Last Things

Last Things

DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 31, 1865, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT
THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"At the last." Proverbs 5:11

THE wise man saw the young and simple straying into the house of the
strange woman. The house seemed so completely different from what he
knew it to be that he desired to shed a light upon it, that the young
man might not sin in the dark, but might understand the nature of his
deeds. The wise man looked abroad and he saw but one lamp suitable to
his purpose. It was named, "At the last." So, snatching this, he held
it up in the midst of the strange woman's den of infamy and everything
was changed from what it had been before–the truth had come to light
and the deceptive had vanished.

The young man dreamed of pleasure. In wanton dalliance he hoped to find
delight. But when the lamp of "At the last" began to shine, he saw
rottenness in his bones, filthiness in his flesh. He saw pains and
griefs and sorrows as the necessary consequence of sin and, wisely
guided, wisely taught, the simple-minded started back and listened to
the admonitions of the teacher, "Come not near the door of her house,
for her gates lead down to the chambers of death."

Now if this lamp of "At the last" was found so useful in this one
particular case, I think it must be equally useful everywhere else! And
it may help us all to understand the truth of matters if we will look
at them in the light which this wonderful lamp yields. I can only
compare my text in its matchless power to Ithuriel's spear with which,
according to Milton, he touched the toad and straightway Satan appeared
in his true colors. If I can apply my text to certain things today,
they will come out in their true light. "At the last," shall be the rod
in my hand with which I shall touch tinsel and it shall disappear, and
you will see it is not gold. I will touch varnish and paint and
graining and you shall understand that they are really what they are
and not what they profess to be–the light of "At the last" shall be
the light of Truth–the light of Wisdom to our souls.

It seems to me a fitting occasion for holding up this light this
morning, when we have come to the end of the year and shall, in a few
short hours, be at the beginning of another. This period, like Janus,
has two faces looking back on the year that is past and looking forward
on the year that is to come. And my four-sided lamp will, perhaps,
gleam afar. I wish that, in the light of the beams of this lamp, "At
the last," you may have courage enough to look down the vista of the
years that you have already lived and think of everything that you have
thought and spoken and done. And then I hope you will have holy daring
enough to let the same light shine forward on the years yet to come,
when your hair shall be gray and the teeth shall fail, and they that
look out of the windows shall be darkened.

We will, then, examine the past and the future of life in the light of,
"At the last." May it teach us wisdom and make us walk in the fear of
God. I have said that my lamp has four sides to it and so it has–we
will look at it first in the light which streams from death.

I. DEATH is at the last. In some sense it is the last of this mortal
life. It is the last of our period of trial here below. It is the last
of the days of Divine Grace. It is the last of the days of mortal sin.
The tree falls when we die and it sprouts not again. The house is
washed from the foundations and it is built no more if it has been
founded on sin. Death is the end of this present life. And how certain
is it to all of us! This year we have had many tokens of its certainty.
One might almost compose an almanac for the year 1865 and put down the
name of someone of note at least to every month–and I should scarcely
exaggerate if I said to every week in the year.

All ranks and classes have been made to feel the arrow of the
insatiable Archer. From royalty down to poverty the grave has been
glutted with its prey. Not late in the year there fell one whose
benevolence mingled with wisdom had blessed our land and who, being
dead, is still remembered by the needy because he cheapened their bread
and broke down the laws which, while they might have fattened the rich,
certainly would have impoverished the poor. His wisdom could not spare
him, and though he is embalmed in the hearts of thousands, yet to the
dust he has returned.

Swiftly after him there fell one who ruled a mighty people in the flush
of victory, when what threatened to be a disruption and a separation
had ended in triumph to one side and the nation seemed as if it were
about to start on a fresh course of prosperity. By the assassin's hand
he fell. Whatever question there might have been about him in his life,
all men conspired to honor him in his death. The ruler of a nation who
could subdue a gallant and a mighty foe, could not subdue that old
foeman who conquers whom he wills. Abraham Lincoln died as well as
Cobden!

And there was he who had saved many precious lives by warning mariners
of the approaching storm and thus many a ship had remained in harbor
and been delivered from the merciless jaws of the deep. But he could
not forecast or escape himself the last dread storm. He, too, must go
down into that fathomless deep which swallows all mankind. Then, when
the year was ripe and the flowers were all in bloom–fit season for his
going–there was taken away the man who has garnished our nation with
objects of beauty and of joy. A man who loved the flowers and sleeps
beneath them now. Like flowers, he withered as all of us must do–Sir
Joseph Paxton died.

Then in the month of September, when the year began to wane, three men,
at least, who had walked with their staff to Heaven and read the
spheres–astronomers who predicted eclipses and told of comets, men of
fame and name–three fell at once! They might tell the eclipse, but
they, themselves, must be eclipsed. And they might foretell the track
of the comet, but they, themselves, are gone from us just as those
meteoric stars are gone. Then you will remember well, when the year had
waned, grown old, it is but a day or two ago, that all were startled by
the death of that young old man who had ruled our nation so long and on
the whole so well.

We shall not forget that he was taken away from us, who was, in some
respects, a king throughout our land. Wisdom, cheerfulness, youthful
strength such as he possessed could not avert the time of death. And
then, as if the muster roll were not complete–as if Death could not be
satisfied till the year had yielded up yet another grave–we heard that
the oldest of monarchs had been taken away. And though his goodness and
his wisdom had guided well the little nation over which he ruled and
given him an influence far more extensive than his own sphere, yet
death spared him not and Leopold must die.

It has been a year of dying rather than of living and you may look upon
yourselves and wonder that you are here! Some greener than we are have
been cut down. You that are ripe, are you ready? It is marvelous that
although so ripe you should have been spared so long. Now in the light
of all these deaths, I want you to look upon mortal sins. They
sculpture angels upon gravestones sometimes. Then let each angel from
the gravestone speak to us this morning and we will listen to his
words, for wise and solemn they will surely be and worthy of our
notice, as if he had risen from the dead. Let me take you upstairs to
your own dying chamber, for there, perhaps, the lamp will burn best for
you.

Look at actions which you have thought to be great and upon which you
have prided yourself–how will they look at the last? You made money.
You made money fast. You did the thing very cleverly. You praised
yourself for it, just as others have praised themselves for conquering
nations, or forcing their way to fame, or lifting themselves into
eminence. Now you are dying and what do you think of all that? Is it so
great as it seemed to be? Oh, how you leaped up to it, how you strained
yourself to reach it and you have got it and you are dying! What do you
think of it now? The greatest of human actions will appear to be
insignificant when we come to die and especially those upon which men
most pride themselves–these will yield them the bitterest humiliation.

We shall then say what madmen we must have been to have wasted so much
time and energy upon such paltry things. When we shall discover that
they were not real, that they were but mere bubbles, mere pretences, we
shall then look upon ourselves as demented to have spent the whole of
our life and of our energy upon them. Let us look at our selfish
actions in that light. A man says, "I know how to make money, and I
know how to keep it, too–and he prides himself that he is not such a
fool as to be generous, nor such a simpleton as to give either to God
or to the poor. Now, there he lies.

Ah, do you know how to keep it now? Can you take it with you? Can you
bear so much as a single farthing of it across the river of death? You
are come to the water's side–how much of it will you carry through? Ah
Fool! How much wiser had you been if you had laid up your treasure in
Heaven, where neither moth nor rust does corrupt! You called such men
fools when you were living. What do you think of them now, that you are
dying? Who is the fool–he that sent his goods beforehand–or he that
stored them up here to leave them everlastingly? Everything that is
selfish will look beggarly when we come to die! But everything which,
in the sight of God we have done for Christ's sake–that has been
generous and self-denying and noble–will even amidst the vaults of
death sparkle with celestial splendor!

Some of you have been, during this week, giving to the cause of God
right generously, for which I thank you–I think I may also do it in my
Master's name–and when I have thought of it, I have said to myself,
"Surely, when they come to die, they shall, none of them, regret that
they have served the cause of God. Ah, if they have even given to the
pinching of themselves, it shall be no source of sorrow when they come
to the dying bed that they did it unto one of the least of God's little
ones."

Look at your actions in the light of death and the selfish ones shall
soon pass. I would also, dear Friends, that some of you would look at
your self-righteousness in the light of death. You have been very good
people, very upright, honest, moral, amiable, generous and so on. And
you are resting on what you are. Do you think this will bear your
weight when you come to die? When you are in good health any form of
religion may satisfy, but a dying soul wants more than sand to rest on.
You will want the Rock of Ages. Then let me assure you that in the
light of the grave, all confidence, except confidence in the blood and
righteousness of Jesus Christ, is a clear delusion! Fly from it, I
beseech you. Why will you repose beneath a Jonah's gourd that will die
before the worm? Seek a better shelter–cling to the Rock of Ages! Find
the shadow of a great Rock in a weary land.

The same, I may say, of all confidence in the efficacy of ceremonies
and sacraments. When we are in good health it seems a sufficiently
satisfactory thing to have been baptized and to have taken the
sacrament and to go to church and read prayers and all that–and one
can get some little water out of those wells while one is strong and
joyous. But when you come to be sick and to die, let me tell you,
sacraments will be nothing to you! Baptism and the Lord's Supper, will,
alike deceive you if you rest on them! When you come to die you will
find them to be supports too frail to bear the weight of an immortal
soul's eternal interests. It will be in vain when you lie dying, if God
gives you a quickened conscience, to say, "I went to church or to
meetings so many times a day." You will find it a poor bandage to your
soul's wounds to be able to say, "I made a profession of godliness."

Oh your shams will all be torn away from you by the rough hand of the
skeleton, Death! You will need a real Savior, vital godliness, true
regeneration–not baptismal regeneration! You will need Christ, not
sacraments! And nothing short of this will do "at the last." And, dear
Friends, let me ask as I hold up the light, How will sin appear when we
come to die? It is pleasant now and we can excuse it, calling it a
peccadillo, a little trivial mistake, a juvenile error and imprudence
and so on. But how will sin appear when you come to die? The grim
ghosts of our iniquities, if they have not been laid in the grave of
Christ Jesus, will haunt our dying bed. That ghastly chamberlain, with
fingers bloody and red, will draw the curtain round about us!

What a horrid prospect, to be shut in with our sins forever! To be
dying with no comrades about the bed to comfort, but with the
remembrances of the past to terrify and to alarm! Think, I pray you,
not only upon the root and principle of evil, but upon the fruit of it!
Remember that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal
life! Do not consider what the thing looks like today, but what will it
be in the end? You warm the viper in your bosom, but how will you bear
its sting when you shall come to lie upon your last bed? The sea, I
know, is smooth and calm to you for a moment–but remember, there are
storms, there are hurricanes that sweep it–and what will your poor
boat do without Christ for its Pilot when the dread storm of Death
shall come?

I wish I could, in imagination, take you down, down, down to the waters
of death where you shall feel your feet sinking in the dread sand of
uncertainty and hear the booming of the distant sea and your spirit
shall begin to ask, "What is that ocean that I hear?" And there shall
come back an answer, "You hear the breaking of the everlasting waves.
The bottomless sea of eternity is that to which you are descending."
You shall feel its chill floods as they come from the ankles to the
knees and from the knees to the loins. And you will find it, (if you
are without Christ), not a river to swim in, but an ocean to be drowned
in forever, forever, FOREVER!

Oh, may God help you to look at present joys and actions and thoughts
and doings in the light of death! What a contrast there is often
between the life of man and his death! You would praise some men if you
only saw their lives, but, when you see their deaths, you change your
mind. There is Moses–he may be the King of Egypt, but he gives up
royalty and all its tempting joys. On the mount it is offered to him to
be made the founder of a mighty race–a desire always prominent in the
Eastern mind. But, instead of desiring himself to be made a great
nation, he, unselfishly, desires even to be blotted out of the Book of
Life if God will but spare his people Israel! And what does Moses get
for it all? His only earthly reward is to be the leader of a crew of
slaves who are perpetually rebelling against him and vexing the Holy
Spirit.

Now there is Balaam, on the other hand. He has visitations from God.
And when Balak, the son of Zippor, begs him to curse Israel, he cannot,
though he is quite willing to go as far as he can. He is compelled, by
the inward Holy Spirit, to bless the people! But, after he has done
that, for gain and for reward, he plots a plan against Israel by which
they were cursed–he bids them send out the women of Moab to lead
astray the children of Israel. Now there he goes, with his treasures of
silver and gold, back to his own house! The shrewd and busy worldly man
says, "That is the man for me–do not tell me about your meek Moses
that is afraid of doing this and that and will not look after the main
chance. He has thrown away a kingdom and now he has thrown away the
chance of being the head of a nation!

"That is the man to make money–Balaam–he will be a common counselor,
or an alderman, or lord mayor one day! A man must not stick too much at
things–he must go ahead and make hay while the sun shines–

'There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood,
leads on to fortune.' That is the man for me who knows when to launch
out on the waters and who does not ask if they are dirty or clean if
they only waft him onward to wealth and success." Ah, but they come to
die and Balaam dies–where? He had prayed, "Let my last end be like
his"–like the righteous–and he died in battle, fighting against the
righteous and against the God of the righteous. And hard by that very
spot Moses also died and you know how?–With visions of Canaan upon his
eyes melting into visions of the Canaan which is above–the New
Jerusalem, which is the mother of us all!

In that death, who would not be Moses? Let who will, be Balaam in life.
Be it yours and mine to aspire to be like Moses, both living and dying.
"At the last!" Think of that and whenever you are tempted by sin, or
tempted by gain– look at it–"At the last," "At the last." God help
you to judge righteous judgment.

II. And now we will turn to the second side of our lantern. The second
of these last things is JUDGMENT. After death the judgment. When we
die, we die not. When a man dies, shall he live again? Yes, that he
shall–for his spirit never dies. God has made us such strange wondrous
beings, with such wide reaching hopes and such far darting aspirations,
that it is not possible we should die and become extinct! The beast has
no longing for immortality. You never hear it sigh for celestial
regions–it has no dread of judgment, because there is no second
life–no judgment for the beast that perishes.

But the God who gives to man the dread of things to come and makes him
feel and long after something better than this small globe affords
us–cannot have mocked us, cannot have made us more wretched than the
beast that perishes– by giving us passions and desires never to be
gratified. We are immortal, every one of us! And when the stars go out
and Sol's great furnace is extinguished for want of fuel, and, like a
vesture, God's wide universe shall be rolled up, we shall still be
living a life as eternal as the Eternal God Himself! Oh, when we leave
this world we are told that after death there comes a judgment to us. I
do not know how it is with you–you may be more accustomed to courts of
justice than I am– but there always creeps a solemnity over me, even
in a common court of justice among men and especially when a man is
being tried for his life.

Laughter seems hushed there and everything is solemn. How much more
dread will be that Court where men shall be tried for their eternal
lives–where their souls–rather than their bodies, shall be at stake?
The judgment of one's fellows is not to be despised. A bold good man
can afford to laugh at the world's opinion, but still it is trying to
him, for one's fellows may be right. Multitudes of men, if they have
really thought upon the matter, may not all be wrong. It is not easy to
stand at the bar of public opinion and receive the verdict of
condemnation. But what will it be to stand at the bar of God, who is
greater than all, and to receive from Him the sentence of damnation?
God save us from that!

Let us think of this judgment a moment. We shall rise from the dead. We
shall be there in body as well as spirit. These very bodies will stand
upon the earth at the last day when Christ shall come and the trumpet
shall sound. His people shall rise at the first resurrection, and the
wicked shall rise, also. And in their flesh shall they see God. Let me
think of all that I have done, then, in the light of that. There will
be present every man who has ever lived on earth. How shall I like to
have all my doings published there?

My very thoughts! How shall I feel when they are read aloud? What I
whispered in the ear in the closet–how shall I like to have that
proclaimed with the sound of a trumpet? And what I did in the dark–how
shall I care to have that revealed in the light? And yet these things
must be made known before the assembled universe. There will be present
there my enemies. If I have treated them ill, if I have been a
backbiter, a slanderer, it will be then declared–if I have been a
hypocrite and a dissembler and made others think me true when I have
been false, then I shall be unmasked.

Those I have injured will be there. With what alarm will the debauchee
see those whom he has seduced stand with fiery eyes to accuse him! With
what horror will the oppressor see the widow and the fatherless, whom
he drove to poverty, stand there as swift witnesses against him to
condemnation! If I have spread false doctrine, a moral pestilence
destroying human souls–my victims shall be there to gather round me in
a circle and, like dogs that bay the stag–will, each of them, demand
my blood! They shall all be there, friends and foes!

More solemn still, "He" shall be there–the Man of men, the grandest
among men–God, as well as Man–and if I have despised and rejected His
salvation, I shall then see Him in another fashion and after another
sort–

"The Lord shall come! But not the same As once in lowliness He came, A
silent Lamb before His foes, A weary Man and full of woes. The Lord
shall come! A dreadful form, With rainbow-wreath and robes of storm, On
cherub wings and wings of wind, Appointed Judge of all mankind!" How
will you face Him, you that have despised Him? You who have doubted His
Deity, how will you bear the blaze of it? You rejected and trampled on
His precious blood, how will you bear the weight of His almighty arm?
When on the Cross you would not receive Him, and when on the Throne you
shall not escape from Him. That silver scepter which He stretches out
now to you, if you refuse to touch it, shall be laid aside and He will
take one of another metal–a rod of iron–and He shall break you in
pieces. Yes, He shall dash you in pieces like potters' vessels.

And God shall be there, manifestly there–that God who is here this
morning, on the last day of this year–and who sees your thoughts and
reads your minds at this moment, but who is so invisible that you
forget that He fills this place and fills all places! You shall not be
able to forget Him, then. Your eyes shall see Him in that day. You
shall understand His Presence. You will try to hide from Him–would
desire Hell itself and think it a place of shelter–if you could escape
from Him! But everywhere His fire shall encircle you, shall consume
you, for "our God is a consuming fire." You shall no more be able to
escape from yourself than from God. You shall find Him as present with
you as your own soul will be and you shall feel His hand of fire
searching for the chords of your soul and sweeping with a doleful
Miserere all the heart strings of your spirit. Misery unspeakable must
be yours when the voice of the God-Man, shall say, "Depart, you cursed,
into everlasting fire in Hell."

I would to God that you would look at all your actions in the light of
the Day of Judgment. Our secret thoughts, let us turn them over this
morning. They have been lying by till they are moldy–let us bring them
forth today. My Thoughts, how will you look in the light of judgment?
My professions, my imaginations, my conceptions, how will they all be
when the Judgment Day shall gleam upon them? My profession, how does
that look? I have been baptized in Christ professedly. I wear a
Christian name, I preach the Gospel, I am a Church officer or a Church
member–how will all this bear the light of that tremendous day?

When I am put in the scales and weighed, shall I be the weight that I
am labeled? In that dreadful day shall I see the handwriting on the
wall, "Mene, Tekel, Upharsin"–"you are weighed in the balances and
found wanting"? Or shall I hear the gracious sentence which shall
pronounce me saved in Jesus Christ? As to my Graces, what must they be
in the light of judgment? My own salvation, all the matters of
experience and knowledge–how do they all look in that light? I think I
have believed–I think I love the Savior–I sometimes hope that I am
His–but am I so? Shall I be found to be a true Believer at the last?
Will my love be mere cant or true affection? Will my Graces be mere
talk, or will they be found to be the work of God the Holy Spirit?

Am I vitally united to Christ or not? Am I a mere pretender, or a true
possessor of the things eternal? Oh, my Soul, set these questions in
the light of that tremendous day! I would to God we could now go
forward to the Day of

Judgment, in thought at any rate. And since I feel myself quite unable
to lead you there, let me adopt my Savior's words–He says that the day
comes when He shall separate the righteous from the wicked as the
shepherd divides the sheep from the goats. There shall be some on His
left hand to whom He shall say, "I was hungry and you gave Me no meat.
I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink. Sick and in prison, and you
visited Me not. Depart, you cursed." Will He say that to you and to me?

There will be some on His right hand to whom He will say, "Come, you
blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before
the foundation of the world." Shall He say that to you and to me? The
one or the other it must be. As I stand here this morning, I seem to
feel, on my own account, and I wish you all did on yours, what a
certain man in court once felt. Sentence was about to be given in his
case, or, at least he thought the case would be called on immediately
and he rushed to his solicitor and he said, "Is there one thing left
undone? Are you sure? For if I lose this case I am a ruined man." His
face was white with anxiety. And so it is with you. Is there one thing
left undone? For if you lose this case at God's Judgment Seat you are a
ruined man!

Come Hearer, have you believed on Christ Jesus, or is faith left
undone? Have you given up self-righteousness? Have you left your sin?
Have you given your heart to the Savior? Is regeneration still
unaccomplished? Are you born again? Are you in Christ? Are you saved?
If your case is lost you are a ruined man! A man ruined here may still
retrieve his fortunes. The bankrupt may start again and yet be rich.
The captain who has lost a battle may renew the fight and win the next
victory and begin the campaign anew. But lose the battle of life and
the fight shall be no more. Make bankruptcy in this life's business and
you have no more trading. This is the business of eternity!

Soul, is there anything left undone? Brother, Sister, is there anything
left undone? For if you lose this case, you are ruined and that to all
eternity. I pray you to look at this day and at all your days, past and
the future, in the light of the Day of Judgment.

III. But my lamp–this matchless lamp–has a third side to it, bright,
gleaming like a cluster of stars! The third of the last things is
HEAVEN, the portion, I trust, of many of us. We hope, when days and
years have passed, that full many of us will meet to part no more on
the other side of Jordan, in Heaven. Now, let us see if we can cast a
little light from Heaven upon the things present and the things past.

You have been toiling–toiling very hard, and wiping the sweat from
your brow and saying, "My lot is not a desirable one. Oh how weary I
am! I cannot bear it." Courage, Brother! Courage, Sister! There is rest
for the weary. There is eternal rest for the beloved of the Lord and
when you shall arrive in Heaven, how little, how utterly insignificant
your toil will seem, even if it shall have lasted threescore years and
ten! You are pained much. Even now pain shoots through your body. You
do not often know what it is to have an easy hour and you half murmur,
"Why am I thus? Why did God deal so harshly with me?"

Think of Heaven, where the inhabitants shall no more say, "I am sick"!
Where there are no groans to mingle with the songs that warble from
immortal tongues. Courage, tried One! It will soon be over! It is but a
pin's prick or a moment's pang and then eternal Glory! Be of good cheer
and let your patience not fail you. And so you have been slandered. On
your face, for Christ's dear name, shame and reproach have been cast
and you are ready to give up. Come, Man, look before you! Can you not
hear the acclamations of the angels as the conquerors receive, one by
one, their eternal crowns? What? Will you not fight when there is so
much to be won? Must you be carried to the skies on flowery beds of
ease? You must fight if you would reign!

Gird up the loins of your mind and have respect to the recompense of
reward. In the light of Heaven the shame of earth will seem to be less
than nothing and vanity! And so you have had many losses and
crosses–you were once well-to-do–but you are now poor. You will have
to go home today to a very poor abode and to a scanty meal. Oh, but
Beloved, you will not be there long. "In My Father's house are many
mansions." It is but an inn you are tarrying at awhile and, if the
accommodation is rough, you are gone tomorrow–so complain not! I would
to God we could look upon all our actions in the light of Heaven–I
mean those who are Believers in Jesus Christ. If we could have regrets
hereafter, I think it would be that we did not do more than we did for
Christ here below.

In Heaven they cannot feed Christ's poor, cannot teach the ignorant.
They can extol Him with songs of praise, but there are some things in
which we have the preference over them–they cannot clothe the naked,
or visit the sick, or speak words of cheer to those that are
disconsolate. If there is anything that can give joy in Heaven, surely
it will be in looking back on the Divine Grace which enabled us to
serve the Master! Oh, if I can win souls to Christ I shall be a gainer
as well as you! I shall have another Heaven in their Heaven, another
joy, as it were, in their life and another happiness in their souls'
happiness. And, dear Brothers and Sisters, if in your Sunday school
teaching, or visiting, or talking to others you can bring any to Glory,
you will, if it is possible, multiply your Heaven and make it all the
more glad and joyful!

Now, look at the life of some Christians. They come here and if I
preach what they call a good sermon, they like it and drink it in. They
are willing to eat the fat and drink the sweet, but what do they do for
Christ? Nothing! What do they give for Christ? Hardly anything. There
are a few such among us and these are generally the most miserable
people you meet with–neither a comfort to others, nor any joy to
themselves. Now, even in Heaven, I think, though no sorrow should be
there, it will be only God's wiping it away that will keep them from
regretting that they did not do what they might have done on earth!

We are saved by Grace, blessed be God–by Grace alone–but, being
saved, we do desire to make known the savor of Christ in every place,
and we believe in Heaven we shall have joy in having made this known
among the sons of men. Look at your joy in the light of Heaven and you
will make it other than it now looks.

IV. We now turn to the fourth of the four last things and that is, let
us look at all things in the light of HELL, that dread and dismal
light, the glare of the fiery abyss. Bring that lantern here. Here is a
young man very merry. "Ho! Ho!" he sings, "Christians are fools." Hold
my light up. There you are without God, without hope, with the great
iron gate of Death shut upon you and barred forever, your body in the
flames of Tophet and your soul in the yet more horrible flames of the
wrath of God.

Who is the fool now? Oh, when your spirits are damned, as they must be
if you live without a Savior, you will think laughing a poor thing.
Laugh now, Sir! Scoff now! For a few minutes' merriment you sold
eternal joys. You had a mess of pottage and you ate it in haste and you
sold your birthright. What do you think of it now? It is an awful thing
that men should be content–for a few short hours of silly mirth–to
fling away their souls! Look at merriment in the glare of the flames of
Hell.

Mark that man in agony down in the vault of Hell. He made money by sin
and there he is. He gained the whole world and lost his own soul. How
does it look now? "I would give thirty thousand pounds," said an
English gentleman when he lay dying, "if any man would prove to me to a
demonstration, that there is no Hell." Yes, but if he had given thirty
thousand worlds that could not be proved and now, with pangs
unutterable, he knows it is so. What would you give, when once you are
lost, if you could throw back your gains? If lost spirits could return
here, surely they would do what Judas did–throw down the thirty pieces
of silver in the temple and curse themselves that they ever took the
gain of this world and destroyed their souls.

And how will unbelief look in the flames of Hell? There are no infidels
anywhere but on earth–there are none in Heaven and there are none in
Hell. Atheism is a strange thing. Even the devils never fell into that
vice, for, "the devils believe and tremble." And there are some of the
devil's children that have gone beyond their father in sin, but how
will it look when they are forever lost? When God's foot crushes them,
they will not be able to doubt His existence. When He tears them in
pieces and there is none to deliver, then their sophistical syllogisms,
their empty logic, their brags and bravadoes will be of no avail! Oh,
that they had been wise and had not darkened their foolish hearts, but
had turned unto the living God!

And, my dear Hearers, I have another thought which will come home to
some of your spirits with peculiar power. How will procrastination seem
when once you get there? Some of you have been attending this place a
long time–you have often had impressions, but you have always said,
"By and by." "By and by." You have been aroused and aroused again, but
still it has been, "Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow." How will tomorrow
ring in your ears when once you are lost? What would you not give for
another day of mercy, another hour of Divine Grace?

I feel, this morning, as if I would do with you what the Roman
Ambassadors did with Antiochus. They met him and asked him whether he
meant war or peace. He said he must see. And one of them, taking his
staff, made a circle round him where he stood and said, "You must
answer before you leave that spot. If you step out of that it is war.
Now, war or peace?" And I, too, would draw a secret circle round you in
the pew this morning and say to you, "Which shall it be, sin or
holiness, self or Christ? Shall it be Grace or enmity, Heaven or Hell?"

And I pray you answer that question in the light of Hell. It is a dread
light, but it is a revealing one. It is a fire that will devour the
scales that are about your blind eyes. God grant that it may scorch
those scales away, that you may see now how dreadful a thing it is to
be an enemy to God and be led by His Holy Spirit to apply to Jesus
Christ even now. Ah, how will the Gospel seem in the light of Hell and
how will your indifference to it seem? When I was thinking of preaching
this morning, I wished that I could preach as in that light. To think
that there are some to whom I have spoken again and again, who during
this year have passed away from the world of hope, we fear, into the
land of despair is a dreadful thought!

Persons that occupied these pews, sat in these aisles, stood far away
there and listened and heard the Gospel–and they are gone! Did I warn
them fairly, truly? If not–"If you warn them not they shall perish,
but their blood will I require at your hands." My God, by the blood of
the Savior, set me free from these men! Oh deliver me from that solemn
condemnation! But with those of you that still live, I would be clear
of you. Dear Hearers, do you not feel that you are mortal? Have not you
within you a sense that you are dying? It is a thought that is always
with me. Life seems so short. It was not so always with me–but the
shortness of life now seems to hang over my mind perpetually and I
suppose it must do so over those of you who are thirty, forty, fifty,
or sixty and who frequently see your friends taken away.

Now, since you must soon be gone. Since there is a world to come and
you believe there is, how can some of you play with these things? How
is it that while you are attentive to your business, you leave your
soul's business neglected? What are you waiting for, my Hearer? Are you
waiting for another season? Does not God say, "Now is the accepted
time. Now is the day of salvation"? What are you waiting for? Does not
the time past suffice?

Oh that you were wise and would think of your latter end and seek after
God! I conjure you, by the shortness of life, by the certainty of
death, by the terrors ofjudgment, by the glories of Heaven, by the
pains of Hell–seek after the right way and walk in it. Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners. This is the Gospel, "Whoever
believes is not condemned." To believe is to trust. Oh that you may
have Divine Grace to trust your souls with the Lord Jesus now and
forever and then we shall not need to fear those words, "At the last,"
nor the light of the four last things, Death and Judgment, Heaven and
Hell.

God bless you, for His name's sake.

"Soon the whole, like a parched scroll, Shall before my amazed sight
unroll, And without a screen at one burst be seen, The presence wherein
I have ever been."

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Psalm 148, and 2 Corinthians
6.