Human Responsibility
A Sermon
(No. 194)
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, May 16, 1858, by the
REV. C.H. SPURGEON
at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens
"If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now
they have no cloke for their sin."–John 15:22.
THE PECULIAR SIN of the Jews, the sin which aggravated above everything
their former iniquities, was their rejection of Jesus Christ as the
Messiah. He had been very plainly described in the books of the
prophets, and they who waited for him, such as Simeon and Anna, no
sooner beheld him even in his infant state, than they rejoiced to see
him, and understood that God had sent forth his salvation. But because
Jesus Christ did not answer the expectation of that evil generation
because he did not come arrayed in pomp and clothed with power, because
he had not the outward garnishing of a prince and the honors of a king,
they shut their eyes against him, he was "a root out of a dry ground,"
he was "despised and they esteemed him not." Nor did their sin stop
there. Not content with denying his Messiahship, they were exceeding
hot against him in their anger; they hunted him all his life, seeking
his blood; nor were they content till their fiendish malice had been
fully glutted by sitting down at the foot of the cross, and watching
the dying throes and the expiring agonies of their crucified Messiah.
Though over the cross itself the words were written, "Jesus of
Nazareth, the King of the Jews," yet they knew not their king, God's
everlasting Son; and knowing him not, they crucified him, "for had they
known him, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory."
Now, the sin of the Jews is every day repeated by the Gentiles; that
which they did once, many have done every day. Are there not many of
you now present this day, listening to my voice, who forget the
Messiah? You do not trouble yourself to deny him; you would not degrade
yourselves, in what is called a Christian country, by standing up to
blaspheme his name. Perhaps you hold the right doctrine concerning him,
and believe him to be the Son of God as well as the Son of Mary; but
still you neglect his claims, and give him no honor, and do not accept
him as worthy of your trust. He is not your Redeemer; you are not
looking for his second advent, nor are you expecting to be saved
through his blood; nay, even worse; ye are this day crucifying him; for
know ye not, that as many as put away from them the gospel of Christ,
do crucify the Lord afresh and open wide his wounds? As often as ye
hear the Word preached and reject it, as often as ye are warned, and
stifle the voice of your conscience, as often as ye are made to
tremble, and yet say, "Go thy way for this time, when I have a more
convenient season, I will send for thee," so often do you in effect
grasp the hammer and the nail, and once more pierce the hand, and make
the blood issue from the side. And their are other ways by which you
wound him through his members. As often as ye despise his ministers, or
cast stumbling blocks in the way of his servants, or impede his gospel
by your evil example, or by your hard words seek to pervert the seeker
from the way of truth, so often do you commit that great iniquity which
brought the curse upon the Jew, and which hath doomed him to wander
through the earth, until the day of the second advent when he shall
come who shall even by the Jew be acknowledged the King of the Jews,
for whom both Jew and Gentile are now looking with anxious expectation,
even Messiah, the Prince who came once to suffer, but who comes again
to reign.
And now I shall endeavor this morning to show the parallel between your
case and that of the Jew; not doing so in set phrase, but yet
incidentally, as God shall help me; appealing to your conscience, and
making you feel that in rejecting Christ, you commit the same sin and
incur the same doom. We shall note, first of all, the excellence of the
ministry, since Christ comes in it, and speaks to men: "If I had not
spoken to them." We shall notice, secondly, the aggravation of sin
caused by the rejection of Christ's message: "If I had not spoken to
them they had not had sin." Thirdly, the death of all excuses, caused
by the preaching of the Word: "Now they have no cloke for their sin."
And then, in the last place, we shall briefly, but very solemnly
announce the fearfully aggravated doom of those who thus reject the
Saviour, and increase their guilt by despising him.
I. In the first place, then, this morning it is ours to say, and to say
truly too, that in THE PREACHING OF THIS GOSPEL, THERE IS TO MAN'S
CONSCIENCE THE COMING OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, AND THE SPEAKING OF THE
SAVIOUR THROUGH US. When Israel of old despised Moses and murmured
against him, Moses meekly said, "Ye have not murmured against us, but
ye have murmured against the Lord God of Israel." And truly the
minister may, with Scripture warrant, say the same: he that despiseth
us, despiseth not us, but him that sent us. he who rejecteth the
message rejecteth not what we say, but rejecteth the message of the
everlasting God. The minister is but a man; he has no priestly power,
but he is a man called out of the rest of mankind, and endowed with the
Holy Spirit, to speak to his fellow-men; and when he preacheth the
truth as with power sent down from heaven, God owns him by calling him
his ambassador. and puts him in the high and responsible position of a
watchman on the walls of Zion, and he bids all men take heed that a
faithful message, faithfully delivered, when despised and trampled on,
amounts to rebellion against God, and to sin and iniquity against the
Most High. As for what I may say, as a man, it is but little that I
should say it, but if I speak as the Lord's ambassador, take heed that
ye slight not the message. It is the Word of God sent down from heaven
which we preach with the power of the Holy Spirit, earnestly beseeching
you to believe it, and remember, it is at the peril of your own souls
that you put it from you, for it is not we that speak, but the Spirit
of the Lord our God who speaketh in us. With what a solemnity does this
invest the gospel ministry! O ye sons of men, the ministry is not the
speaking of men, but the speaking of God through men. As many as are
the real called and sent servants of God, are not the authors of their
message; but they first hear it from the Master, and they speak it to
the people, and they see ever before their eyes these solemn
words–"Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in
them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear
thee," and they hear behind them this awful threatening–"If thou warn
them not they shall perish, but their blood will I require at thine
hand." Oh! that ye might see written in letters of fire before you this
day the words of the prophet–"O earth, earth, earth, hear the Word of
the Lord;" for as far as our ministry is true and untainted by error,
it is God's Word, and it hath the same right and claim to your belief
as if God himself should speak it from the top of Sinai, instead of
speaking it through the humble ministry of the Word of God.
And now let us pause over this doctrine, and let us ask ourselves this
solemn question. Have we not all of us grossly sinned against God, in
the neglect that we have often put upon the means of grace? How often
have you stayed away from the house of God, when God himself was
speaking there? What would have been the doom of Israel if, when
summoned on that sacred day to hear the Word of God from the top of the
mountain, they had perversely rambled into the wilderness, rather than
attend to hear it? And yet so have you done. You have sought your own
pleasure, and listened to the syren song of temptation; but ye have
shut your ear against the voice of the Most High; and when he has
himself been speaking in his own house, ye have turned aside unto
crooked ways, and have not regarded the voice of the Lord your God. And
when ye have come up to the house of God, how often has there been the
careless eye, the inattentive ear! Ye have heard as though ye heard
not. Your ear has been penetrated, but the hidden man of the heart has
been deaf, and you have been like the deaf adder; charm we never so
wisely, you would not listen nor regard us. God himself has spoken,
too, at times in your conscience, so that you have heard it. You have
stood in the aisle, and your knees have knocked together, you have sat
in your pew, and while some mighty Boanerges has thundered out the
word, you have heard it said, as with an angel's voice, "Prepare to
meet thy God–consider thy way–set thine house in order, for thou
shalt die, and not live." And yet you have gone out of God's house, and
have forgotten what manner of men you were. You have quenched the
Spirit, you have done despite to the Spirit of grace; you have put far
from you the struggles of your conscience; you have throttled those
infant prayers that were beginning to cry in your heart; you have
drowned those new-born desires that were just springing up; you have
put away from you everything that was good and sacred; you have turned
again to your own ways, and have once more wandered on the mountains of
sin, and in the valley of iniquity. Ah! my friends, just think, then,
for a moment, that in all this you have despised God. I am certain, if
the Holy Spirit would but apply this one solemn truth to your
consciences this morning, this Hall of Music would be turned into a
house of mourning, and this place would become a Bochim, a place of
weeping and lamentation. Oh to have despised God, to have trampled
under foot the Son of Man, to have passed by his cross, to have
rejected the wooings of his love and the warnings of his grace! How
solemn! Did you ever think of this before? You have thought it was but
despising man, will ye now think of it as despising Christ? For Christ
has spoken to you. Ah! God is my witness, that oftentimes Christ hath
wept with these eyes, and spoken to you with these lips. I have sought
nothing but the winning of your souls. Sometimes with rough words have
I endeavored to drive you to the cross, and at other times with weeping
accents have I sought to weep you to my Redeemer; and sure I am, I did
not speak myself then, but Jesus spoke through me, and inasmuch as ye
did hear and weep, and then went away and did forget, remember that
Christ spoke to you. Twas he who said, "Look unto me and be ye saved,
all the ends of the earth;" twas he who said, "Come unto me, all ye
that labor and are heavy laden;" twas he who warned you, that if you
neglected this great salvation you must perish; and in having put away
the warning and rejected the invitation, you have not despised us, but
you have despised our Master; and woe unto you, except ye repent, for
tis a fearful thing to have despised the voice of him that speaketh
from heaven.
II. And now we must notice the second point, namely, that THE REJECTION
OF THE GOSPEL, AGGRAVATES MEN'S SIN. Now, do not let me be
misunderstood. I have heard of persons who, having gone to the house of
God, have been filled with a sense of sin, and at last they have been
driven almost to despair, for Satan has tempted them to forsake the
house of God; for says he, "The more you go, the more you increase your
condemnation." Now I believe that this is an error; we do not increase
our condemnation by going to the house of God; we are far more likely
to increase it by stopping away; for in stopping away from the house of
God there is a double rejection of Christ; you reject him even with the
outward mind, as well as with the inward spirit; you neglect even the
lying at the pool of Bethesda, you are worse than the man who lay at
the pool, but could not get in. You will not lie there, and therefore,
neglecting the hearing of the Word of God, you do indeed incur a
fearful doom; but if you go up to the house of God, sincerely seeking a
blessing, if you do not get comfort–if you do not find grace in the
means, still, if you go there devoutly seeking it, your condemnation is
not increased thereby. Your sin is not aggravated merely by the hearing
of the gospel, but by the wilful and wicked rejection of it when it is
heard. The man who listens to the sound of the gospel, and after having
heard it, turns upon his heel with a laugh, or who, after hearing time
after time, and being visibly affected, allows the cares and the
pleasures of this wicked life, to come in and choke the seed–such a
man does in a fearful measure increase his guilt.
And now we will just notice why, in a two-fold measure, he does this.
Because, in the first place he gets a new sin altogether, that he never
had before and beside that, he aggravates all his other sins. Bring me
here a Hottentot, or a man from Kamschatka, a wild savage who has never
listened to the Word. That man may have every sin in the catalogue of
guilt except one; but that one I am sure he has not. He has not the sin
of rejecting the gospel when it is preached to him. But you, when you
hear the gospel, have an opportunity for committing a fresh sin; and if
you have rejected it, you have added a fresh iniquity to all those
others that hang about your neck. I have often been rebuked by certain
men who have erred from the truth, for preaching the doctrine that it
is a sin in men, if they reject the gospel of Christ. I care for every
opprobrious title: I am certain that I have the warrant of God's Word
in so preaching, and I do not believe that any man can be faithful to
men's souls and clear of their blood, unless he bears his frequent and
Solemn testimony upon this vital subject. "When he, the Spirit of
truth, is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness,
and of judgment: of sin, because they believe not on me." "And this is
the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved
darkness rather than light." "He that believeth not is condemned
already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten
Son of God." "If I had not done among them the works which none other
man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated
both me and my Father." "Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee,
Bethsaida! for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon,
which have been done in you, they had a great while ago repented,
sitting in sack-cloth and ashes. But I say unto you, it shall be more
tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment, than for you." "If I had
not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have
no cloke for their sin." "Therefore we ought to give the more earnest
heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let
them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every
transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward.
how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" "He that
despised Moses law died without mercy under two or three witnesses; of
how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who
hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of
the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath
done despite unto the Spirit of grace? For we know him that hath said,
Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompence, saith the Lord. And
again, the Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of the living God." I have been quoting, you see, some
scripture passages, and if they do not mean that unbelief is a sin, and
the sin, which, above all others, damns men's souls, they do not mean
anything at all, but they are just a dead letter in the Word of God.
Now, adultery and murder and theft, and lying–all these are damning,
and deadly sins; but repentance can cleanse all these, through the
blood of Christ. But to reject Christ, destroys a man hopelessly. The
murderer, the thief, the drunkard, may yet enter the kingdom of heaven,
if, repenting of his sins, he will lay hold on the cross of Christ, but
with these sins, a man is inevitably lost, if he believeth not on the
Lord Jesus Christ.
And now, my hearers, will you consider for one moment what an awful sin
this is, which you add to all your other sins. Everything lies in the
bowels of this sin–the rejecting of Christ. There is murder in this;
for if the man on the scaffold rejects a pardon, does he not murder
himself? There is pride in this; for you reject Christ, because your
proud hearts have turned you aside. There is rebellion in this; for we
rebel against God when we reject Christ. There is high treason in this;
for you reject a king; you put far from you, him, who is crowned king
of the earth, and you incur therefore the weightiest of all guilt. Oh!
to think that the Lord Jesus should come from heaven–to think for a
moment that he should hang upon the tree–that there he should die in
agonies extreme, and that from that cross he should this day look down
upon you, and should say, "Come unto me, ye weary and ye heavy laden;"
that you should still turn away from him,–it is the unkindest stab of
all. What more brutish, what more devilish, than to turn away from him
who gave his life for you? Oh that ye were wise, that ye understood
this, that ye would consider your latter end!
But again, we do not only add a new sin to the catalogs of guilt but we
aggravate all the rest. You cannot sin so cheap as other people, you,
who have had the gospel. When the unenlightened and ignorant sin, their
conscience does not prick them; and there is not that guilt in the sin
of the ignorant, that there is in the sin of the enlightened. Did you
steal before? that was bad enough; but hear the gospel and continue a
thief, and you are a thief indeed. Did you lie before you heard the
gospel? The liar shall have his portion in the lake; but he after
hearing it: and it seems as if the fire of Tophet should be fanned up
to a seven-fold fury. He who sins ignorantly, hath some little excuse;
but he who sins against light and knowledge, sins presumptuously; and
under the law there was no atonement for this, for presumptuous sins
were out of the pole of legal atonement, although blessed be God,
Christ hath atoned for even these, and he that believeth shall be
saved, despite even his guilt. Oh! I beseech you, recollect that the
sin of unbelief blackens every other sin. It is like Jeroboam. It is
said of him, he sinned and made Israel to sin. So unbelief sins itself
and leads to every other sin. Unbelief is the file by which you sharpen
the axe; and the coulter, and the sword, which you use in rebellion
against the Most High. Your sins become more exceeding sinful, the more
you disbelieve in Christ, the more you know of him, and the longer you
reject him. This is God's truth; but a truth that is to be spoken with
reluctance, and with many groanings in our spirits. Oh to have such a
message to deliver to you, to you I say, for if there be a people under
heaven to whom my text applies, it is you. If there is one race of men
in the world, who have more to account for than others, it is
yourselves. There are doubtless others, who are on an equality with
you, who sit under a faithful and earnest ministry; but as God shall
judge betwixt you and me at the great day, to the utmost of my power I
have been faithful to your souls. I have never in this pulpit sought by
hard words, by technical language, to magnify my own wisdom. I have
spoken to you plainly; and not a word, to the best of my knowledge, has
escaped these lips, which every one of you could not understand. You
have had a simple gospel. I have not stood here and preached coldly to
you. I could say as I came up yon stairs, "The burden of the Lord was
upon me;" for my heart has come here heavy, and my soul has been hot
within me, and when I have preached feebly, my words may have been
uncouth, and the language far from proper, but heart never has been
wanting. This whole soul has spoken to you; and if I could have
ransacked heaven and earth to find language that might have won you to
the Saviour, I would have done so. I have not shunned to reprove you, I
have never minced matters. I have spoken to this age of its iniquities,
and to you of your sins I have not softened down the Bible to suit the
carnal tastes of men. I have said damn, where God said damn–I have not
sweetened it into "condemn." I have not minced matters, nor endeavored
to veil or conceal the truth, but as to every man's conscience in the
sight of God, have I endeavored to commend the gospel, earnestly and
with power, and with a plain, outspoken, earnest, and honest ministry.
I have not kept back the glorious doctrines of grace, although by
preaching them the enemies of the cross have called me an Antinomian;
nor have I been afraid to preach man's solemn responsibility, although
another tribe have slandered me as an Arminian. And in saying this, I
say it not in a way of glorying, but I say it for your rebuke, if you
have rejected the gospel, for you shall have sinned far above that of
any other men; in casting away Christ, a double measure of the fury of
the wrath of God shall fall on you. Sin, then, is aggravated by the
rejection of Christ.
III. And now, in the third place, THE PREACHING OF THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST
TAKES AWAY ALL EXCUSE FROM THOSE WHO HEAR IT AND REJECT IT. "Now have
they no cloke for their sin." A cloak is a very poor covering for sin,
when there is an all-seeing eye to look through it. In the great day of
the tempest of God's wrath a cloak will be a very poor shelter; but
still man is always fond of a cloak. In the day of cold and rain we see
men gathering their cloaks about them, and if they have no shelter and
no refuge, still they feel a little comforted by their garment. And so
it is with you; you will gather together, if you can, an excuse for
your sin, and when conscience pricks you, you seek to heal the wound
with an excuse. And even in the day of judgment although a cloak will
be a sorry covering, yet it will be better than nothing at all. "But
now ye have no cloke for your sin." The traveler is left in the rain
without his covering, exposed to the tempest without that garment which
once did shelter him. "Now ye have no cloke for your sin,"–discovered,
detected, and unmasked, ye are left inexcusible, without a cloak for
your iniquity. And now let me just notice how the preaching of the
gospel, when it is faithfully performed, takes away all cloaks for sin.
In the first place, one man might get up and say, "I did not know I was
doing wrong when I committed such and such an iniquity." Now, that you
cannot say. God has by his law told you solemnly what is wrong. There
stand the ten commandments; and there stands the comment of our Master
where he has enlarged upon the commandment, and told us that the old
law "thou shalt not commit adultery," forbad also all sins of the
lascivious look and the evil eye. If the Sepoy commits iniquity, there
is a cloak for it. I doubt not that his conscience tells him that he
does wrong, but his sacred books teach that he is doing right, and
therefore he has that cloak. If the Mahommedan commits lust, I doubt
not his conscience doth prick him, but his sacred books give him
liberty. But you profess to believe your Bibles, and have them in your
houses, and have the preachers of them in all your streets; and
therefore when you sin, you sin with the proclamation of the law upon
the very wall, before your eyes–you do wilfully violate a well-known
law which has come from heaven, and come to you.
Again, you might say, "When I sinned, I did not know how great would be
the punishment." Of this also, by the gospel, you are left without
excuse; for did not Jesus Christ tell you, and does he not tell you
every day, that those who will not have him shall be cast into outer
darkness, where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth? Hath he not
said, "These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the
righteous into life eternal?" Does he not himself declare that the
wicked shall be burned up with unquenchable fire? Has he not told you
of a place where their worm dieth not and where their fire is not
quenched? And the ministers of the gospel have not shunned to tell you
this too. You have sinned, though you knew you would be lost by it. You
have taken the poisonous draught, not thinking that it was harmless you
knew that every drop in the cup was scalding with damnation, and yet
you have taken the cup and drained it to its dregs. You have destroyed
your own souls with your eyes open; you have gone like a fool to the
stocks, like an ox to the slaughter, and like a lamb you have licked
the knife of the butcher. In this, then, you are left without excuse.
But some of you may say, "Ah, I heard the gospel, it is true, and I
knew that I was doing wrong, but I did not know what I must do to be
saved." Is there one among you who can urge such an excuse as this?
Methinks you will not have the impudence to do so. "Believe and live,"
is preached every day in your hearing. Many of you these ten, twenty,
thirty, forty, or fifty years have been hearing the gospel, and you
dare not say, "I did not know what the gospel was." From your earliest
childhood many of you have listened to it. The name of Jesus was
mingled with the hush of lullaby. You drank in a holy gospel with your
mother's milk and yet despite all that, you have never sought Christ.
"Knowledge is power," men say. Alas! Knowledge, when not used, is
wrath, WRATH, WRATH to the uttermost, against the man who knows, and
yet doth that which he knoweth to be wrong.
Methinks I can hear another say, "Well, I heard the gospel preached,
but I never had a good example set me." Some of you may say that, and
it would be partially true; but there are others of you, concerning
whom I may say that this would be a lying excuse. Ah! man; you have
been very fond of speaking of the inconsistencies of Christians. You
have said, "They do not live as they ought;" and alas, there is too
much truth in what you have said. But there was one Christian whom you
knew, and whose character you were compelled to admire; do not you
remember her? It was the mother who brought you forth. That has always
been the one difficulty with you up to this day. You could have
rejected the gospel very easily, but your mother's example stood before
you, and you could not overcome that. Do you not remember amongst the
first early darklings of your recollection, how you opened your little
eyes in the morning and you saw a mother's loving face looking down
upon you, and you caught her with a tear in her eye, and you heard her
say, "God bless the child, may he call the Redeemer blessed!" You
remember how your father did often chide you; she did seldom chide, but
she often spoke in tones of love. Recollect that little upper room
where she took you aside, and putting her arms round your neck,
dedicated you to God, and prayed that the Lord would save you in your
childhood. Remember the letter she gave you, and your book in which she
wrote your name when you left the parental roof to go abroad, and the
sorrow with which she wrote to you when she heard you had begun to
plunge in gaiety and mix with the ungodly: recollect that sorrowful
look with which she did wring your hand the last time you left her.
Remember how she said to you, "You will bring my hairs with sorrow to
the grave, if you walk in the ways of iniquity." Well, you knew that
what she said was not cant; there was reality in that. You could laugh
at the minister, you could say it was his business, but at her you
could not scoff; she was a Christian, there was no mistake about it.
How often did she put up with your angry temper, and bear with your
rough manners, for she was a sweet spirit, almost too good for
earth–and you recollect that. You were not there when she was dying,
you could not arrive in time; but she said to her friend as she was
dying, "There is only one thing that I want, then I could die
happy–oh, that I could see my children walking in the truth." Now, I
apprehend such an example leaves you without a cloak for your
wickedness, and if you commit iniquity after that, how fearful! must be
the weight of your woe.
But others of you can say that you had no such mother; your first
school was the street, and the first example you ever had was that of a
swearing father. Recollect, my friend, there is one perfect
example–Christ, and that you have read of, though you have not seen
him. Jesus Christ, the man of Nazareth, was a perfect man; in him was
there no sin, neither was there guile in his mouth. And if you have
never seen anything like Christian worth any where else, yet you can
see it in Christ; and in venturing such an excuse as this, remember you
have ventured upon a lie, for the example of Christ, the works of
Christ, as well as the words of Christ, leave you without excuse for
your sin.
Ah, and I think I hear one more excuse offered, and that is this:
"Well, I certainly had many advantages, but they were never sent home
to my conscience so that I felt them." Now, there are very few of you
here who can say that. Some of you will say, "Yes, I heard the
minister, but he never made an impression upon me." Ah, young men and
young women, and all of you this morning, I must be a witness against
you in the day of judgment that this is untrue. For, but now, your
consciences were touched; did I not see some soft tears of
repentance–I trust they were such–flowing but just now. No, you have
not always been unmoved by the gospel you have grown old now, and it
takes a deal to stir you, but it was not always so There was a time in
your youth, when you were very susceptible of impressing. Remember, the
sins of your youth will cause your bones to rot, if you have still
persevered in rejecting the gospel. Your old heart has grown hard,
still you are with out excuse; you did feel once, ay, and even now you
cannot help feeling. I know there are some of you that can scarcely
keep your seats at the thought of your iniquities; and you have almost
vowed, some of you, that this day you will seek God, and the first
thing you will do, will be to climb to your chamber, and shut the door,
and seek the Lord. Ah, but I remember a story of one, who remarked to a
minister, what a wonderful thing it was to see so many people weeping.
"Nay," said he, "I will tell you something more wonderful still, that
so many will forget all they wept about when they get outside the
door." And you will do this. Still, when you have done it, you will
recollect that you have not been without the strivings of God's Spirit.
You will remember that God has, this morning, as it were, put a hurdle
across your road, digged a ditch in your way, and put up a hand-post,
and said, "Take warning! beware, beware, beware! you are rushing madly
into the ways of iniquity!" And I have come before you this morning,
and in God s name I have said, " Stop, stop, stop, thus saith the Lord,
consider your ways, why will ye die? Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die
O house of Israel?" And, now, if ye will put this from you, it must be
even so; if you will put out these sparks, if ye will quench this first
burning torch, it must be so! On your own head be your blood; at your
own door lay your iniquities.
IV. But now I have one thing more to do. And it is awful work; for I
have as it were to PUT ON THE BLACK CAP AND PRONOUNCE THE SENTENCE OF
CONDEMNATION. For those who live and die rejecting Christ there is a
most fearful doom. They shall perish with an utter destruction. There
are degrees of punishment; but the highest degree is given to the man
who rejects Christ. You have noticed that passage, I dare say, that the
liar and the whoremonger, and drunkards shall have their portion–whom
do you suppose with?–with unbelievers; as if hell was made first of
all for unbelievers–as if the pit was digged not for whoremongers, and
swearers, and drunkards, but for men who despise Christ, because that
is the A 1 sin, the cardinal vice, and men are condemned for that.
Other iniquities come following after them, but this one goes before
them to judgment. Imagine for a moment that time has passed, and that
the day of judgment is come. We are all gathered together, both quick
and dead. The trumpet-blast waxes exceeding loud and long. We are all
attentive, expecting something marvellous. The exchange stands still in
its business; the shop is deserted by the tradesman; the crowded
streets are filled. All men stand still; they feel that the last great
business-day is come, and that now they must settle their accounts for
ever. A solemn stillness fills the air: no sound is heard. All, all is
noiseless. Presently a great white cloud with solemn state sails
through the sky, and then–hark! the twofold clamor of the startled
earth. On that cloud there sits one like unto the Son of Man. Every eye
looks, and at last there is heard a unanimous shout–"It is he! It is
he!" and after that you hear on the one hand, shouts of "Hallelujah,
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome Son of God." But
mixed with that there is a deep bass, composed of the weeping and the
wailing of the men who have persecuted him, and who have rejected him.
Listen! I think I can dissect the sonnet, I think I can hear the words
as they come separately, each one of them, tolling like a death knell
What say they? They say, "Rocks hide us, mountains fall upon us, hide
us from the face of Him that sits upon the throne." And shall you be
among the number of those who say to the rocks "Hide us?"
My impenitent hearer, I suppose for a moment that you have gone out of
this world, and that you have died impenitent, and that you are among
those who are weeping, and wailing, and gnashing their teeth. Oh! what
will then be your terror! Blanched cheeks, and knocking knees are
nothing, compared to thy horror of heart, when thou shalt be drunken,
but not with wine and when thou shalt reel to and fro, with the
intoxication of amazement, and shall fall down, and roll in the dust
for horror and dismay. For there he comes, and there he is, with
fierce, fire-darting eye; and now the time is come for the great
division. The voice is heard, "Gather my people from the four winds of
heaven, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth." They are gathered at
the right hand, and there they are. And now saith he, "Gather up the
tares, and bind them in bundles to burn." And you are gathered, and on
the left hand there you are, gathered into the bundle. All that is
wanted is the lighting of the pile. Where shall be the torch that shall
kindle them? The tares are to be burned: where is the flame? The flame
comes out of his mouth, and it is composed of words like
these–"Depart, ye cursed into everlasting fire, in hell, prepared for
the devil and his angels." Do you linger? "Depart!" Do you seek a
blessing? "Ye are cursed." I curse you with a curse. Do ye seek to
escape? It is everlasting fire. Do ye stop and plead? No, "I called,
and ye refused; I stretched out my hands, and ye regarded me not,
therefore I will mock at your calamity, I will laugh when your fear
cometh. "Depart, again, I say; depart for ever!" And you are gone. And
what is your reflection? Why, it is this: "Oh! would to God that I
never had been born! Oh! that I had never heard the gospel preached,
that I might never have had the sin of rejecting it!" This will be the
gnawing of the worm in your conscience–"I knew better but I did not do
better."–As I sowed the wind, it is right I should reap the whirlwind;
I was checked, but I would not be stopped; I was wooed, but I would not
be invited. Now I see that I have murdered myself Oh! thought above all
thoughts most deadly. I am lost, lost, lost! And this is the horror of
horrors: I have caused myself to be lost; I have put from me the gospel
of Christ; I have destroyed myself.
Shall this be so with thee, my hearer? Shall this be so with thee? I
pray it may not! O may the Holy Spirit now constrain thee to come to
Jesus, for I know that thou art too vile to yield, unless he compels
thee. But I hope for thee. Methinks I hear thee say, "What must I do to
be saved?" Let me tell you the way of salvation, and then farewell. If
thou wouldest be saved, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou
shalt be saved;" for the Scripture says, "He that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned!" There
he hangs, dying on his cross! look to him and live.
"Venture on him, venture wholly,
Let no other trust intrude;
None but Jesus
Can do helpless sinners good."
Be you wicked, filthy, depraved degraded, you are still invited to
Christ. The devil's castaways Christ takes in–the offscouring, the
dross, the scum, the draff, the sewerage of this world, is now invited
to Christ. Come to him now, and obtain mercy. But if ye harden your
hearts,
"The Lord in anger dress'd
Shall lift his hand and swear,
'You that despis'd my promis'd rest,
Shall have no portion there.'"
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