies the marvel–that with voluntary
agents, who do as they will–yet the eternal purpose in every jot and
tittle has to this moment been fulfilled! And as the impression answers
to the die, so has the history of the universe answered to the eternal
purpose and to the solemn decree of the Most
High.
My Brothers and Sisters, listen in solemn awe to the voices of these
twin depths as they call to one another. Famine, plague, pestilence,
devastated nations, fallen empires, wars and bloodsheds–who shall
understand why these are permitted? How shall we reconcile our souls to
them at all, until we look up to the great Father sitting on the Throne
of Wisdom and Love, and say, "You know what the end will be. You have
ordained all things and from the seeming evil You will bring forth good
and from the good a something better and from the better a something
better still, in infinite progression, to the praise and glory of Your
name"? "Deep calls unto deep." The deep of Predestination answers to
the deep of Providence and both together magnify the name of God!
II. We now come to another case somewhat akin to this, more nearly
concerning ourselves and perhaps more practical. Brethren, SOME OF YOU
ARE ENDURING DEEP AFFLICTION. All are not tried alike. God has not been
pleased to deal out the wormwood and the gall to all in a cup of the
same fashion and the same measure. There are some whose pathway to the
skies is comparatively smooth. Others go through fire and through
water–men ride over their heads.
My Brethren who have done business in the great waters, I speak to you.
Yours has been a stormy and tried life. Well, I can sympathize with
you, for with all the mercy of God, the preacher has not been free from
many and severe trials and, oh, they are deep, indeed–when a depressed
spirit unites with our outward afflictions–when Church troubles,
family troubles, personal troubles and the world's troubles, all aided
and abetted by Satanic temptation and by an evil heart of unbelief. Do
not, however, think yourselves harshly dealt with, my dear Brothers and
Sisters, in being singled out as a special target for the arrows of
grief.
Do not wish that you could be the obscurest of all the saints, to find
some quiet nook in which you might be left alone to rest in
forgetfulness! Rather let me remind you that if in your experience
there is a deep of extraordinary trial, there is most surely another
deep answering to it. Open now your ears and your hearts to hear the
calling of this deep unto its brother deep. Hearken while I translate
the echoes of the Truth of God. Inasmuch as you have many trials,
remember the depth of the Divine faithfulness. You have not been able
to comprehend the reason for your trials, but I beseech you believe in
the firmness and stability of the Divine affection towards you.
In proportion to your tribulations shall be your consolations! If you
have shallow sorrows, you shall receive but shallow Graces. But if you
have deep afflictions, you shall obtain the deeper proofs of the
faithfulness of God! I could gladly lay down and die when I think of
the trials of this life, but I recover myself and laugh at them all,
even as the daughter of Zion shook her head and laughed at her foes,
when I remember that the mighty God of Jacob is our refuge and that He
will not fail us, nor take away His hand till He has effected His
purpose concerning us! Great deeps of trial bring with them great deeps
of promise!
For you much afflicted ones, there are words, great and mighty, which
are not meant for other saints of easier experience. You shall drink
from deep golden goblets reserved for those giants who can drink great
potions of wormwood and are men of capacity enough to quaff deep
draughts of the wines on the lees well refined. Trials are mighty
enlargers of the soul! We are contracted, narrowed, pent up and we
rightly pray, "Lord, enlarge my heart." Yes, but the opening of
capacious reservoirs within us can only be effected by the spade of
daily tribulation, and then, being dug out by pain and trouble, there
becomes room for the overflowing promise!
A great adversity will, to the Believer, bring with it great Grace.
Whenever the Lord sets His servants to do extraordinary work He always
gives them extraordinary strength. Or if He puts them to unusual
suffering He will give them unusual patience. When we enter upon war
with some petty New Zealand chief, our troops expect to have their
charges defrayed and accordingly we pay them gold by the thousands, as
their expenses may require. But when an army marches against a grim
monarch in an unknown country who has insulted the British flag, we
pay, as we know to our cost, not by thousands but by millions!
There is a difference in the payment of an attack upon petty chieftains
and a war against an emperor. And so, my Brethren, if God calls you to
common and ordinary trials, He will pay the charges of your warfare by
thousands, but if He commands you to an unusual struggle with some
tremendous foe, He will discharge the liabilities of your war by
millions–according to the riches of His Grace in which He has abounded
towards us through Christ Jesus! I would not, then, in my better mind,
if I could, escape great labors or great trials since they involve
great Graces! If one deep calls to the other deep, let the Lord lay on
the strokes and let Him add to the burden! If as my days so shall my
strength be, then let the days be long and dark, for so the strength
shall be mighty and God shall be glorified and His servants shall be
blessed!
I would earnestly urge every tried Christian to dwell upon this Truth,
for it may be of great comfort to you. You may, perhaps, have had a
comparatively easy life until just lately, but you have reached a
turning point where disaster has befallen you. You are fallen into
poverty, or else that time for the break-up of your family has lately
come upon you. Your father is gone. Your mother is on the verge of the
grave. Your friends have one by one been taken from you. Yes, feel the
loneliness of life! Here is a dreadful deep for you to sail on and a
tempestuous deep much to be feared, for your little boat may easily be
wrecked.
But don't forget that there is another deep, whose remembrance will
remove from you the bitterness of your present sorrow–there is love in
Heaven towards you which will never grow cold–immortal and unchanging
love! And besides, there is a royal oath which never can be broken, a
Covenant ratified with blood that never can be dishonored! You must be
helped through–you cannot be left. God might sooner cease to be than
cease to be faithful! You must be borne up amid the billows and safely
landed. Be of good courage and He shall strengthen your heart this day!
III. We have not time to linger. We must pass on to a third point.
"Deep calls unto deep." HUMAN
WRETCHEDSESS IS PARALLELED BY DIVINE GRACE. Brothers and Sisters, into
what an awful state our race
fell! We were tainted with high treason through the sin of our father,
Adam. The dignity and honor of our race were forfeited. We were, each
one of us, born in sin and shaped in iniquity–with a natural tendency
towards evil we came into this world–and since we have been in this
world, we have wickedly and willfully rebelled against God.
We have rendered ourselves obnoxious to the Divine justice. We deserve
to be driven from the Glory of His Presence by the power of His wrath!
And beside all this, we are desperately set upon rejecting any offers
of mercy on the part of God. Our will has become stubborn, our heart is
hard. There are no known human means which can bring a soul to God. Man
is such an enemy to God that he will not be reconciled to Him. Human
eloquence and human sympathy are, alike, powerless against human
depravity.
This leviathan laughs at our sword and spear. Oh, sad, sad, sad case is
that of fallen man! Sinner, sad, sad is your case–lost, utterly,
hopelessly, everlastingly lost are you by nature! As in yourselves
considered, there is no remedy for the disease which rages within you!
There is no escape from that eternal fire which must consume you! I
would never, for a moment, attempt to make out the abyss of the Fall to
be less deep than it is–it is bottomless! The miseries of mankind
cannot be exaggerated. Could our tears forever flow–could we be turned
each one into a Jeremiah–yet could we never weep enough for the slain
of the daughter of our people. Human misery is deep beyond expression.
But what shall I say? How shall I speak? Where shall I find words to
express the delight of my soul that I have such a Truth to tell you?
There is a deep which answers to the deep of human ruin and it is the
deep of Divine Grace. There can be no evil in man which the infinite
mercy of God cannot overcome! Behold, God Himself, Incarnate in the
Person of the Nazarene! Behold the Son of God spending on earth a life
of service and of condescension! Behold Him dying a death of ignominy
and pain! The Atonement of Christ is such a Red Sea that all the
Egyptians of a Believer's sins shall be drowned in it! There is such
virtue in the redemption offered up by Christ, that it meets the full
extent of the guilt which any sinner who seeks Him may have incurred!
Moreover, to meet the obstinacy and depravity of our hearts, behold how
deep calls unto deep! God's Eternal Spirit has deigned to dwell in
these hearts of ours! He quickens death into life! He fills the thirsty
soul with rivers of Divine Grace! He turns the stone to flesh and makes
the adamant palpitate with tenderness. Blessed be His name, He has done
wonders in our souls! He has brought Christ home to our hearts and made
us willing to rejoice in Christ and to be saved by Him! Myriads of
spirits now before the Throne attest to the fact that the Grace of God
is deeper than the depths of our sin, higher than the heights of our
rebellion, broader and longer than the breadths and lengths of our
depravity! Oh, the exceeding riches of the Grace of God!
"Oh, the depth," says the Apostle, and we may well say the same. My
Hearer, ought not this to encourage you? Are you a burdened,
conscience-stricken sinner, brought so low as to be all but a damned
sinner? You are only just this side of Hell! You almost smoke like a
brand in the fire, yet is there mercy enough to rescue you and to give
you a place among them that are glorified at the right hand of God! The
deep of your misery calls to the deep of sacred mercy and faith shall
hear a favorable answer.
IV. Fourthly and with brevity, THE DEPTH OF DIVINE LOVE TO THE SAINTS
CALLS FOR A DEEP OF
CONSECRATION IN EVERY BELIEVING HEART. Study, my dear Brothers and
Sisters, quietly, the depth of the love of God to you, His people. He
loved you without a cause–
"What was there in you that could merit esteem, Or give the Creator
delight? 'Twas even so, Father,'you ever must sing, For so it seemed
good in Your sight.'" He loved you without beginning. Before years and
centuries and millenniums began to be counted, your name was on His
heart. Eternal thoughts of love have been in God's bosom towards you!
He has loved you without a pause–there never was a minute in which He
did not love you. Your name, once engraved upon His hands has never
been erased, nor has He ever blotted it out of the Book of Life.
Since you have been in this world He has loved you most patiently. You
have often provoked Him. You have rebelled against Him times without
number, yet He has never stopped the outflow of His heart towards you.
And, blessed be His name, He never will! You are His and you always
shall be His. Jesus says, "Because I live, you shall live also." God's
love to you is without boundary. He could not love you more, for He
loves you like a God–and He never will love you less. All His heart
belongs to you. "As the Father has loved Me," says Jesus, "even so have
I loved you."
Contemplate for a moment what you have received as the result of this
love. You have received, first of all, the gift of the only begotten
Son. He left the Throne of honor for the Cross of shame, the brightness
of Glory for the darkness of the tomb. Oh, the depths of the love which
is revealed in Calvary! You will never, never be able to fathom the
depth of the love of God towards you in the gift of His dear Son to be
your Redeemer! Think, now–the Holy Spirit brought Jesus Christ to you!
And what were you then? It is a shame to speak of some of the things
which you then loved, but you are washed, you are cleansed and
sanctified. Oh, that blessed bath filled with blood!
Oh, the depth of love there is in the forgiveness of sins according to
the riches of His Grace! What a work of Divine Grace was that which
changed your nature to make you love what once you hated! And what a
work it has been to keep the helm of your vessel right–oftentimes the
current would have drifted you back again to the old rock and wrecked
you–but a strong hand has kept the head of the vessel heavenward. A
blessed wind has filled the sail. And though you have made but slow
progress, you are still on the way to the fair haven. The love of God
which has been manifested in you is a very Heaven of love.
I cannot measure the love which God has shown towards me, poor me,
though I am only one of His family. I feel as if it were deeper than
Hell and higher than Heaven–as long as eternity and wide as immensity.
I cannot understand it. But what does this love say to me and to you
but this–it calls to another deep! Oh, how I ought to love my God who
has so loved me! Oh, how I ought to hate the sin which made my Savior
bleed! Deeps of the Savior's grief, you call to deeps of spiritual
repentance. The agonies of Christ call us to the slaughter of our sins.
Brethren, if God so loved us, it calls to another deep–we ought also
so to love one another! If God forgave us, behold another deep of
obligation to forgive all those who have offended us!
How can I love the saints of God enough who are the Brethren of Him who
loved me even to the death? As for poor sinners, if God saved me, how I
ought to lay out my life to try and save them! If I have, indeed, found
peace with God
through the blood of the Cross, how I ought to seek the lost sheep,
still lost and wandering, as I also once was! If Jesus has so loved me,
how I ought to love Him! Brethren, I dare not, at this hour, say a word
against other Christian people, though I might fairly do so. But I will
accuse myself and admit that I have hardly caught so much as an idea of
what a consecrated man ought to be.
I have read the lives of those of God's servants whose enthusiasm has
been fervent and whose consecration has been complete and I have felt
that they were like a huge Colossus and I a dwarf walking under their
huge legs. Oh, but to serve Christ as He ought to be served does not
mean giving Him a trifle, now and then, out of our estate and never
knowing that we have given it! It means pinching ourselves right
cheerfully to serve His cause. It does not mean saying a good word,
sometimes, for Him when it would be shameful to be silent! It means
making our whole life a testimony to His dear love. It does not mean
giving Him the candle ends and cheese parings of our soul, stingingly
doling out to Him what we would give a beggar at the door. It means the
rendering up of body, soul and spirit–the surrender of our entire
nature to be offered in sacrifice!
As the bullock was brought to the altar–bound to the horns thereof,
killed and offered up–with the fat and the inwards, so must we be
entirely given up to our Lord! O for more real consecration! Jesus has
done so much for us–let us endeavor to do more for Him! And this
morning let the deeps of Divine Love call to the deeps within our
grateful souls and let those deeps cry to the deeps of the Eternal
Spirit as we ask to be perfectly given up to the cause and honor of our
Lord!
V. Time fails me, therefore I must notice another deep. There is a
depth in this world, A DEPTH OF DIVINE FORBEARANCE towards impenitent
and graceless men. And depend upon it, it answers to another deep, A
DEEP OF
IMMEASURABLE AND NEVER-ENDING WRATH IN THE WORLD TO COME. It is a very
solemn subject and I
desire to speak most solemnly. Therefore I entreat you to hear most
earnestly, especially you unconverted ones.
It is a very great mystery that God permits the ungodly to go on as
they do. Walk down some of our streets at night, if you dare, and mark
what you see. You inwardly exclaim, "I wonder why God permits it! Here
is a reeking Sodom in the heart of a so-called Christian city." Step
into some of the dens of infamy and you will feel, "God could, if He
would, suppress this in a minute–why doesn't He?" Hearken for a moment
to the talk of blasphemers–what atrocious insults they perpetrate upon
the Majesty of Heaven. They go out of their way to imprecate curses
upon themselves, their limbs, their eyes, their souls. What are they
doing? If they will not obey God, could they not at least let Him alone
and not insult Him to His face?
We have heard in these days a blasphemer stand upon a public platform
and say, "There is no God and if there is a God," taking out his watch,
"let him strike me dead in five minutes." When he still found himself
alive, he argued that there was no God. The fact was, God was much too
great to be put out of patience by such an insignificant wretch as he!
Had God been less than God He would have struck him dead, but being God
He passed him by with sublime indifference, as a hero would pass by the
chirping of a grasshopper. Yet the Divine forbearance is certainly very
wonderful, very marvelous.
I have heard say that when Mr. John Ryland was present at a certain
meeting when the slave-trade question was first agitated, a story was
told in that meeting of atrocities perpetrated in the middle passage
between Africa and the States. And those atrocities were so enormous
that John Ryland, in the exuberance of his wrath, knelt down and said
to God, "Lift up Your thunderbolt and damn these wretches, O righteous
God." I know that in sight of oppression and cruelty I have felt a
longing for speedy vengeance on the tyrant and have been very thankful
to think that I had not the handling of the thunderbolts. But God has
looked on, calmly looked on, and suffered infamies which were nothing
less than infernal to be perpetrated, again and again! He appears to
wink at men's sins.
Ah, my Brethren, can you think for a minute what you and I would do if
some cruel wretches should take our children and torture them and burn
them alive? How would our wrath be up and how would we strike in their
defense! But remember that from the days of Christ until now the dear
children of God, dearer to Him than our children are to us, have been
shut up in prison to rot. They have been sawn asunder. They have
wandered about in sheep skins and goat skins. They have been burned at
Smithfield and a thousand other places and have crimsoned the snows of
the Alps with their blood. And yet God, in the great deeps of His
forbearance, has been still.
There has been, it is true, a vengeance in Providence in the long
run–the reader of history knows how God has avenged every persecution.
Still, the recompense was slow. There were no fiery arrows to pierce
Bishop Bonner when he condemned Anne Askew. There were no immediate
lightning flashes to wither Domitian or Nero when they insultingly put
the people of God to death. No, the Lord bears long with them and His
longsuffering is a deep–a great deep! In this house, to come back to
ourselves, what deeps of forbearance have been shown in the cases of
some of you! You have often heard of Jesus Christ, my dear Hearers, but
you have not received Him. You have known the way of salvation, but you
have not run in it.
I have pleaded with you–I hope with all honesty and earnestness–and
you have been awakened, too, and aroused, but you have stifled your
convictions! You have deliberately chosen your sins and you have
presumptuously turned away from the blood of Christ. O my unconverted
Hearers, those of you, especially, who still continue regularly to come
to these seats until I almost wonder to see you here–I cannot imagine
what pleasure you can derive from having your consciences continually
whipped up! I beg you to consider that men, and women, too, among you
have chosen the lusts of the flesh and ungodly gain, or drunkenness,
when you know better, know much better! Some of you have had a degree
of Divine light shed across your souls and yet you have deliberately
chosen to rebel against God! I fear you have, some of you, done so to
the hardening of your hearts even to final impenitence!
Listen, now, I pray you! As surely as God has shown towards you a great
deep of forbearance, He will show an equal depth of justice. He may pay
slowly, but He will pay in full! God's mill grinds slowly, but it
grinds most surely and thoroughly, even to powder. The feet of the
avenging angels are shod with wool, but they never turn aside from
their path. According to this Book there is a Hell into which those who
reject Christ will be cast, the misery of which is dimly to be guessed
at, but can never be fully described–a misery of which it is said,
"Their worm dies not and their fire is not quenched"–a misery which
will last as long as the enjoyments of Heaven shall last! For while the
saints shall go away into everlasting joy, the punishment of the
ungodly has, according to the testimony of Jesus, the same eternal
duration.
Do not deceive yourselves by any dream of annihilation! Do not imagine
there shall come an end to your woe! If there were the shadow of a
ground for that statement, Hell would cease to be Hell, for
hopelessness is of the essence of Hell. O, by the boundless love
treasured up in Christ Jesus, remember there is equal terror in His
wrath! The hand that is mighty to save is equally mighty to destroy!
All Omnipotence has been put out to save, but this rejected, an equal
Omnipotence shall be put out to crush. Tempt not the Lord! The deeps of
your sin are already challenging the deeps of His justice. "Turn you,
turn you, why will you die?"
Awaken not the fury which you cannot endure, overcome, or avoid! Kindle
not the fire which, like flames among stubble, will burn furiously and
cannot be stopped! O dash not your souls upon the bosses of Jehovah's
buckler! Cast not yourselves upon the point of His glittering spear!
God grant of His eternal mercy that you may not tempt those deeps. '
VI. Now to close with a more cheerful theme. There is, Brethren, A
BLESSED DEEP OF HOLY HAPPINESS AND
BLISS FOR THE SAINTS IN HEAVEN, AND TODAY IT CALLS TO THE DEEP OF JOY
AND THANKFULNESS
WITHIN SAINTLY HEARTS who are lingering here below. Yes, the day is
coming and all the wings of time are bringing it nearer, when we shall
be emancipated from the body of this death! We are not forever to be
sickly, sinful and sorrowing. We shall soon be set free from everything
that encumbers us.
If Christ come not in our lifetime to take us to Himself, we shall go
to Him to dwell with Him where He is. And what are the delights of
being in Heaven! To be with Christ! The spouse forever with the
Bridegroom! The child forever in His Father's bosom! What must it be to
dwell above! Forever pure! Forever beyond the danger of temptation!
Safe and blessed! Shielded from all fear! Enriched with all
blessedness! Christian, you shall soon be like Jesus as well as with
Him. You shall be crowned as He is and blessed as He is. Oh, how
satisfied shall you be when you wake up in His likeness!
I cannot go further, for though I were to talk of the harps of gold, of
the streets that shine with unearthly light, of gates of pearl, of the
never-ending song and of the gentle flowing river of the Water of Life
amidst the trees that yield their 12 manner of fruits, yet all would be
less than what I have said already. You shall be with Christ and you
shall be like He is! Indeed, Heaven is a great deep! The glorious
history of the Church of God in years to come is a great deep, too.
That reigning of Christ on the earth. That judging of the angels. That
being caught up together with the Lord in the air. That resurrection of
the body in the likeness of His glorious body. That being forever with
the Lord–why, these are things which eye has not seen and ear has not
heard! Heaven is a blessed deep.
I see it as a sea of glass mingled with fire and almost hear the
harpers who stand forever harping on that glassy sea. O let the thought
of it awaken the deeps of your souls! Heaven is yours, for He has said,
"I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for
you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself; that where I am,
there you may be also." "For we know that if our earthly house of this
tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made
with hands." I blush to think that I should ever be downcast! I am
ashamed to think that I should dare to be sad! Oh, it is blessed work
to anticipate that joy, yet it makes one ashamed of the depression
which our present light afflictions so easily cause to our feeble
minds!
O you mourning saints, you have been putting on your sackcloth today,
and you arranged it so carefully, for there is a kind of foppery about
grief that makes it strew its ashes with deliberation. O Sirs, could
you not have spent some of your time at another wardrobe and in putting
on another dress? Come, you afflicted one, array yourself, for a
minute, with the robe of whiteness, without spot or blemish! How well
it will become you! How soon you will wear it! Now, put that unfading
crown upon your head. You are a poor servant or a working man, and, ah,
that head has often ached with weariness and woe–but put on the crown
now! How royally it adorns your brow! It would not fit any other head,
it was made for you–and you will soon have it! In a few days, or a few
months, you will go by the way of the sepulcher, or else by the way of
the second coming up to your throne and your kingdom!
Now hold that palm branch in your hand! How delightful it looks! How
your eyes gleam at the thought of the victory which it betokens! Arise,
I say, and put the silver sandals upon those weary feet! Bedeck
yourself with the jewels and ornaments prepared for your wedding. Take
down the harp and try your fingers among its celestial strings. "Wake
up, my glory! Wake, psaltery and harp! I myself will awake right
early." Blessed be the Lord who has prepared for His people rivers of
pleasure at His right hand forevermore!
Our souls anticipate the day of enjoyment! And at this hour, by faith,
we eat the fruit of the trees of life and drink from the living
fountains of waters. O clap your hands, you righteous! Sound the
cymbals, even the high-sounding cymbals, and give praise unto your God
even forever, who has prepared for you the rest that knows no end!
Thus "deep calls unto deep." May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit abide
with you forever. Amen and Amen.
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Psalm 77.