DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 27, 1870,
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"Prepare to meet your God, O Israel." Amos 4:12.
GOD had, in the days of Amos, by different ways rebuked the sin of His
people Israel. He had wasted them with famine and sword. He had
withheld the rain. He had sent forth the pestilence after the manner of
Egypt. He had smitten their fields and gardens with blast and mildew,
and He had overthrown some of them, as Sodom and Gomorrah. But they
still persevered in their rebellion, and therefore He declares that He
will send them no more of His messengers, and shoot no more of His
far-reaching arrows, but will come Himself, in His own Person, to deal
with them.
God's way of dealing with rebellious humanity, is, at first to upbraid
and persuade with words–soft, gentle, tender words. These He repeats
many times, accompanying them with tokens of tenderness and Grace.
By-and-by He exchanges these words of tenderness for words of mingled
threat–He begins to expostulate with them–why will they drive Him to
this? Why will they die? Why will they bring ruin upon themselves?
Then, if words are of no effect upon them, He turns to blows–but His
strokes fall softly at first. Yet if these avail not, His strokes
gather strength, till at last He smites them with the blows of a cruel
one, and wounds them sorely.
If after this the sinners remain obstinate, the Lord's longsuffering
turns to wrath, and He says, "Why should you be stricken any more? You
will revolt more and more. Already your whole head is sick and your
whole heart faint. What shall I do unto you? What shall I do unto you?"
Things have come to a dreadful pass when at last the Lord puts aside
the rod, when He puts aside afflictions which He has sent as
chastisements, and comes forth Himself to end the strife, crying, "Ah,
I will ease Me of My adversaries, and avenge Me of My enemies."
Such was the position of Israel in the text. They had scorned all the
milder dealings of God, and now He says to them, "Prepare to meet Me,
even God Himself, in all the terror of justice." The Prophet may be
understood as in irony challenging the proud rebels to meet in arms the
God whom they have despised. Let them prepare to fight it out with Him
whom they have made to be their enemy, and against whose Laws they have
so continually revolted. "Prepare," says the Prophet, "O you potsherds,
to strive with your Maker! You worms, to battle with Omnipotence." As
it stands, the text is an awful challenge of Almighty wrath when at
last longsuffering vacates the throne, and Justice bares its two-edged
sword. Woe, woe, woe to boastful scoffers in that great and terrible
day!
We shall not, however, dwell upon the particular position of the text,
nor confine ourselves to the meaning of the words as the Prophet used
them. We shall, however, hope as fully as possible to illustrate the
natural sense of the text, in the hope that such earnest and solemn
words may awaken in some hearts tenderness towards God, and the desire
to be prepared to meet Him. "Prepare to meet your God." We have before
us a most important call, and we shall consider first the many tones in
which it may be uttered. Secondly, the heavy tidings conveyed by it to
the ungodly. And thirdly, the weighty admonition given there.
I. First, then, let us think of these words in THEIR DIFFERENT TONES.
They vary from grave to gay, from dread to delight–"Prepare to meet
your God." Why, methinks there are no more joyous words under Heaven
than these under some aspects, certainly none more solemn out of Hell
under others. "Prepare to meet your God." These words may have sounded
through the green alleys of Paradise, and have caused no discord there.
Blending with the sweet song of new-created birds, these notes would
have but given emphasis to the harmony.
Often from the mossy couch whereon he reclined in the happy life of his
innocence and bliss, the great sire of men would be aroused by this
holy summons. When the sun first scattered the shades of darkness, and
began to gild the tops of the snow-clad hills with morning light, Adam
was awakened by the birds amid the groves of Eden, whose earliest song
his heart interpreted, as meaning, "Awake, O wondrous man, and prepare
to meet your God." Then climbing some ver-
dant hill from where he looked down upon the landscape, all aglow with
glory and with God, Adam would, in holy rapture, meet his God.
And in lowly reverence would speak with Him as a man speaks with his
friend. Then, too, at eventide, the dewdrops, as they fell, each one
would say to that blessed man, "Prepare to meet your God." The
lengthened shadows would silently give forth the same message, and
perhaps it is no imagination, angels would alight upon lawns adorned
with lilies, and pause where Adam stood pruning the growth of some too
luxuriant vine, and would with courteous speech remind him that the
day's work was over, for the sun was descending to the western sea, and
it was time for the favored creature to have audience with his God.
The faintest intimation would suffice for our first parent, for the
crown of Paradise to him was the Presence of the Lord God. And Eden's
rivers, though they flowed over sands of gold, had no river in them
equal to the stream whereby the spirit of Adam was gladdened when he
had communion with the Most High. For then he drank from that river of
the water of life which flows from underneath the throne of the Great
Supreme. Unfallen man had no greater joy than walking with God. It was
Heaven on earth to meet in converse tender and sublime with the great
Father of Spirits. No marriage bells ever rang out a sweeter or more
joyous melody than these glad words as they were heard amid the myrtle
bowers and palm groves of Eden by our first parents in the heyday of
their innocence, "Prepare to meet your God."
Then, when Jehovah walked in the garden in the cool of the day, He had
no need to say aloud, "Adam, where are you?" For His happy creature
whom He has made to have dominion over all the works of His hands was
waiting for Him as a child waits for his father when the day's work is
done–watching to hear his father's footsteps, and to see his father's
face. Oh, yes! Those were words in fullest harmony with Eden's joys,
"Prepare to meet your God."
But, Brethren, weep not over those withered glories as those who are
without hope, for the words have something of a heavenly sound to those
who have been begotten again unto a lively hope by the Resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead. We, though fallen and sinful, and therefore
naturally averse to God, have, many of us, been renewed in the spirit
of our minds, and now oftentimes to us the welcome message comes,
"Prepare to meet your God," in a sense most delightful and most
entrancing. It is our summons to devotion. It is morning, and as we put
on our garments before we go forth to the battle of life, the angel of
the Lord whispers to us, "Prepare to meet your God."
And on our knees we seek our Father's face, and pray that we may be
under His guardian care throughout the day. Think not that the holy
Voice is silent until nightfall. Oh, no, oftentimes as business gives
us pauses, and as our avocations may allow us leisure, we hear the
inner life, or what if I say the indwelling Holy Spirit, softly saying
to our heart, "Prepare to meet your God." And we, in spirit, put off
our shoes from our feet, and feel that the place whereon we stand is
holy ground! We may be in a poor workshop, but our spirit makes it a
cathedral as it has communion with the Most High. Our study may be
littered over with our books, and papers, and letters. But it becomes a
sacred oratory on a sudden, and all things fall into order as the Voice
is heard and obeyed.
Perhaps we may be in the cornfield, or on the barley mow, but if the
Voice says, "Prepare to meet your God," the true heart stands as a
priest before the altar, and worships in spirit and in Truth. Even the
streets of busy London may become a silent temple when the heart is
solemnly absorbed in worship. For preparation to meet our God means no
change of vestments, nor even the washing of the hands. There is a
cleansing of the heart, and a putting on of the white linen, which in
the righteousness of saints is performed in a moment, and the soul
stands before her God in happy fellowship.
Then, my dear Brothers and Sisters, there are set times with us when we
prepare to meet our God, as for instance, on the eve of the Lord's-day.
It always seems to me to be so pleasant at the family altar to make
mention of the coming Sunday and to ask the Lord that we may lay aside
our cares. Ask Him that we may be quit of every earthly impediment, and
may sit in the heavenly places on the Day of Rest with our Father and
our God. I know how late some of you have to keep your shops open on
Saturday nights, and how it almost runs into the Sunday before you can
be done with your business–but still I hope you do before you come
here make a point of preparing for this meeting place with God by
meeting Him first at home.
I would not have you come here unprepared, as though the mere coming
into the assembly would be enough. I anxiously desire to see you come
with prepared hearts, with longing appetites, with holy aspirations.
Bring your harps with you already tuned. Make ready for the holy
convocation. Lay by in store your offering, prepare your song, uplift
your
heart. Yes, and besides the Sundays, there are certain other times with
us when we are especially called to meet our God. We keep no holy days
by the almanac, but we have holy days apportioned us by Providence and
by the Holy Spirit. I mean that there are seasons hallowed by holy
memories, or by present circumstances when sorrow and joy, earth and
Heaven, all without and within, bear to us a call both loud and sweet,
"Prepare to meet your God."
Then we set apart a special time. The hour is consecrated to secret
communion. God has claimed His portion of the day, and we sacredly
guard it by entering into our closet and shutting the door. Inward
motions of the Holy Spirit frequently calls us away to loneliness–let
us not be slow to follow the blessed bidding. The voice of the Beloved
invites us to His banquet of wine. He allures us to the secret chambers
where Divine Love is revealed. He bids us stand in the cleft of the
rock, while the glory of Godhead passes by. On such happy seasons, and
I hope they are not infrequent with us, the silver trumpets of Jubilee
ring through our souls the notes, "Prepare to meet your God," and then
our motto is, "Up, and away, to the beds of spices, to the garden of
pomegranates, where the Beloved will reveal Himself and give us an
audience with the King."
Once again, these words, "Prepare to meet your God," have no gloomy
significance to some of my dear Brothers and Sisters here present, even
though we attach to them the sense of the Believer's meeting God in a
disembodied state. Christians, especially when they grow aged, must
often hear the angel whisper, "Prepare to meet your God." From the
inevitable process of decay which takes place in the body–from the
failure of eyesight, the tottering of the limbs, and the gray
hairs–there must come subdued and tender voices, all saying, "Prepare
to meet your God."
The tent is being taken down, the cord is loosed, the tent pin no
longer holds to the earth. Soon must the canvas be rolled up and put
away. But you have a House not made with hands, eternal in the heavens!
Look up, then, and prepare to dwell there. Prepare your spirit not to
be unclothed, but to be clothed upon with your House which is from
Heaven. My aged Brothers and Sisters, I can imagine how it is with you.
The dear friends who have been the companions of your childhood and
your manhood depart before you, and as they wing their happy flight to
the land of the living, they look back and say, "Prepare to follow us."
Nor are you at all grieved at such an invitation! Rather do you
sometimes feel impatient for the gladsome time when you may join that
cloud of doves which flock to those everlasting windows and find their
resting places with the Well-Beloved. Friends gathering in the upper
sanctuary beckon to you whose years are threescore and ten, and you
feel the attractions of their blessed society on happy Sundays when the
atmosphere of your souls is clear, and the Sun of Righteousness shines
forth with power! You dwell in the land, Beulah, and behold so vividly
the New Jerusalem and its royal Lord, that, as though an angel spoke,
you hear the sound, "Prepare to meet your God."
Often when the hymn is swelling up to Heaven, you feel as if you could
mount upon it and pass through the gate of pearl. At the holy Supper
Table, how loud is the call to come up higher into the excellent glory!
Young as I am, and earthbound–to me, even to me–the Communion Table
has made me unloose my cable, spread my sails, and long for that last
voyage which shall make this world a foreign shore, and the glory land
the harbor of our spirits. Surely, my aged Brethren, it must be far
more so with you who have so many friends across the water, so many of
your best beloved on the other side of Jordan! Your strength of
experience and your weakness of body must both tend to give frequency
to the message, "Prepare to meet your God." To you the tidings are
happy. You are exiles and you long for Home, you are children at school
and you pine for your Father's House.
But now I must pass on to notice that those words have not always that
sweet ring of the silver bells about them. They are words of caution to
the vast majority of men. "Prepare to meet your God." Alas, How many of
you to whom I now speak are unprepared! It pains me to think of it. As
I sat last night about eight o'clock, revolving in my mind a subject
for this hour's discourse, there came a knock at my door, and I was
earnestly entreated by a father to hasten to the deathbed of his dear
girl. I wanted much my time for preparation, but as the dear one was in
such a case, and had long been a constant hearer of the Word in this
Tabernacle, I felt it my duty to go whether I could prepare a sermon or
not.
Glad I was to hear that sick one's testimony. She told me with what, I
fear was her dying breath, that she was not fully assured of her
interest in Christ, but she left me no room to doubt when, between
paroxysms and convulsions, she said, "I know I do love Jesus, and that
is all I know." Yes, and I thought it is all I want to know. If any one
of us always knows that he loves the Savior, what more does he require
of testimony as to his state? But my mind was sore oppressed then, as
it is now, with the thought that so many of you are not prepared to die
at all. I see my sermons in sick rooms,
often, and I come to think of preaching sermons in a different light
from what many do. I will try to preach sermons which will suit your
most solemn hours and most serious circumstances.
I would gladly deliver sermons which shall haunt your sickbeds, and
accuse you unless you yield to their persuasions, and believe in Jesus.
When you lie on the borders of the spirit world, you will count all
religious trifling to be cruel mockery. So let me say it
affectionately, but very earnestly, to you, "Prepare to meet your God,"
for I am afraid many of you are quite unprepared. You have seen others
die. They preach to you from their graves, and they say, "So to the
dust must you also come, my Friend. Be you ready, for in such an hour
as you think not, the Son of Man will call for you."
You have had sicknesses in your own body. You are not now the strong
man you once were. You have already passed through many perils. What
are all these but voices from the God of Mercy saying, "Consider your
ways"? You are not such a simpleton as to think that you shall never
die–you know you will. Neither are you so insane as to think that when
you die, your death will be that of a horse or a dog. You know there is
a hereafter and a state of being in which men shall be judged according
to the deeds that they have done in the body, whether they are good or
whether they are evil. May I therefore press upon your earnest
recollection, and your intense consideration at this present moment,
the exhortation of the text, "Prepare to meet your God!"
Once more, let me say that this sound, as I have now put it, has little
melody in it. It will by-and-by be heard in ungodly ears as a
peremptory summons–and then there shall be no music in it, but a
horrid clang that shall drive away all hope–"Prepare to meet your
God." That summons will come to each one of you unconverted people, and
when it comes it will admit of no postponement. Call in the wisest
surgeon, or the most accomplished physician, and he cannot put off for
an hour the execution of God's death-warrant. "Prepare to meet your
God," will mean that at such a time, and such an hour, and at such a
moment, the spirit must return to God who gave it.
There will be no evasion of that summons. There will be no possibility,
then, of a Substitute dying in your place. "Prepare to meet your God"
will come to you, my Hearer, beyond all doubt. Oh, how I wish that you
were prepared for it! You must assuredly meet your God whom you have
forgotten all these years–your Creator, whose rights you have ignored.
Your Preserver, to Whom you have rendered no kind of recompense. Your
King, whose name it may be you have blasphemed. You have denied His
existence, but you will meet Him. You have lived in open revolt against
His righteous Laws, but you will certainly meet Him. No exemption will
be possible. Before His judgment seat you must stand.
Prepared or unprepared at the sound of the resurrection trumpet, you
must appear at His bar. No words of mine, however terrible they may be,
can by any possibility equal the horror which the judgment to come and
the wrath to be measured out will cause to the unregenerate heart. We
are sometimes accused, my Brethren, of using language too harsh, too
ghastly, too alarming, with regard to the world to come. But we shall
not soon change our note, for we solemnly believe that if we could
speak thunderbolts, and our every look were a lightning flash–and if
our eyes dropped blood instead of tears–no tones, words, gestures, or
likenesses of dread could exaggerate the awful condition of a soul
which has refused the Gospel and is delivered over to Justice.
"He that despised Moses' Law died without mercy under two or three
witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, suppose you, shall he be
thought worthy, who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and has
counted the blood of the Covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an
unholy thing, and has done despite unto the Spirit of Grace? For we
know Him that has said, Vengeance belongs unto Me, I will recompense,
says the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge His people. It is a
fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." Remember His
own words, "Consider this, you that forget God, lest I tear you in
pieces, and there be none to deliver" (Psa. 50:22).
Certain prophets of smooth things rise up among us, deluding the people
with thoughts that the judgment to come will not be terrible, but will
end in eternal sleep. Into their secret my soul comes not. I must speak
the Master's Truth and the Master's Words. O you ungodly, your
punishment will not end, for He has said it, "These shall go away into
everlasting punishment." Your miseries shall have no cessation, for He
who cannot lie, declares, "The smoke of their torment goes up forever
and ever." From the lips of Jesus at the Day of Judgment you shall
receive the sentence of everlasting blessedness or everlasting
punishment, and no other.
May God grant that you may not dare to sin under the notion that your
sin is a mere trifle, for both you and it will soon cease to be. Nature
itself teaches you that your soul will exist forever. O make it not
forever a ruin! Bring not upon
yourself everlasting destruction from the Presence of the Lord and from
the glory of His power! Thus have you rung the changes on the tones of
these words, and I leave them with you.
II. Secondly, and very briefly. There are HEAVY TIDINGS in these words.
Heavy tidings for the ungodly, for thus they run–"Prepare to meet your
God." I wish I could take hold of every unbeliever here, of every man
and woman whose heart is not right with God, and personally speak to
them, just as of old the Prophet spoke to Jeroboam's wife, and said, "I
have heavy tidings from the Lord for you." So would I speak to them, "I
have heavy tidings, unconverted Friends, from the Lord for you." And
the tidings are these, "You will before long have to meet your God.
Listen to the words, "meet your God."
You have by some means passed through this world without meeting Him.
He is everywhere, but you have managed not to see Him. He has fed you,
and in Him you have lived and moved, and had your being. But you have
contrived so to stultify yourself that you have never yet perceived
Him. You will perceive Him soon. When the flesh shall fall off from
your spirit, your disembodied soul will see without these eyes far more
clearly than it now does–for you will begin to see the spiritual world
which is now hidden from you–and chief and foremost you will meet your
God.
Now you say in your heart "no God," because the thought of God is
objectionable to you. You could not sin as you do if you remembered
that the all-seeing eye is in the chamber, no, is in your heart itself.
Remember you will not be able soon to shake off the thought of God, for
you will meet Him face to face. Not the thought of God only, but the
actual Being of God will confront you in your dying hour. You will be
compelled to meet Him. It will be a close meeting, not as though He
looked upon you from afar, or you surveyed Him from a distance. But you
will so meet Him that all the Glory of His majesty will operate upon
you like the fire which devours the stubble–for our God is a consuming
fire.
His holiness will become wrath against your sin, not wrath treasured up
and removed far away, but wrath that shall come near to you to consume
you. It will be an inevitable meeting, from which you will not be able
to escape. From your fellow creature, whom you do not wish to see, you
readily withdraw yourself, but you cannot escape from God. The rays of
the morning's sun could not carry you so fast as the Lord's right hand
can move. The uttermost parts of the sea cannot conceal you. The night
shall be light about you. Neither the heights of Heaven, nor the depths
of Hell can conceal you from Him.
You must meet face to face with your God. And it must be a personal
meeting. God and you will meet as if alone. God alone and you alone.
What if there are angels? What if there are ten thousand times ten
thousands of your kindred sinners? To you, virtually, it shall be
solitude itself. You must meet your God! You, YOU! O my dear Hearer, it
is a sad thing that this should be heavy tidings to you, for if you
were what you should be, it would be joy to you to think that you shall
be near your God, and dwell in His embrace. But, unconverted as you
are, no tidings can have more of horror in them than these–that you,
do as you will, and steel your heart as you may–must by-and-by
confront your God.
Think awhile upon Who it is that you have to meet! You must meet your
God–your God! That is, offended Justice you must meet whose laws you
have broken, whose penalties you have ridiculed. Justice righteously
indignant with its sword drawn you must confront. You must meet your
God. That is, you must be examined, by unblind Omniscience. He who has
seen your heart, and read your thoughts, and jotted down your
affections, and remembered your idle words– you must meet Him. And
infinite discernment you must meet–those eyes that never yet were
duped. The God who will see through the veils of hypocrisy and all the
concealments of formality.
There will be no making yourself out to be better than you are before
Him. You must meet Him who will read you as a man reads a book open
before his eyes. You mast meet with unsullied holiness. You have not
always found yourself happy on earth when you have been with holy
men–you could not act out your natural impulses in their presence,
they were a check upon you. But the infinitely holy God, what must it
be to meet Him? It will be such an interview for a sinner to meet with
the thrice holy God as for dross to meet with the refiner's fire or
stubble with the flame.
You will have, moreover, to meet with insulted Mercy, and perhaps this
will be the most dreadful meeting of the whole–when your conscience
will remind you that you were invited to repent, that you were urged to
lay hold of Christ, that you were honestly bid to be saved–but you
hardened your neck and would not be persuaded. O Sinner, by so much as
God is patient with you now, by so much will He be angry with you then.
They who slight the warnings of His Divine Grace shall feel the terrors
of His wrath. To none shall it be so hard to meet God in justice as to
those who would not
meet Him in Grace–vengeance takes the place of slighted mercy. God
grant you may never know what it is to meet insulted love, rejected
mercy, and tenderness turned to wrath!
O Sinner, if you have to meet your God as you now are, you will find
Him everlasting Truth, fulfilling every threatening Word of His Law and
Gospel. Every black Word that is in this Book shall be fulfilled over
your head, and every dreadful syllable be verified in your loins and in
your heart. Remember too, that you will meet with Him who has
Omnipotent power–against whom you can no more contend than the smoke
against the wind, or the fuel against the furnace. You shall then know
how God can punish, and you will find Him not a weak and trembling God,
but an Omnipotent God, putting forth His power to destroy His
adversaries who have dared to assail against His majesty.
Thus have I put a few thoughts together, in very feeble language, I
confess, but they ought, of themselves, apart from mere words, to have
power with you. I pray God the Holy Spirit that you, dear Hearer, may
prepare to meet your God. You see who it is you have to meet, and what
it will be to meet Him. May God make you to be prepared for what must
occur.
III. The last point is this. Here is A WEIGHTY PRECEPT–prepare to meet
God. How can a man be prepared to meet God? In the text there is an
allusion to preparing for battle, but none of you would wish to contend
with God in the hereafter. Who is he that thinks that with a thousand
he can meet one that comes against him with a countless host of ten
thousand times ten thousand? O Rebel, the warfare is hopeless, ground
your arms. It were worse than madness to dream of contending with God.
Submit, for resistance is vain.
Better far is it to prepare to meet God as sinners. We are today like
prisoners who are waiting for our court date, and the news has come
that the judge is ready, and we, the prisoners, are to prepare to meet
him. Sooner or later it must be the lot of us all to come before the
Judge. Now, Brethren, what is the right way to prepare to meet a judge?
If any of you can plead, "Not guilty," your preparation is made. But
there is not one man among us who dares think of that. We have sinned,
great God, and we confess the sin. What preparation, then, can we make?
Suppose we sit down and investigate our case. Can we plead
extenuations? Can we urge excuses or mitigations, or hope to escape by
promises of future improvement?
Let us give up the attempt, my Brethren. We have gone astray willfully
and wickedly–and we shall do it again–it is of no use for us to set
up any kind of defense that is grounded upon ourselves. How, then, can
we be prepared to meet our God? Hearken. There is an Advocate, and it
is written, "If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus
Christ the Righteous." Let us send for Him. We poor prisoners, lying
waiting in the cells, send for Jesus, the Son of God, to be our
Intercessor and Advocate. Will He undertake our cause? O that He would
plead the cause of our souls, and be our Daysman to speak with God on
our behalf!
Yes! He will accept the office, and be our Advocate, for He has said,
"Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out." Then let us apply to
Him, and say, "Jesus, undertake our case." Will you not do this? Oh, I
pray God you may! Sitting in these pews, you may engage the services of
the great Advocate. Cry in your hearts, "Son of David, undertake for
me, undertake my case." Well, now, supposing we have put it all into
His hands, and He who is called Wonderful is received as our Counselor
to plead for us. What is next to be done?
First He bids us prepare to meet our God by at once taking up our true
position as sinners. Let us plead guilty. Let us make a full and
penitent confession. We cannot be saved by Christ unless we will do as
He bids us. Faith is only real as it is obedient. One of the first
Gospel exhortations which Jesus gives us is this, that we confess our
sins. O that we may honestly plead guilty, for our iniquity stares us
in the face, and we ought heartily to make acknowledgment of it–for it
is an evil and a bitter thing–and has worked us woeful damage. O great
Counselor, if You bid us plead guilty, we do so with many tears and
with broken hearts. We do confess that all our hope must lie in Divine
mercy, for we have no merit. Lost and undone, we cry, "Have mercy upon
us, miserable sinners!"
But what next? Why then, the great Counselor will enter a plea for us,
which will bar all further action against us. Though we have confessed
that we are guilty, He knows how at the great Judgment Seat to plead a
legal argument for the removal of all punishment. And what does He
plead? Here is His argument, "My Father," says He, "I stood of old in
the place of these who have committed their case to My hands, and who
plead guilty at Your Judgment Seat. I suffered for their sins. I bore,
that they might never bear, Your righteous ire. I satisfied Your Law on
their behalf. I claim, My Father, that they go free."
The infinite Majesty admits the plea. O Brothers and Sisters, if your
case is in the hands of Christ, and you confess your guilt, do you not
see how He sets you free so that you may be prepared to meet your God?
Because you can plead the blood of Jesus, the Atonement of the great
Substitute for sinners, and covered with that Substitution, you can
stand accepted in the Beloved! "Who shall lay anything to the charge of
God's elect? It is God that justifies. Who is he that condemns? It is
Christ that died, yes rather, that is risen again, who is even at the
right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us."
But you have not heard the Counselor through yet, for as He goes on to
speak before the infinite Majesty, He pleads, "My Father, I obeyed the
Law on their behalf. I kept it in its very jots and tittles. I made it
honorable, and now the righteousness which I achieved, I have made over
unto them, for all that I am is theirs. My righteousness is their
righteousness, and they shall stand accepted in the Beloved." The great
Judge of all admits the fact, and He receives into His bosom and into
His Glory poor souls who had sinned and pleaded guilty, but who now
have imputed to them the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and are
justified by faith which is in Him. All their iniquities are blotted
out.
don't you see, dear Friends, what it is to be prepared to meet God! For
now we have a good case, now we are not afraid of the last court
session. Our case is in the hands of a blessed Advocate whose pleading
must prevail. All that you and I have now to do is to prove by our
actions that we really have believed in Christ. Let us go on to justify
our faith if, indeed, our faith has justified us. Let us prove the
sincerity of our confidence in Christ by the holiness of our lives, by
the devotedness of those lives to His honor and glory. Let us wake up
all our powers and passions that we may become His servants to the
highest extent and manhood's energy–living, laboring, working for
Christ–because He has undertaken our case, and will save us at the
last.
Thus have I set before you what it is to be prepared to meet God, in
the hope that many here will make ready to meet Him. And now let me
remind you that the subject on which I have spoken this morning may
have a much nearer interest to some of you than you imagine. It has a
very near interest to every one of us. It is but a matter of time, and
all of us must appear at the Divine tribunal–but there are some to
whom it may have a peculiarly close bearing. As I just told you, I did
not select this subject, I had no idea of preaching from it–the
subject selected me. I was dragged into this present line of thought. I
am a pressed man in this service.
That sick young woman's necessities forced me to this subject. Why this
special arrangement? I believe the reason is because there are some
here this morning who are now receiving the last warning they will ever
have. I am solemnly persuaded that I have among my hearers and readers
some to whom this feeble word of mine is no other than an arrow from
the bow of the Almighty God. To others it is a final message of mercy,
and if this does not strike them, wound them, and drive them to Christ,
nothing ever will.
From this day forth they shall feel no more stirrings of conscience, or
strivings of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps before another Sunday's bell
shall ring, some of you now listening to my voice will be in the land
of spirits and have passed the solemn test–weighed in the balances and
found wanting. If it is so, and it were hard for any man here to
prophesy that it shall not be so, for where several thousands are met
together, the very chances of mortality, as men call them, go to make
us fear it. The fact of this subject being thrust upon me makes me feel
as though a Prophetic impulse were in it. Then, if it is so, you and I,
whoever you may be, fated for death this week, stand in a peculiar
relationship to each other.
1 may be gazing straight into those eyes which shall never look upon me
again till we meet at the Judgment Bar, and if I am not faithful to
your soul, you may rise up amidst that throng and say, "I strayed into
that Tabernacle, and I listened to you, but you played with your theme,
you were not earnest, and so I was lost." So then I will be earnest! I
evoke you by the living God, escape from the wrath to come! As the Lord
lives, there is but a step between you and death! Flee for your life!
Look not behind you! Turn your whole soul to Jesus! A crucified Savior
waits for a lost sinner, willing to receive him, willing to receive him
now!
Now you can not look me in the face in the next world and say I did not
speak to you earnestly. O that the glance which we exchange at this
moment may be succeeded in that tremendous day by a glance of
recognition in which there shall be the soft emotions of gratitude and
affection, as you and I shall say to each other there, "Blessed be God
that we met on that hallowed Sunday, for now we shall meet forever
before the throne of Him that lives and was dead, and is alive forever
more, and has the keys of Hell and of death." God bless you, every one
of you, richly, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
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Jesus Only
A Sermon