The Loved Ones Chastened
A Sermon
(No. 164)
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, November 22, 1857, by the
REV. C.H. SPURGEON
at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.
"As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and
repent."–Revelation 3:19.
THE DEALINGS OF GOD towards the sons of men have always puzzled the
wise men of the earth who have tried to understand them. Apart from the
revelation of God the dealings of Jehovah towards his creatures in this
world seem to be utterly inexplicable. Who can understand how it is
that the wicked flourish and are in great power? The ungodly man
flourishes like a green bay tree; behold, he stretcheth out his roots
by the river: he knoweth not the year of drought; his leaf withereth
not; and his fruit doth not fall in an untimely season. Lo, these are
the ungodly that flourish in the world; they are filled with riches;
they heap up gold like dust; they leave the rest of their substance to
their babes; they add field to field, and acre to acre, and they become
the princes of the earth. On the other hand, see how the righteous are
cast down. How often is virtue dressed in the rags of poverty! How
frequently is the most pious spirit made to suffer from hunger, and
thirst, and nakedness! We have sometimes heard the Christian say, when
he has contemplated these things, "Surely, I have served God in vain;
it is for nothing that I have chastened myself every morning and vexed
my soul with fasting; for lo, God hath cast me down, and he lifteth up
the sinner. How can this be?" The sages of the heathen could not answer
this question, and they therefore adopted the expedient of cutting the
gordian knot. "We can not tell how it is," they might have said;
therefore they flew at the fact itself, and denied it. "The man that
prospers is favored of the gods; the man who is unsuccessful is
obnoxious to the Most High." So said the heathen, and they knew no
better. Those more enlightened easterns, who talked with Job in the
days of his affliction, got but little further; for they believed that
all who served God would have a hedge about them; God would multiply
their wealth and increase their happiness; while they saw in Job's
affliction, as they conceived, a certain sign that he was a hypocrite,
and therefore God had quenched his candle and put out his light in
darkness. And alas! even Christians have fallen into the same error.
They have been apt to think, that if God lifts a man up there must be
some excellence in him; and if he chastens and afflicts, they are
generally led to think that it must be an exhibition of wrath. Now hear
ye the text, and the riddle is all unriddled; listen ye to the words of
Jesus, speaking to his servant John, and the mystery is all
unmysteried. "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous
therefore, and repent."
The fact is, that this world is not the place of punishment. There may
now and then be eminent judgments; but as a rule God does not in the
present state fully punish any man for sin. He allows the wicked to go
on in their wickedness; he throws the reins upon their necks; he lets
them go on unbridled in their lusts; some checks of conscience there
may be; but these are rather, as monitions than as punishments. And, on
the other hand, he casts the Christian down; he gives the most
afflictions to the most pious; perhaps he makes more waves of trouble
roll over the breast of the most sanctified Christian than over the
heart of any other man living. So, then, we must remember that as this
world is not the place of punishment, we are to expect punishment and
reward in the world to come; and we must believe that the only reason,
then, why God afflicts his people must be this:–
"In love I correct thee, thy gold to refine,
To make thee at length in my likeness to shine."
I shall try this morning to notice, first, what it is in his children
that God corrects; secondly, why God corrects them; and thirdly, what
is our comfort, when we are laboring under the rebukes and correctings
of our God. Our comfort must be the fact that he loves us even then.
"As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten."
I. First, then, beloved, WHAT IS IT IN THE CHRISTIAN THAT GOD REBUKES?
One of the Articles of the Church of England saith right truly, that,
naturally, "man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of
his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always
contrary to the spirit; and therefore in every person born into this
world, it deserveth God's wrath and damnation. And this infection of
nature doth remain, yea in them that are regenerated; whereby the lust
of the flesh, called in the Greek, phronema sarkos, which some do
expound the wisdom, some sensuality, some the affection, some the
desire, of the flesh, is not subject to the Law of God. And although
there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptized, yet
the Apostle doth confess, that concupiscence and lust hath of itself
the nature of sin," and because evil remains in the regenerate there is
therefore a necessity that that evil should be upbraided. Ay, and a
necessity that when that upbraiding is not sufficient, God should go to
severer measures, and after having failed in his rebukes, adopt the
expedient of chastening. "I rebuke and chasten." Hence God has provided
means for the chastisement and the rebuking of his people. Sometimes
God rebukes his children under the ministry. The minister of the gospel
is not always to be a minister of consolation. The same Spirit that is
the Comforter is he who convinces the world of sin, of righteousness,
and of judgment; and the same minister who is to be as the angel of God
unto our souls, uttering sweet words that are full of honey, is to be
at times the rod of God, the staff in the hand of the Almighty, with
which to smite us on account of our transgressions. And ah! beloved,
how often under the ministry ought we to have been checked when we were
not? Perhaps the minister's words were very forcible, and they were
uttered with true earnestness, and they applied to our case; but alas!
we shut our ear to them, and applied them to our brother instead of to
ourselves. I have often marveled when I have been preaching. I have
thought that I have described the cases of some of my most prominent
members. I have marked in them diverse sins, and as Christ's faithful
pastor, I have not shunned to picture their case in the pulpit, that
they might receive a well-deserved rebuke; but I have marveled when I
have spoken to them afterward, that they have thanked me for what I
have said, because they thought it so applicable to such another
brother in the church, whilst I had intended it wholly for them, and
had, as I thought, so made the description accurate, and so brought it
out in all its little points, that it must have been received by them.
But alas! you know, my friends, that we sit under the sound of the
Word, and we seldom think how much it belongs to us, especially if we
hold an office in the Church. It is hard for a minister when he is
hearing a brother minister preach, to think, it may be, he has a word
of rebuke to me. If exalted to the office of elder or deacon, there
groweth sometimes with that office a callousness to the Word when
spoken to himself; and the man in office is apt to think of the
hundreds of inquirers unto whom that may be found applicable, and of
the multitudes of the babes in grace to whom such a word comes in
season. Ay, friends, if we did but listen more to the rebukes of God in
the ministry, if we hearkened more to his Word as he speaks to us every
Sabbath day, we might be spared many corrections, for we are not
corrected until we have despised rebukes, and after we have rejected
those, then out comes the rod.
Sometimes, again, God rebukes his children in their consciences,
without any visible means whatever. Ye that are the people of God will
acknowledge that there are certain times, when, apparently without any
instrumentality, your sins are brought to remembrance; your soul is
cast down within you, and your spirit is sore vexed. God the Holy
Spirit is himself making inquisition for sin; he is searching Jerusalem
with candles; he is so punishing you because you are settled on your
lees. If you look around you there is nothing that could cause your
spirits to sink. The family are not sick; your business prospers; your
body is in good health; why then this sinking of spirit? You are not
conscious at the time, perhaps, that you have committed any gross act
of sin; still this dark depression continues, and at last you discover
that you had been living in a sin which you did not know–some sin of
ignorance, hidden and unperceived, and therefore God did withdraw from
you the joy of his salvation, till you had searched your heart, and
discovered wherein the evil lay. We have much reason to bless God that
he does adopt this way sometimes of rebuking us before he chastens.
At other seasons, the rebuke is quite indirect. How often have I met
rebuke, where it never was intended to be given! But God overruled the
circumstance for good. Have you never been rebuked by a child? The
innocent little prattler uttered something quite unwittingly, which cut
you to your heart, and manifested your sin. You walked the street, may
hap, and you heard some man swear; and the thought perhaps struck your
mind, "How little am I doing for the reclaiming of those who are
abandoned!" And so, the very sight of sin accused you of negligence,
and the very hearing of evil was made use of by God to convince you of
another evil. Oh! if we kept our eyes open, there is not an ox in the
meadow, nor a sparrow in the tree, which might not sometimes suggest a
rebuke. There is not a star in midnight, there is not a ray in the
noon-day, but what might suggest to us some evil that is hidden in our
hearts, and lead us to investigate our inner man, if we were but awake
to the soft whispers, of Jehovah's rebukes. You know, our Saviour made
use of little things to rebuke his disciples. He said, "Consider the
lilies of the field, how they grow. Behold the fowls of the air, how
they are fed!" So he made lilies and ravens speak to his disciples, to
upbraid their discontent. Earth is full of monitors: all that we need,
are ears to hear. However, when these rebukes all fail, God proceeds
from rebuke to correction. He will not always chide; but, if his
rebukes are unheeded, then he grasps the rod, and he uses it. I need
not tell you how it is that God uses the rod. My brethren, you have all
been made to tingle with it. He has sometimes smitten you in your
persons, sometimes in your families, frequently in your estates,
oftentimes in your prospects. He has smitten you in your nearest and
dearest friend; or, worse still, it may be he has given you "a thorn in
the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet you." But you all understand,
if you know anything of the life of a Christian, what the rod, and the
staff, and the covenant are; and what it is to be corrected by God. Let
me just particularize for a few minutes, and show what it is that God
corrects in us.
Very frequently, God corrects inordinate affection. It is right of us
to love our relatives–it is wrong of us to love them more than God.
You, perhaps, are yourselves to-day guilty of this sin. At any rate,
beloved, we may most of us look at home when we come to dwell on this
point. Have we not some favored one–perhaps, the partner of our heart,
or the offspring of our bosom, more dear to us than life itself? Have I
not heard some man whose life is bound up in the life of the lad, his
child?–some mother, whose soul is knit into the soul of her babe–some
wife, some husband, to whom the loss of the partner would be the loss
of life? Oh, there are many of us who are guilty of inordinate
affection toward relations. Mark you, God will rebuke us for that. He
will rebuke us in this way. Sometimes he will rebuke us by the
minister; if that is not enough, he will rebuke us by sending sickness
or disease to those very persons upon whom we have set our hearts; and
if that rebuke us not, and if we are not zealous to repent, he will
chasten us: the sickness shall yet be unto death. The disease shall
break forth with more fearful violence, and the thing which we have
made our idol shall be smitten, and shall become the food of worms.
There never was an idol, that God either did not, or will not pull out
of its place. "I am the Lord thy God; I am a jealous God;" and if we
put any, however good and excellent their characters may be, and
however deserving of our affection, upon God's throne, God will cry,
"Down with it," and we shall have to weep many tears; but if we had not
done so, we might have preserved the treasure, and have enjoyed it far
better, without having lost it.
But other men are baser than this. One can easily overlook the fault of
making too much of children, and wife, and friends, although very
grievous in the sight of God; but alas! there are some that are too
sordid to love flesh and blood; they love dirt, mere dirty earth,
yellow gold. It is that on which they set their hearts. Their purse,
they tell us, is dross; but when we come to take aught from it, we find
they do not think it is so. "Oh," said a man once, "if you want a
subscription from me, Sir, you must get at my heart, and then you will
get at my purse." "Yes," said I, "I have no doubt I shall, for I
believe that is where your purse lies, and I shall not be very far off
from it." And how many there are who call themselves Christians, who
make a god out of their wealth! Their park, their mansion, their
estate, their warehouses, their large ledgers, their many clerks, their
expanding business, or if not these, their opportunity to retire, their
money in the Three per Cents. All these things are their idols and
their gods; and we take them into our churches, and the world finds no
fault with them. They are prudent men. You know many of them; they are
very respectable people, they hold many respectable positions, and they
are so prudent, only that the love of money, which is the root of all
evil, is in their hearts too plainly to be denied. Every one may see
it, though, perhaps, they see it not themselves. "Covetousness, which
is idolatry," reigns very much in the church of the living God. Well,
mark you, God will chasten for that. Whosoever loveth mammon among
God's people, shall first be rebuked for it, as he is rebuked by me
this day, and if that rebuke be not taken, there shall be a
chastisement given. It may be, that the gold shall melt like the
snow-flake before the sun; or if it be preserved, it shall be said,
"Your gold and silver are cankered; the moth shall eat up your
garments, and destroy your glory." Or else, the Lord will bring
leanness into their souls, and cause them to go down to their graves
with few honors on their heads, and with little comfort in their
hearts; because they loved their gold more than their God, and valued
earthly riches more than the riches that are eternal. The Lord save us
from that, or else he will surely correct us.
But this is not the only sin: we are all subject to another crime which
God abhors exceedingly. It is the sin of pride. If the Lord gives us a
little comfort, we grow so big that we hardly know what to do with
ourselves. Like Jeshurun of old, of whom it is said, "Jeshurun waxed
fat and kicked." Let us for a little time enjoy the full assurance of
faith; self-conceit whispers, "You will retain the savor of that all
your days;" and there is not quite a whisper, but something even
fainter than that–"You have no need to depend upon the influence of
the Holy Spirit now. See what a great man you have grown. You have
become one of the Lord's most valued people; you are a Samson; you may
pull down the very gates of hell and fear not. You have no need to cry,
Lord, have mercy upon me.' " Or at other times, it takes a different
turn. He gives us temporal mercies, and then we presumptuously say, "My
mountain standeth firm; I shall never be moved." We meet with the poor
saints, and we begin to hector over them, as if we were something, and
they were nothing. We find some in trouble; we have no sympathy with
them; we are bluff and blunt with them, as we talk with them about
their troubles; yea, we are even savage and cruel with them. We meet
with some who are in deep distress and faint-hearted; we begin to
forget when we were faint-hearted too, and because they cannot run as
fast as we can, we run far ahead, and turn back and look at them, call
them sluggards, and say they are idle and lazy. And perhaps even in the
pulpit, if we are preachers, we have got hard words to say against
those who are not quite so advanced as we are. Well, mark, there never
was a saint yet, that grew proud of his fine feathers, but what the
Lord plucked them out by-and-by. There never yet was an angel that had
pride in his heart, but he lost his wings, and fell into Gehenna, as
Satan and those fallen angels did; and there shall never be a saint who
indulges self-conceit, and pride, and self-confidence, but the Lord
will spoil his glories, and trample his honors in the mire, and make
him cry out yet again, "Lord, have mercy upon me," less than the least
of all saints, and the "very chief of sinners."
Another sin that God rebukes, is sloth. Now I need not stop to picture
that. How many of you are the finest specimens of sloth that can be
discovered! I mean not in a business sense, for you are "not slothful
in business;" but with regard to the things of God, and the cause of
truth, why, nine out of ten of all the professors of religion, I do
hazard the assertion, are as full of sloth as they can be. Take our
churches all around, and there is not a corporation in the world,
however corrupt, that is less attentive to its professed interest, than
the church of Christ. There certainly are many societies and
establishments in the world that deserve much blame for not attending
to those interests which they ought to promote; but I do think the
Church of God is the hugest culprit of all. She says that she is the
preacher of the gospel to the poor: does she preach it to them? Yes,
here and there: now and then there is a spasmodic effort: but how many
are there that have got tongues to speak, and ability to utter God's
Word that are content to be still! She professes to be the educator of
the ignorant, and she is so in a measure: there are many of you who
have no business to be here this morning–you ought to have been
teaching in the Sabbath-school, or instructing the young, and teaching
others. Ye have no need of teachers just now; ye have learned the
truth. and should have been teaching it to other people. The church
professes that she is yet to cast the light of the gospel throughout
the world. She does a little in missionary enterprise; but ah! how
little! how little! how little compared with what her Master did for
her and the claims of Jesus upon her! We are a lazy set. Take the
church all round, we are as idle as we can be; and we need to have some
whipping times of persecution, to whip a little more earnestness and
zeal into us. We thank God this is not so much the case now, as it was
even twelve months ago. We hope the church may progress in her zeal;
for if not, she, as a whole, and each of us as members, will be first
rebuked, and if we take not the rebuke, we shall afterwards be
chastened for this our great sin.
I have no time to enter into all the other reasons for which God will
rebuke and chasten. Suffice it to say that every sin has one twig in
God's rod appropriated to itself. Suffice it to say, that in God's hand
there are punishments for each particular transgression; and it is very
singular to notice how in Bible history almost every saint has been
chastened for the sin he has committed by the sin itself falling upon
his own head. Transgression has been first a pleasure, and afterward it
has been a scourge. "The backslider in heart shall be filled with his
own ways," and that is the severest punishment in all the world.
Thus I have tried to open the first head–it is that God rebukes and
chastens.
II. Now, secondly, WHY DOES GOD REBUKE AND CHASTEN? "Why," says one,
"God rebukes his children because they are his children; and he
chastens them because they are his children." Well; I will not go the
length of saying that is false, but I will go the length of saying it
is not true. If any one should say to a father, after he had chastened
his child, "Why is it you have chastened the child?" he would not say,
it is because I am his father. It is true in one sense; but he would
say, "I have chastened the child because he has done wrong." Because
the proximate reason why he had chastened his child would not be that
he was his father, though that would have something to do with it as a
primary reason; but the absolute and primary cause would be, "I have
chastened him because he has done wrong, because I wish to correct him
for it, that he might not do so again." Now, God, when he chastens his
children, never does it absolutely; because he is his father; but he
does it for a wise reason. He has some other reason besides his
fatherhood. At the same time, one reason why God afflicts his children
and not others, is because he is their Father. If you were to go home
to-day and see a dozen boys in the streets throwing stones and breaking
windows it is very likely you would start the whole lot of them; but if
there is one boy that would get a sweet knock on the head it would be
your own; for you would say, "What are you at, John? What business have
you here?" You might not be justified, perhaps, in meddling with the
others–you would let their own fathers attend to them; but because you
were his father, you would try to make him remember it. Certain special
chastisements are inflicted on God's children, because they are his
children; but it is not because they are his children that he chastens
them at any one time, but because they have been doing something wrong.
Now, if you are under chastisement, let this truth be certain to you.
Are the consolations of God small with thee? Is there any secret thing
with thee? Art thou chastened in thy business? Then what sin hast thou
committed? Art thou cast down in thy spirit? Then what transgression
has brought this on thee? Remember, it is not fair to say, "I am
chastened because I am his child;" the right way to say it is, "I am
his child, and therefore when he chastens me he has a reason for it."
Now, what is it? I will help you to judge.
Sometimes God chastens and afflicts us, to prevent sin. He sees that
the embryo of lust is in our hearts; he sees that that little egg of
mischief is beginning to hatch and to produce sin, and he comes and
crushes it at once–nips the sin in the bud. Ah! we can not tell how
much guilt Christians have been saved from by their afflictions. We are
running on madly to our destruction, and then some dark apparition of
trouble comes, and stretches itself across the way, and in great fright
we fly back astonished. We ask, why this trouble? Oh! if we knew the
danger into which we were rushing we should only say, "Lord, I thank
thee that by that direful trouble thou didst save me from a sin, that
would have been far more troublous and infinitely more dangerous."
At other times God chastens us for sins already committed. We perhaps
have forgotten them; but God has not. I think that sometimes years
elapse between a sin and the chastisement for it. The sins of our youth
may be punished in our gray old age; the transgression you did twenty
years ago, those of you who have grown old, may this very day be found
in your bones. God chastens his children, but he sometimes lays the rod
by. The time would not be seasonable perhaps; they are not strong
enough to bear it: so he lays the rod by and he says, as surely as he
is my child, though I lay the rod by, I will make him smart for it,
that I may at last deliver him from his sin, and make him like unto
myself. But mark, ye people of God, in all these chastisments for sin
there is no punishment. When God chastises you he does not punish as a
judge does, but he chastens as a father. When he lays the rod on, with
many blows and smart ones, there is not one thought of anger in his
heart–there is not one look of displeasure in his eye; he means it all
for your good; his heaviest blows are as much tokens of his affection
as his sweetest caresses. He has no motive but your profit and his own
glory. Be of good cheer, then, if these be the reasons. But take care
that thou dost fulfil the command–"Be zealous, therefore, and repent."
I read in an old Puritan author the other day a very pretty figure. He
says, "A full wind is not so favorable to a ship when it is fully fair
as a side wind. It is strange," says he, "that when the wind blows in
an exact direction to blow a ship into port, she will not go near so
well as if she had a cross wind sideways upon her." And he explains it
thus: "The mariners say that when the wind blows exactly fair it only
fills a part of the sails, and it can not reach the sails that are
ahead, because the sail, bellying out with the wind, prevents the wind
from reaching that which is further ahead. But when the wind sweeps
sideways, then every sail is full, and she is driven on swiftly in her
course with the full force of the wind. Ah!" says the old Puritan,
"there is nothing like a side wind to drive God's people to heaven. A
fair wind only fills a part of their sails; that is, fills their joy,
fills their delight; but," says he, "the side wind fills them all; it
fills their caution, fills their prayerfulness, fills every part of the
spiritual man, and so the ship speeds onward toward its haven." It is
with this design that God sends affliction, to chasten us on account of
our transgressions.
III. And now I am to conclude by noting WHAT IS OUR COMFORT WHEN GOD
REBUKES AND CHASTENS US?
Our great comfort is, that he loves us still. Oh! what a precious thing
faith is, when we are enabled to believe our God, and how easy then it
is to endure and to surmount all trouble. Hear the old man in the
garret, with a crust of bread and a cup of cold water. Sickness has
confined him these years within that narrow room. He is too poor to
maintain an attendant. Some woman comes in to look to him in the
morning and in the evening, and there he sits, in the depths of
poverty. And you will suppose he sits and groans. No, brethren; he may
sometimes groan when the body is weak, but usually he sits and sings;
and when the visitor climbs the creaking staircase of that old house,
where human beings scarcely ought to be allowed to live; and when he
goes into that poor cramped up room that is more fit to accommodate
swine than men, he sits down upon that bottomless chair, and when he
has seated himself as well as he can upon the four cross pieces of it
he begins to talk to him, and he finds him full of heaven. "Oh! sir,"
he says, "my God is very kind to me." Propped up he is with pillows,
and full of pain in every member of his body, but he says, "Blessed be
his name, he has not left me. Oh! sir, I have enjoyed more peace and
happiness in this room, out of which I have not gone for years,"–(the
case is real that I am now describing) "I have enjoyed more happiness
here than I ever did in all my life. My pains are great, sir, but they
will not be for long; I am going home soon." Ay, were he more troubled
still, had he such rich consolation poured into his heart, he might
endure all with a smile and sing in the furnace. Now, child of God,
thou art to do the same. Remember, all thou hast to suffer is sent in
love. It is hard work for a child, when his father has been chastening
it, to look at the rod as a picture of love. You can not make your
children do that: but when they grow up to be men and women how
thankful they are to you then! "O father," says the son, "I know now
why it was I was so often chastened; I had a proud hot spirit; it would
have been the ruin of me if thou hadst not whipped it out of me. Now, I
thank thee, my father, for it."
So, while we are here below we are nothing but little children; we can
not prize the rod: when we come of age, and we go into our estates in
Paradise, we shall look back upon the rod of the Covenant as being
better than Aaron's rod, for it blossoms with mercy. We shall say to
it, "Thou art the most wondrous thing in all the list of my treasures.
Lord, I thank thee that thou didst not leave me unafflicted, or else I
had not been where I am, and what I am, a child of God in Paradise." "I
have this week," says one, "sustained so serious a loss in my business,
that I am afraid I shall be utterly broken up." There is love in that.
"I came here this morning," says one, "and I left a dead child in the
house–dear to my heart." There is love in that. That coffin and that
shroud will both be full of love; and when your child is taken away, it
shall not be in anger. "Ah!" cries another, "but I have been
exceedingly sick, and even now I feel I ought not to have ventured out;
I must return to my bed." Ah! he makes your bed in your affliction.
There is love in every pain, in every twitch of the nerve; in every
pang that shoots through the members, there is love. "Ah!" says one,
"it is not myself, but I have got a dear one that is sick." There is
love there, too. Do what God may, he can not do an unloving act toward
his people. O Lord! thou art Omnipotent; thou canst do all things; but
thou canst not lie, and thou canst not be unkind to thine elect. No,
Omnipotence may build a thousand worlds, and fill them with bounties;
Omnipotence may powder mountains into dust, and burn the sea, and
consume the sky, but Omnipotence can not do an unloving thing toward a
believer. Oh! rest quite sure, Christian, a hard thing, an unloving
thing from God toward one of his own people is quite impossible. He is
kind to you when he casts you into prison as when he takes you into a
palace; He is as good when he sends famine into your house as when he
fills your barns with plenty. The only question is, Art thou his child?
If so, he hath rebuked thee in affection, and there is love in his
chastisement.
I have now done, but not until I have made my last appeal. I have now
to turn from God's people to the rest of you. Ah! my hearers, there are
some of you that have no God; you have no Christ on whom to cast your
troubles. I see some of you to-day dressed in the habiliments of
mourning; I suppose you have lost some one dear unto you. Oh! ye that
are robed in black, is God your God? Or are you mourning now, without
God to wipe every tear from your eye? I know that many of you are
struggling now in your business with very sharp and hard times. Can you
tell your troubles to Jesus, or have you to bear them all
yourself–friendless and helpless? Many men have been driven mad,
because they had no one to whom to communicate their sorrow; and how
many others had been driven worse than mad, because when they told
their sorrows their confidence was betrayed. O poor mourning spirit, if
thou hadst, as thou mightest have done, gone and told him all thy woes,
he would not have laughed at thee, and he would never have told it out
again. Oh I remember when once my young heart ached in boyhood, when I
first loved the Saviour. I was far away from father and mother, and all
I loved, and I thought my soul would burst; for I was an usher in a
school, in a place where I could meet with no sympathy or help. Well, I
went to my chamber, and told my little griefs into the ears of Jesus.
They were great griefs to me then, though they are nothing now. When I
just whispered them on my knees into the ear of him who had loved me
with an everlasting love, oh! it was so sweet, none can tell. If I had
told them to somebody else, they would have told them again; but he, my
blessed confidant, he knows my secrets, and he never tells them. Oh!
what can you do that have got no Jesus to tell your troubles to? And
the worst of it is, you have got more troubles to come. Times may be
hard now, but they will be harder one day–they will be harder when
they come to an end. They say it is hard to live, but it is very hard
to die. When one comes to die and has Jesus with him, even then dying
is hard work; but to die without a Saviour! Oh! my friends, are you
inclined to risk it? Will you face the grim monarch, and no Saviour
with you? Remember, you must do it; you must die soon. The chamber
shall soon be hushed in silence no sound shall be heard except the
babbling watch that ever tells the flight of time. The physician shall
"Hush!" and hold up his finger, and whisper in a suppressed voice, "He
can not last many minutes longer." And the wife and the children, or
the father and the mother, will stand around your bed and look at you,
as I have looked at some, with a sad, sad heart. They will look at you
a little while, till at last the death-change will pass o'er your face.
"He is gone!" it shall be said; and the hand uplifted shall be dropped
down again, and the eye shall be glazed in darkness, and then the
mother will turn away and say, "O my child, I could have borne all this
if there had been hope in thine end!" And when the minister comes in to
comfort the family, he will ask the question of the father, "Do you
think your son had an interest in the blood of Christ?" The reply will
be, "O sir, we must not judge, but I never saw anything like it; I
never had any reason to hope: that is my greatest sorrow." There,
there! I could bury every friend without a tear, compared with the
burial of an ungodly friend. Oh! it seems such an awful thing, to have
one allied to you by ties of blood, dead and in hell.
We generally speak very softly about the dead. We say, "Well, we hope."
Sometimes we tell great lies, for we know we do not hope at all. We
wish it may be so, but we can not hope it; we never saw any grounds
that should lead us to hope. But would it not be an awful thing if we
were honest enough to look the dread reality in its face–if the
husband were simply to look at it, and say, "There was my wife; she was
an ungodly, careless woman. I know at least, she never said anything
concerning repentance and faith; and if she died so, and I have every
reason to fear she did, then she is cast away from God." It would be
unkind to say it; but it is only honest for us to know it–to look
dread truth in the face. Oh! my fellow-men and brethren! Oh! ye that
are partners with me of an immortal life! We shall one day meet again
before the throne of God; but ere that time comes, we shall each of us
be separated, and go our divers ways down the shelving banks of the
river of death. My fellow-man, art thou prepared to die alone? I ask
thee this question again–Art thou prepared to arise in the day of
judgment without a Saviour? Art thou willing to run all risks and face
thy Maker, when he comes to judge thee, without an advocate to plead
thy cause? Art thou prepared to hear him say, "Depart ye cursed!" Are
ye ready now to endure the everlasting ire of him who smites, and
smiting once, doth smite forever? Oh! if ye will make your bed in hell,
if you are prepared to be damned, if you are willing to be so, then
live in sin and indulge in pleasures;–you will get your wish. But if
ye would not; if ye would enter heaven, and ye would be saved, "Turn
thee, turn thee, why will ye die, O house of Israel?" May God the Holy
Spirit, enable you to repent of sin and to believe on Jesus; and then
you shall have a portion among them that are sanctified: but
unrepenting and unbelieving, if ye die so, ye must be driven from his
presence, never to have life, and joy, and liberty, as long as eternity
shall last.
The Lord prevent this, for Jesus, sake.