A Safe Prospective
A sermon
(No. 886)
Delivered on Lord's-day Evening, JULY 8, 1869, by
C.H.SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"At the time appointed the end shall be."- Daniel 8:19.
Human nature anxiously desires to know something of the future. If we
were told tonight that we could repair to a certain spot where we might
lift the veil of our own history and foresee the course of our own
lives during the next few years, I am afraid very few of us could be
trusted to absent ourselves from such a place, or miss such an
opportunity. This anxiety to know the future and that strange credulity
which gives heed to every species of so-called "prophets" and omens,
has caused men and women to be the easy dupes of designing impostors in
all ages–from the ignorance of the unlettered Egyptian, up to the
cleverness of modern professors.
I might almost mention learned doctors who practice divinations,
prophecy concerning things to come and bring in Holy Scripture to back
up their prognostications. Everywhere that kind of spirit which leads
men to amuse themselves with light literature leads them, also, to read
the Bible with a view to espy the future and would lead them to resort
to any kind of invention by which they might hope to have a glimpse of
the unfolded scroll. Be persuaded, however, my Brothers and Sisters,
that with the exception of some grand feature, some magnificent outline
which God has revealed, the future is absolutely shut from human eye!
And as to the details which concern your life or mine, it is utterly
impossible that we should ever become acquainted with them by any
manner of horoscope, or soothsaying, or bibliomancy. We shall know them
soon enough by the gradual development of experience, but it is idle
and mischievous to attempt to know them till they transpire. Why is it
that the future is thus shut out from our view? Is it not because the
present is enough to occupy our talents? Rightly to serve our God in
this present hour will take all the strength we have and all the
strength we can obtain from Him. Sufficient unto the day is not only
the evil thereof, but the service thereof.
Men who live too much in the past and go beyond that which is rightly
conservative become of little service in the world. And men who are
tempted to regulate their movements by forecasts of the future will
always become abstracted, speculative, empirical–full of sentiment and
void of diligence–but certainly of no service whatever in the stern
battle of today. Believe me, Man, all your manhood is needed for the
all-engrossing now! Use it. Your best way to ensure a happy, a holy and
a glorious future is to mind the present and to keep your eye fast on
your Master's will concerning you in this, the hour which is flitting
over your head, molding your character and working out your destiny.
God has concealed the future from us, probably, with a view to relieve
our career through the world of dull monotony and infuse into it new
phases of stirring interest. Life would not wear such a lively aspect
if it were all spread out in a map before us on the day of the
commencement of our pilgrimage. Much of the pleasantness of a journey
lies in unexpected views and scenes which burst upon the traveler as he
climbs a hill or descends into a dale. If he could see all at once–one
long, unvarigated avenue–it would become weary walking for him. But
the very freshness and novelty of the events–adventures and
contingencies constantly occurring–help to make life exciting, if not
happy.
I thank God for many a mercy which has come to me fresh from the mint
of His Providence. I could not have imagined that such a well-timed
godsend could have come to me in such an unexpected manner–it had all
the marks of novelty about it–as if the Lord had been pleased to coin
it and put it into my hand. Has not God also hid the future from us
that we may not labor under the sense of being like "dumb driven
cattle," who have no will and no freedom, but both do and suffer what
they are compelled by an irresistible agency?
Now, I believe in predestination, yes, even in its very jots and
tittles. I believe that the path of a single grain of dust in the March
wind is ordained and settled by a decree which cannot be violated. I
believe that every word and thought of man, every flittering of a
sparrow's wing, every flight of a fly, the crawling of a beetle, the
gliding of a fish in the depth of
the sea–that everything, in fact–is foreknown and foreordained. But I
do equally believe in the free agency of man, that man acts as he
wills, especially in moral operations–choosing the evil with a will
that is unbiased by anything that comes from God–biased only by his
own depravity of heart and the perverseness of his habits.
I believe in man's free agency in choosing the right, too, with perfect
freedom–though sacredly guided and led by the Holy Spirit–but in such
a way that his disposition is trained to choose and prefer the right
and the true, not violently driven in the teeth of his own reluctance.
He is free in his agency, for the Son of God has made him free. I
believe that man is as free as if everything were left to chance and
that he is as accountable as if there were no destiny whatever. Where
the two Truths of God meet I do not know, nor do I want to know. They
do not puzzle me, since I have given up my mind to believing them both.
They are thought by some to be antagonistic, the one contrary to the
other. I believe them to be two parallel lines. They run side by side
and perhaps even in eternity there is no point of contact between these
two grand Truths. But if the predestination were a revealed thing and
we could see it, it would then become utterly impossible for human
nature to receive the idea of freedom, or to believe itself to be at
all independent in its action. Man would, to repeat the line of
Longfellow's, feel himself to be but one of a herd of "dumb, driven
cattle," made to do, whether he willed or not, just what had been
ordained.
Moreover, Brothers and Sisters, is it not to be counted for a thousand
mercies in one that all the future is concealed from us, since that
future is of a very checkered character, casting, as one has said,
beams of hope and shadows of fear over the stage both of active and
contemplative life? Some of it is bright with pleasure–much of it is
dim with sorrow. What, then, if we knew the pleasure would come, should
we not begin to reckon upon it? Surely the current of time would flow
on heavily until the pleasant day arrived! Perhaps we would be really
drawing bills at a very heavy discount upon the future if we knew it
sufficiently to forestall the season of prosperity–so that when it did
come we should be already satiated with it by foretaste and so fail to
enjoy the good when present which we had gloated on in prospect.
And as for the troubles, the perils and the afflictions that await
us–if we knew of them beforehand–we should be pretty sure, with our
natural tendency to graceless unbelief and morbid anxiety, to begin to
carry the burden before the day came for us to carry it. We should be
crossing all the bridges between here and Heaven long before we came to
them. We should be reefing all the sails before the storm came. We
should be escaping indoors before the first drop of rain fell. We
should be so constantly engaged in making anxious provision for the
future that the comforts of today would glide away and the joys and
opportunities of the present would be despised. We should foster the
weakness we lament and cherish the cowardice we disdain. Our sinews
would be slackened, our limbs disjointed, our hearts would be
frightened with terror.
No, my Lord, it would be a fatal gift if You would bestow upon any one
of us the power to know his own future. It were an unhappy thing for
any one of us to be able to look beyond this present time. We need not
distress ourselves, however, for we shall not receive such a gift of
prophecy–we shall not be permitted to lift the veil that hides the
morrow. We shall have to go on praying, "Give us this day our daily
bread." We shall have to continue living upon the manna that drops by
the day and upon the strength which shall be sufficient for the daily
need. It is as we often sing–
"Day by day the manna fell;
Oh, to learn this lesson well!
Still by constant mercy fed,
Give me, Lord, my daily bread.
'Day by day,' the promise reads–
Daily strength for daily needs.
Cast foreboding fears away–
Take the manna of today."
It is, however, important for us to remember two or three things with
regard to the future. First, that all in the future is appointed–that
especially those desirable ends we are looking for are the subjects of
appointment. And that in connection with those ends and those events,
there are certain appointments of mercy which should, tonight, give us
comfort.
I. First, then, dear Friends, it is well for us to remember that
EVERYTHING IN THE FUTURE IS APPOINTED. Nothing shall happen to us which
God has not foreseen. No unexpected event shall destroy His plans–no
emergency shall transpire for which He has not provided. No peril shall
occur against which He has not guarded. There shall come
no remarkable need which shall take Him by surprise. He sees the end
from the beginning and the things that are not as though they were.
To God's eye there is no past and no future. He fills His own eternal
now. He stands in a position from which He can look down upon the whole
and see the past, the present and the future at a single glance. All,
all, all of the future is foreseen by Him and fixed by Him. We may
derive no small comfort from this fact, for, suppose one goes to sea
under the most skillful captain–that captain cannot possibly know what
may occur during the voyage and with the greatest foresight he can
never promise an absolutely safe passage. There may be dangers which he
has never yet encountered– Atlantic waves, tornadoes and hurricanes
that may yet sweep the good ship away and they that sailed out of port
merrily may never reach the haven.
But when you come into the ship of Providence, he who is at the helm is
the Master of every wind that shall blow and of every wave that shall
break its force upon that ship! And He foresees, as well, the events
that shall happen at the harbor for which we make, as those that happen
at the port from which we start. He knows in His own soul every wave
with its height and breadth and force. He knows each wind. Though the
winds seem to be left without control, He knows each wind in all its
connections and the speed at which each shall travel. How safe we are,
then, when embarked in the good ship of Providence, with such a Captain
who has forearranged and foreordained all things from the beginning
even unto the end!
And, furthermore, how much it becomes us to put implicit confidence in
His guidance! Hold your peace, Man, even from counsel–for your
thoughts are vain where your understanding is baffled–
"When my dim reason would demand
Why this or that You do ordain,
By some vast deep I seem to stand,
Whose secrets Imust ask in vain.
Be this my joy, that evermore
You rule all things at Your wiil
Your sovereign wisdom I adore,
And calmly, sweetly, trust You still." It should always be remembered
in connection with this subject that we are no believers in
fate–seeing that fate is a different doctrine altogether from
predestination. Fate says the thing is and must be–so it is decreed.
But the true doctrine is–God has appointed this and that, not because
it must be, but because it is best that it should be. Fate is blind,
but the destiny of Scripture is full of eyes. Fate is stern and
adamantine and has no tears for human sorrow, but the arrangements of
Providence are kind and good. The greatest good for the greatest number
and the Glory of God above all, are the ends that are in it subserved.
Do not imagine that God has simply out of His own arbitrary will
determined this and that. He does as He wills, but He always wills to
do that which is in conformity with His high and glorious Nature. He
never wills an unjust thing. He never wills a really unkind thing. All
the appointments of His Providence, especially towards His people, are
ruled in mercy, in tenderness, in love and in wisdom and all are
conducive to their highest interest and their greatest happiness. Oh,
but this is a blessed Truth of God!
Oh, it is sweet, to be able to say, "From this day forth, whatever
happens to me, be it little or be it great, I am content. Though I am
altogether unaware what it shall be, I am not sorry that I am unaware
of it–for this one thing I know–there shall happen nothing but what
God permits. I shall be left to no demon's power. I shall not be cast
away like an orphan. I shall not be beyond my Father's eyes and my
Father's hands–all shall come and last and end as shall please
Him–and it shall always please Him that everything that comes shall
work for my good if I am one of His people. I may not see it at the
time, but it will be so whether I see it or not! All shall happen,
every event, in its proper place, every pain according to its proper
measure. Everything that makes me sing, and cry and groan. Every loss
and every cross. Every slander. Everything that seems to hinder me or
to thwart my wishes–all shall come and be ruled and managed to make
the end which God has promised to bring salvation to my soul and Glory
to Himself."
O Beloved, I do not know where those go for comfort who have not
accepted this Truth, but I do know that after you have done all you can
in toiling for your daily bread, or, as in my case, you have done all
you can in the discharge of Christian service, it is a blessed thing,
in times of serious difficulty and perplexing dilemma, to fall right
back into the
arms of the ever-ruling God, and say, "You do all things well. Though
things go ill according to my judgment, yet Your judgment is better
than mine and You do all things right and let Your name be glorified."
If one could think that there was somewhere one grain of dust floating
in the atmosphere that was not under Divine superintendence, one might
wish to escape from it as from a plague!
If one could believe that there was an hour of the night, or say a
single second throughout the year in which the hand of God was
withdrawn from Nature, or a single event in which God was not
concerned, and His will was not consulted, one might tremble till that
black storm had passed, or till that dread event, like a vial full of
evil, had been effectually poured out and put away. But now each hour
is safe, for God has made it so! Each place of difficulty and of danger
shall still be secure to the faithful servants of the Lord. Each time
of peril shall still be a time of blessed safety to the man that rests
beneath the wings of the eternal God. He who learns to see God in calm
and in storm, in either and both, cares not much which it is, but
leaves it to his God to choose. He who sees the giving hand of God as
well as the taking hand, will not repine at either, but will say, "The
Lord gave and the Lord has taken away and blessed be the name of the
Lord."
I would, with special earnestness, beg you to believe that God is in
little things. It is the little troubles of life that annoy us the
most. A man can put up with the loss of a dear friend, sometimes,
better than he can with the burning of his fingers with a coal, or some
little accident that may occur to him. The little stones in the sandal
make the traveler limp, while great stones do him little hurt, for he
soon leaps over them. Believe that God arranges the littles! Take the
little troubles as they come–remember them to your God because they
come from Him. Believe that nothing is little to God which concerns His
people. To Him, indeed, your greatest concerns may be said to be
little, and your little anxieties are not too mean for His notice.
The very hairs of your head are all numbered! You may, therefore, pray
to Him about your smallest griefs. If not a sparrow lights upon the
ground without your Father, you have reason to see that the smallest
events in your career are arranged by Him and it should be your joy to
accept them as they come and not make them causes of offense either to
others or to yourselves. This is a Truth of God on which you may rely
implicitly, and exercise yourselves continually, until you lull the
sharpest pains, calm the most feverish excitements and obtain the
sweetest repose that a spirit weary, but restless, can indulge in. It
is the antidote of fear.
I commend this positive certainty to you with the utmost confidence.
Everything in the future is appointed by God. As men you will account
it reasonable. As disciples you will believe it, for it its plainly
revealed, and as Christians I trust you may rejoice in it heartily, for
it must be a theme of rejoicing that all is in the hands of the great
King. The Lord is King! Let His people rejoice!–
"The Lord is King; who then shall dare
Resist His will, distrust His care,
Or murmur at His wise decrees,
Or doubt His royal promises?
Oh, when His wisdom can mistake,
His might decay, His love forsake,
Then may His children cease to sing,
The Lord Omnipotent is King." II. But now, secondly, there is A SPECIAL
APPOINTMENT WITH REGARD TO CERTAIN ENDS. I am not going to pursue the
connection, but the text itself will suffice me, for it says, "at the
time appointed the end shall be." Now, there are certain "ends" to
which you and I are looking forward to with great expectancy. There is
the end of the present trouble–let us think of that. I do not know
what your particular trouble may be, but this I know–as surely as you
are in the furnace you will be anxious to be delivered out of it.
Whatever submission we may have to the Divine will, it is not natural
for us to love affliction–we desire to reach the end and come forth
from the trial. "At the time appointed the end shall be."
You have been slandered in your character–a very frequent trial to
God's servants–and you are irritated and vexed and in a great haste to
answer it–to rebut the calumny and to vindicate your reputation. Be
still. Be very quiet and patient. Bear it all. Stand still and see the
salvation of God, for light is sown for the righteous and He will bring
forth your righteousness like the light and your judgment as the
noonday. "At the time appointed the end shall be." When the
dogs are tired they will leave off barking and when the Lord bids them
be still, they shall not dare to move a tongue against you. "At the
time appointed the end shall be."
You are in poverty. It is some time since you had a situation in which
you could earn your daily bread. You have been walking wearily up and
down those hard London streets–you have been searching the
advertisement sheet–you have looked everywhere for something to do.
You gaze upon the dear wife and pitiful children with ever-increasing
anxiety. Are you a child of God? Have you learned to cast your burden
upon the Lord? Then, "at the time appointed the end shall be." There
shall yet be deliverance for you. "Trust in the Lord and do good and so
shall you dwell in the land and verily you shall be fed." The ravens
are fed at this day, as they were in David's day–and He that feeds the
ravens will not let His children starve. Patiently wait the appointed
time. Industriously seek to find it, but still with patience submit to
the Divine will.
It may be, dear Friend, that you are passing out of another trial which
it shall not be possible for me to describe. Indeed, it is one which
you cover up and keep to yourself. And of all sorrows, those are among
the most severe when the heart knows its own bitterness and a stranger
intermeddles not with it. You have been seeking in prayer for help out
of this trial and you have believed that the help would come, but it
has been long delayed. It is now month after month that you have put up
storm signals and yet the blessed lifeboat of your heavenly Father's
mercy has not come out to your almost wrecked vessel. Be still and know
the salvation of God. "At the time appointed the end shall be."
The time is not for you to appoint. To set times for God to answer
prayer is always wrong. He who gives has the right to choose the time
of the gift. Beggars must not be choosers. God has appointed the time
of your visitation and at the time appointed let Hell and earth do what
they may, it shall surely come! Only be steadfast, immovable, always
abounding in the work of the Lord and in the quiet confidence of faith
possess your soul–for the end of your trial and trouble shall surely
come at the time appointed.
It may be, Brethren, that the end you are desiring is greater
usefulness and you have been panting after this for years. In that
class, or in that village chapel–or whatever other form of labor it is
that you have undertaken–you have been groaning out your very soul,
asking the Lord that He would give you the Holy Spirit more
plenteously. You have tried to get rid of everything that might hamper
you in your work, or that would prevent the Lord's using you. You have
pleaded to be delivered from all wrong motives and all gross and carnal
desires and yet, for all that, the blessing tarries. Do not give up the
work! Do not play the Jonah! There have been many who have done it who
have found no whale to swallow them, or if the whale swallowed them
there has been an end of them. You keep to your work, still, for "at
the time appointed the end shall be."
God will not suffer the faithful worker to work in vain. Your labor of
love shall not be in vain in the Lord. You know not when the prosperity
is to come. Some do not live to see their own work. If so they may take
up the language of Moses and say, "Let Your work appear unto Your
servants"–let us do the work–"and Your glory unto their children."
Let our children live to see the result of our work and the Glory of
God through it and we shall be well content. "At the time
appointed"–to every honest and earnest servant of Christ–"the end
shall be."
Beloved Friends, you are looking forward, some of you, to the end of
your life's battle. Life is to the genuine Christian an incessant
fight. The moment we are converted the battle begins. We think,
sometimes, that corruption will be destroyed and that we shall find no
indwelling sin to beset us. I have heard some of God's servants talk
about indwelling sin being destroyed in them. I only wish I could have
any hope that it would be so in me–instead of this I find that to will
is present with me, but how to perform that which I would, I find not.
When I would serve God, still there is an evil heart of unbelief that
checks me in it all. And I believe that if men could see their own
hearts right, that is about the experience of every child of God. It is
a warfare from the first to the last and until we get to Heaven we may
never talk about putting up our sword into its scabbard and taking our
rest. But, glory be to God, "in the time appointed the end of this
warfare shall be." It is war with Amalek in perpetuity, according to
the oath of God, "Because the Lord has sworn that the Lord will have
war with Amalek from generation to generation." But once let us enter
into the true Canaan and it shall be war with Amalek no more, for the
Lord shall tread Satan, himself, under our feet, while inbred sin shall
be cast far away and we shall be without fault before the Throne of
God!
No temptation arising from the world shall reach us. No suggestion from
Hell shall grieve us. No angry temper shall disturb us. No thought of
pride. No suggestion of the flesh shall come in to mar our matchless
purity, but we shall serve
God day and night in His Temple! The beauty of holiness shall be upon
us–in the time appointed the blessed end shall be. So, too, with the
service of our lives. I think no servant of God is tired of serving his
Master. We may be tired in the service, though not tired of it. I have
heard a story of the celebrated Mr. William Dawson who used to call
himself "Billy" Dawson, much to the point.
On one occasion, when he and some other Methodist friends were spending
the evening together, a dear friend of mine happened to be present and
heard what passed. They were praying that Mr. Dawson's life might be
spared for many years to come, that such an earnest man might be kept
in the Church for the next 20 or 30 years. At last, as they were just
in the middle of prayer, William Dawson said, "Lord, don't hear 'em! I
want to get my work done and go Home! I don't want to be here any
longer than there is need to be!" And the Brethren stopped their
prayers–thunderstruck as they witnessed his emotion!
Now I believe that feeling will often pass over the earnest working
Christian. "Oh," he says, "I am not lazy. I am not idle. But still, I
would like to get my work done." 'Tis your lazy workmen that are all
the day long getting through their job, but the industrious man would
just as soon make a good day of it and get a great deal done in a short
time. Well, lest that feeling should ever grow into impatience, the
text whispers into our ears, "At the time appointed the end shall be."
You shall go out to reap for the last time. There shall be a last
sermon and a last prayer and there shall be a last look of anxiety over
backsliders. There shall be a last tear of sorrow over the impenitent.
There shall be a last motion of the soul over those that have deceived
you and disappointed your hopes. It shall be all finished. The top
stone of your life-work shall be brought out with shouting of, "Grace,
Grace," unto it! You shall lay your crown at His feet from whom you
received it and you shall hear Him say, "Well done, good and faithful
servant, enter into the joy of your Lord." "In the time appointed the
end shall be."
With many a child of God life is not merely a warfare spiritually and a
work for God outwardly, but it is attended with much suffering. I speak
not now of martyrs, men so little esteemed in their own age that they
fell by the hand of the public executioner, yet so honored by posterity
that a bright halo encircles their memory. I rather refer to those
whose heroic faith has endured an agony of physical suffering with a
sacred composure of mind. Have you ever heard of the infirmities under
which Richard Baxter labored? He was a man whose vigorous sermons were
supplemented by such voluminous writings that his works are a prodigy
of toil! Or need I remind you of Robert Hall? He, almost within our own
memory, was accounted the prince of modern preachers for his eloquence.
Why, it has been said that he would be no mean proficient in medical
pathology who could describe the complicated diseases of either of
these men. Yet they ceased not to toil! Pain was, to their idea, no
excuse from service. They found recreations from their own groans in
warning sinners of the more dreadful groans of lost souls. But my
heart's pity is towards full many a dear saint for whose complaint
there is no remedy but patience. Ah, I know many servants of God whose
every breath seems to be a pang–their poor bodies are in such a
condition that life is like protracted death! Sometimes in the long and
weary night, especially when poverty is associated with sickness and
friends become fewer and fewer every year, it is no wonder that the
sufferer cries, "Why is His chariot so long in coming? Where is my
Beloved gone? Why does He not admit me into the pastures of rest?"
Well, weary sufferer, "in the time appointed the end shall be." I think
we may put all together and say that we would not wish to postpone that
day. What folly to wish to be longer out of Heaven than we must! But we
would not wish to antedate that period, for the Master must know best
and for us to be there an hour before His time–if such a thing were
possible–would not be to be in Heaven at all, for to be in Heaven is
to be in perfect conformity with the Divine will. A good soul who was
asked whether she would live or die, said she would rather leave it
with God. "But," they said, "if the Lord permitted you to choose, what
would you do?"
"Why," she said, "I think I would not choose, but I would ask God to be
good enough to choose for me and then I would choose what He chose for
me." And that is the best state of heart to be in. The end is
appointed. The very day and hour of death are settled. And the means by
which we shall receive the death-shock–whether we shall drop dead in
the street, or whether we shall die in the pew–such a thing has
happened in this Tabernacle–or whether we shall lie in protracted
weakness, the tenement being gradually taken down and the soul gazing
steadfastly into the excellent Glory by the month together before she
takes her flight. Whichever it is to be, God has settled it all and He
has settled it all for the best.
Sometimes in thinking of it, if one might make the choice, it seems
that it must be delightful to have a sudden death–to shut one's eyes
on earth and open them in Heaven. I could never understand that prayer
in the Litany which many people think very excellent–it may be so and
it may be that my idea of it is wrong in which they pray to be
delivered from sudden death. I would never think of praying such a
prayer and never shall! I do not know of any privilege that seems to be
greater than that of sudden death. One gentle sigh and away you are
gone! Like a dear servant of God, Mr. Watts Wilkinson, who prayed that
he might never know death and he died in his sleep–his prayer was
heard and he was taken Home in the midst of slumbers soft and sweet.
How blessed, like Isaac Sanders, of St. Ann's, Blackfriars, and Dr.
Beaumont, the Wesleyan minister, to expire in the pulpit, to be in your
Master's service and called away! Well, you have not got your choice,
so that whichever form you might most dread you need not encourage any
timid apprehensions, for you shall not have the disposal of the matter.
The Lord will be careful to take you Home in a heavenly way, for He
will send such a chariot for His servants as shall be most suitable to
them. I do not think they go to Heaven in a beggarly procession, but
that God fetches the guests who are to dwell with Him forever, each one
of them, in a suitable manner and so shall you be taken up to dwell
with God in the way which your own heart would choose if infinite
wisdom were to counsel you.
III. One more thought before we close. All things are appointed and
especially these sacred and blessed ends. But remember that besides the
ends, ALL THE MEANS TO THE ENDS are also appointed–all that intervenes
is appointed, too. Balance this thought with the other. My trouble
appointed! Yes, but there is an appointed portion of Divine Grace that
shall sustain me under it–Grace exactly according to the measure of my
necessity while under the tribulation.
Temptation appointed! Yes, but there is appointed extraordinary help to
deliver the soul from going down into the Pit and to pluck the foot out
of the net, lest by any means one sheep of Christ should be devoured by
the lion of Hell. You fear sickness, because that may be appointed–but
it is also appointed, "I will make all his bed in his sickness," and
that appointment carries you over the other. It is appointed, perhaps,
that you should be in need–but then it is appointed that better should
be your dinner of herbs than the stalled ox of the wicked.
You know it is appointed unto you to die, at least, unless the Lord
should suddenly come in His Glory–but then it is appointed unto you to
rise again and the death appointed is not the death of common men! It
is when sleeping in Jesus the trumpet of the archangel shall awaken
you! And what of the Divine Grace appointed? Is it not appointed that
up from the grave you should rise in a nobler image than that which you
now wear, even in the image of your Lord and covenant Head? What if it
is appointed that the body should lie among the clods of the valley?
Yet it is equally appointed that these very hands should strike the
celestial strings of the golden harp and these very eyes should see the
King in His beauty! Rejoice, then, that the appointments of God
concerning every one of His children are sure and effectual. You must
be with Christ where He is to behold His Glory. You must be a partaker
of His everlasting blessedness. He will not suffer you to perish, nor
will He leave you to be cast away. If all the other matters are
appointed, so are these great and glorious things appointed–they shall
come about in their appointed time and so shall your heart give to God
constant praise!
And now, dear Friends, there is nothing in this Truth of God that can
give any comfort to those who are not reconciled to God. It is a great
and terrible Truth to those who are not God's friends. At the time
appointed the end shall be. What a winding up awaits those who will
encounter the doom of the impenitent, no tongue can describe. There
will be an end to haughty and contemptuous skepticism and an end to
careless apathetic unbelief. There will be an end to the indulgence of
fleshly lusts and an end to the enjoyment of creature comforts. There
will be an end to the longsuffering with which God has borne with you
so patiently and an end to the sound of Mercy's voice ringing in your
ears, admonishing you to repent.
Who among you can foresee that time appointed? Ah, I would you went
reconciled to God, poor Sinner, for if not, living and dying as you
are, the events that shall transpire will grow blacker and blacker to
you. All that shall happen in the future, especially in eternity, will
bring you only woe after woe and you will forever have to cry, "One woe
is past and behold another woe comes and yet another!" Like Job's
messengers, your miseries will follow at each other's heels. Why rebel
against the King of Heaven? Why set your will against the Divine will?
He speaks to you tonight–in the cool of the evening He appeals to you,
and He says, "Return unto Me. Arise and seek your Father's face."
And if you would be reconciled, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ! Trust
Christ with your soul. Trust Him implicitly! Trust Him sincerely! Trust
Him now, and you are reconciled at once and then, from now on, the
great and terrible wheels of Providence have no terror for you–for all
things work together for good to them that love God–to them that are
the called according to His purpose. May the blessing of God abide with
you evermore.