The Saint’S Horror At The Sinner’S Hell

The Saint'S Horror At The Sinner'S Hell
A SERMON DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, AUGUST 16, 1863, BY THE REV. C.
H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"Gather not my soul with sinners." Psalm 269
WE must all be gathered in due course. When time shall have ripened the
fruit, it must hang no longer upon the tree, but be gathered into the
basket. When the summer's sun has perfectly matured the corn, the
sickle must be brought forth and the harvest must be reaped. To
everything there is a season and an end. There shall be a gathering
time for every one of us. It may come tomorrow. It may be deferred
another handful of years. It may come to us by the long process of
consumption or decline. It may advance with more rapid footsteps, and
we may in a moment be gathered to our people.
Sooner or later, to use the expressive words of Job, the Almighty shall
set His heart upon each of us and gather unto Himself our spirit and
our breath. That gathering rests with God! The prayer of the Psalmist
implies it and many Scriptures affirm it. As Young sings in his Night
Thoughts–
"An angel's arm can't hurl me to the grave." Accidents are but God's
arrangements. Diseases are His decrees–fevers His servants, and
plagues His messengers. Our mortality is immortal, till the Eternal
wills its death. "Return, you children of men" can be spoken by none
but our heavenly Father, and when He gives the word, return we must
without delay.
I do not know, my Brothers and Sisters, seeing that our death is
certain, and remains entirely in the hands of our gracious God, that
there is any prayer which we need to offer concerning it, except,
"Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit." And this brief sentence,
"Gather not my soul with sinners." Scarcely can I commend those who
plead to be delivered from sudden death, for sudden death is sudden
Glory! Hardly can I advise you to request a hasty departure. For flesh
and blood shrink from speedy dissolution. Pray not for long life, nor
for an early grave–cheerfully leave all these matters to the choice of
infinite Wisdom, and concentrate all your desires upon the one desire
of the text.
Filled with a holy horror of the Hell of sinners, let us make most sure
of our calling to the Heaven of the blessed. Let the fear of being cast
forth with the withered branches increase our fruitfulness, and let our
horror of the sinner's character and doom lead us to cleave more
closely to the Savior of souls.
We will divide our discourse thus–first, the gathering, and here let
us behold a vision. Next, the prayer, and here let us note an example.
Thirdly, a fear, and here let us observe a holy anxiety. And then
fourthly, an answer yielding a consolation.
I. First, THE GATHERING. Let the man who has his eyes open behold the
gathering of sinners, and in the sanctuary of the Lord let him
understand their end. There have been many partial gatherings of the
ungodly, all ending in sudden ruin and overthrow. Turn your eyes here.
Two hundred and fifty men have impudently taken censers into their
hands and have dishonored the Lord's chosen servants, Moses and Aaron.
Mark well their proud reviling of the Lord's Anointed. In the
gainsaying of Korah they all have a part. The people hasten from their
tabernacles and they stand alone. It is but for a moment. Look! The
earth cleaves asunder. They go down alive into the pit and the earth
closes her mouth upon them. My soul trembles and hides her face for
fear–and my fainting heart groans out her desire–"Gather not my soul
with sinners"!
Look yonder, my Brothers and Sisters, to the city of palm trees
surrounded by its strong munitions. All the inhabitants are gathered
together within it. From the top of the walls they mock the feeble band
of silent Israelites, who for six days have marched round and round
their city. The seventh day has come and the rams' horns give the
signal of destruction. The Lord comes forth from His rest, and at the
terror of His rebuke the walls of Jericho fall flat to the ground. Now
where are your boastings, O congregation of the wicked? The sword of
Israel is bathed in your blood, O accursed sons of
Canaan. As we hear the shriek of the slaughtered and mark the smoke of
the city ascending up to Heaven like the flames of Sodom of old, we
reverently bow the knee unto Jehovah and cry, "Gather not my soul with
sinners."
Leaping over centuries–with weeping we behold the Holy City, beautiful
for situation–once the joy of the whole earth, but now forsaken of her
God–and beleaguered by her foes. All the Jewish people have come
together from the four winds of Heaven–as the flesh is cast into the
caldron and the fire burns fiercely, so are they gathered together for
judgment. Well might their rejected Messiah weep over the devoted city
as He remembered how often He would have gathered her children together
as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings and they would not. Now
are they gathered in another manner–and the wings of vultures flutter
over them, hastening for the prey.
See yonder the Roman armies and the mounds which they have cast up! Woe
unto you, O city of Zion–for the spoilers know no pity. They spare
neither young nor old. "Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that
never bare, and the paps which never gave suck." For the day of the
Lord's vengeance is come and the words of Moses are fulfilled, when he
said–"The Lord shall bring a nation against you from afar, from the
end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies. A nation whose tongue
you shall not understand. A nation of fierce countenance, which shall
not regard the person of the old, nor show favor to the young.
"And you shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons
and of your daughters, which the Lord your God has given you, in the
siege and in the desperate straits, wherewith your enemies shall
distress you." Hark! The clarion summons the warrior to arms. The
veterans of Vespasian and Titus dash to the assault. Where are you now,
O city polluted with the murder of Prophets, and stained with the blood
of the Prophets' Lord? Your walls protect not your sons, they keep not
the temple of your glory. Look! A soldier's ruthless hand hurls the red
firebrand into the sacred precincts of the Temple, and its smoke
darkens the sky!
Can you walk those smoldering ruins and behold the heaps of ashes
mingled with burning flesh–the crimson streams of gore–and the deep
pools of clotted blood? Can you linger there where desolation holds her
reign supreme and refuse to see the justice of the God of Israel, or
fail to breathe the humble prayer of the Psalmist, "Gather not my soul
with sinners"? Wherever the enemies of God are gathered, there we have,
before long, confusion and tears and death in whatever place sinners
may hold their counsels. When the Judge of all the earth comes out
against them, we soon see an Aceldama–a field of blood.
But, forgetting all these inferior gatherings, illustrious in horror
though they are, my eyes behold a greater gathering which is proceeding
every day to its completion. Every day the heavens and the earth hear
the voice of God, saying, "Gather you, gather you My foes together,
that I may utterly destroy them." "Therefore wait you upon Me, says the
Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is
to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms to pour upon
them My indignation, even all My fierce anger: for all the earth shall
be devoured with the fire of My jealousy."
As the huntsman, when he goes forth to the battle, encompasses the
beasts of the forest with an ever narrowing ring of hunters–that he
may exterminate them all in one great slaughter–so the God of Justice
has made a ring in His Providence round about the sinful sons of men.
Within that circle of Divine power are imprisoned monarchs and
peasants, peers and paupers. That ring encompasses all nations, polite
or barbarous, civilized or rude. No impenitent sinner can break through
the lines. As well might a worm escape from within a circle of flame.
Every hour the lines grow narrower, and the multitudes of the Lord's
enemies are driven into the center where His darts are flying, where
His sharp arrows shall pierce them.
I hear the baying of the dogs of Death today, hounding the unbelieving
to their doom. I see the heaps of slain, and mark the terrible arrows
as they fly with unerring aim. Multitudes of sinners are scattered from
the equator to the poles, but not one of them is able to escape the
Avenger's hand. High and haughty princes, boasting their imperial pomp,
fall like antlered stags, smitten with the shafts of the Almighty.
Their valiant warriors, like wild boars of the forest, perish upon the
point of His glittering spear.
The vision of the Apocalypse is no mere dream. He whose name is THE
WORD OF GOD, shall tread the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of
Almighty God. And meanwhile, the angel standing in the sun cries with a
loud voice to all the fowls which fly in the midst of Heaven, "Come and
gather yourselves together into the supper of the great God: that you
may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of
mighty men: and the flesh of horses and of them that sit on them: and
the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great."
At the remembrance of all this, we may well exclaim with Habakkuk,
"When I heard, my belly trembled. My lips quivered at the voice:
rottenness entered into my bones and I trembled in myself, that I might
rest in the day of trouble: when He comes up unto the people, He will
cut them in pieces with His troops." O God of all Grace, I pray You, by
the atoning sacrifice of Jesus in which I trust, "Gather not my soul
with sinners." Let that Providence which gathers Your people from among
men, lay hold on me. Let Your angels who keep watch and ward about Your
people, keep me from the snare of the fowler and from the destruction
which wastes at noonday.
But the scene changes–we see no longer the assembling of the
multitudes in the great valley of the shadow of death–we track them
further till we find ourselves on the threshold of the abode of
spirits. You have seen the prisoners in their cells, waiting for their
trial at the next assize. The strong hand of Law has laid them in
durance, where they await the summons to appear before the judge. I
pray you note the company and before the trumpet announces the judge,
see what a strange gathering the prison contains. Do you mark them?
There is the murderer, with blood-red hands. There is he who smote his
fellow to his wounding. Yonder lies the wretch who perjured himself
before God.
And here the man who pilfered his neighbor's goods. However they
differed from one another before, they are on a level in rank in this
house of detention–and they all await one common jail delivery. It is
no pleasant sight to visit these cells before the assize comes on.
Crime, although as yet not condemned, is no comfortable vision. But
what of earthly prisons? My heart sees a sight far more terrible–
"Look down, my soul, on Hell's domains, That world of agony and pains!
What crowds are now associated there, Of widely different character.
What wretched ghosts are met below, Some once so great, so little no w;
So gay, so sad, so rich, so poor; Now scorned by those they scorned
before."
Multitudes are gathered together in the state where souls abide until
their final doom is pronounced, both on their bodies and on their
souls. It is a place of misery where not a drop of water cools their
parched tongue. A state of doubt and terror and suspense–a place from
which consolation is banished, where the "wrath to come" perpetually
afflicts them. There in captivity abide the formalist, the hypocrite,
the profane, the licentious, the abandoned, those who despised God and
hated Christ and turned away from the glory of His Cross. There they
are gathered, tens of thousands of them, at this day, waiting till the
great assize shall sit. O God, "gather not my soul with sinners," but
let me be gathered with those whose spirits wait beneath the altar for
their redemption, to wit, the resurrection of their bodies. Gather me
with those who cry day and night until God avenges His own elect.
Gather me with the multitude of spirits who wait the coming of the Son
of God from Heaven, that their bliss may be complete.
But now, my eyes, prophetic in the light of Scripture, see another
gathering. The trumpet has sounded, the prison doors are loosed and the
gates of death give way. They come, bodies and souls–souls from the
place of waiting in the pit of Hell. And bodies from their graves, from
ocean and from earth–from all the four winds of Heaven, bodies and
souls come together and there they stand–an exceeding great army. This
time it is not in the valley of suspense. But "multitudes, multitudes
in the valley of decision'" "And the Lord shall utter His voice before
His army. For His camp is very great: for He is strong that executes
His word: for the day of the Lord is great and very terrible: and who
can abide it?"
"Assemble yourselves and come, all you heathen, and gather yourselves
together round about: there cause Your mighty ones to come down, O
Lord. Let the heathen be wakened and come up to the valley of
Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about.
Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down. For the
press is full, the vats overflow; for their wickedness is great." "And
I saw a great white throne and Him that sat on it, from whose face the
earth and the Heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them.
And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God. And the books
were opened: and another book was opened, which is the Book of Life.
And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the
books, according to their works.
"And the sea gave up the dead which were in it. And death and Hell
delivered up the dead which were in them. And they were judged, every
man according to their works. And whoever was not found written in the
Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire." Oh, well may you and I
pray that we may have a part in the first resurrection–upon such the
sec- ond death has no power. Grant us, O Lord, that we may not be with
the wicked, the rest of the dead, who rise not until after a thousand
years are finished. But give us a portion among those whose iniquities
are blotted out, who have not received the mark of the beast in their
foreheads, who therefore live and reign with Christ a thousand years
(Rev. 20:4).
May we be gathered with the harvest of the Lord, when He that sits on
the cloud shall reap it with His golden sickle. But this gathering of
which my text speaks is not the harvest of the righteous. It is the
vintage of the wicked. When "the angel which had power over fire" shall
cry, "Thrust in Your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine
of the earth: for her grapes are fully ripe." How dreadful that great
winepress of Divine Wrath which shall be trod without the city, and how
terrible that flow of blood, like a mighty stream of wine, so deep that
it ran even unto the horses' bridles by the space of a thousand and six
hundred furlongs. "Gather not my soul with sinners," O God, in that
terrible day.
I need not stop to paint–for colors equal to its terrors I have
none–that dreadful place where the last gathering shall be held. That
great synagogue of Satan, the place appointed for unbelievers and
prepared for the devil and his angels. Where "sullen moans and hollow
groans and shrieks of tortured ghosts" shall be their only music. Where
weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth shall be their perpetual
occupation. Where joy is a stranger and hope unknown. Where death
itself would be a friend. No, I will not attempt to describe what our
Savior veiled in words like these, "These shall go away into
everlasting punishment." "Where their worm dies not, and their fire is
not quenched." "Outer darkness, where shall be wailing and gnashing of
teeth." We drop the curtain, hoping that you have seen enough to make
you pray, "Gather not my soul with sinners."
Dear Brothers and Sisters, when we recollect that that last gathering
will be a perfect one. That there will be no sinner left with the
saints–that, on the other hand, no saint will remain with sinners.
When we recollect that it will be a final one–no redistribution will
ever be made and that it will entail an everlasting separation–a great
gulf being fixed, which none can cross, it remains for us to be
solemnly anxious to be found on the right hand and to put up, with
vehemence, this prayer–"O Lord, gather not my soul with sinners."
II. Having thus shown the vision of the gathering, let me, with deep
solemnity, conduct your minds for a little time to THE PRAYER ITSELF. I
am sure we are all agreed about it, everyone of us. Balaam, if he is
here this morning, differs not from me. The worst and most abandoned
wretch on earth agrees with David in this. Sinners do not wish to be
gathered with sinners. Balaam's prayer is, "Let me die the death of the
righteous, and let my last end be like his," which only differs in
words from David's petition, "Gather not my soul with sinners."
But then the reasons of the one prayer are very different in different
persons. We would all like to be saved from Hell, but then there is a
difference in the reasons why we would so be delivered. The same prayer
may be uttered by different lips. In the one it may be heard and
accepted as spiritual prayer, and in the other it may be but the
natural excitement produced by a selfish desire to avoid misery. I know
why you would not wish to be gathered with sinners–those of you who
are ungodly and impenitent–you dread the fire, the flames which never
end. You dread the wrath, the suffering. You dread the horrors of that
world to come.
Not so with the Christian. These he dreads as all men must, but he has
a higher and a better reason for not wishing to be gathered with
sinners. I tell you, Sirs, if sinners could be gathered into Heaven
with their present character, the Christian's prayer would be what it
now is–"Gather not my soul with sinners." If sin entailed happiness.
If rebellion against God could give bliss, even then the Christian
would scorn the happiness and avoid the bliss which sin affords. His
objection is not so much to Hell, as to sinners themselves. His desire
is to avoid the contamination and distraction of their company.
Many of you will say, "Now I dislike the company of sinners." Indeed,
most moral people dislike the society of a certain class of sinners. I
suppose there is scarcely one here today who would wish to be found in
the den of the burglar, where the conversation is concerning plunder
and violence. You would not probably feel very easy in the haunt of the
harlot, where licentious tongues utter flippantly lascivious words. You
shun the house of the strange woman. The pothouse is not a favorite
resort for you. You would not feel very much at ease at the bar of the
gin palace. You would say of each of these–"This is no joy to me."
Even those of you who are not renewed by Christ despise vice when she
walks abroad naked. I fear you cannot say as much when she puts on her
silver slippers, and wraps about her shoulders her scarlet mantle. Sin
in rags is not popular. Vice in sores and squalor tempts no one in the
grosser shapes. Men hate the very fiend whom they love when it is
refined and delicate in its form. I want to know whether you can say,
"Gather not my soul with sinners," when you see the ungodly in their
high days and holidays? Do you not envy the fraudulent merchant
counting his gold–his purse heavy with his gains, while he himself by
his craft is beyond all challenge by the Law?
Do you not envy the giddy revelers spending the night in the merry
dance, laughing, making merry with wine and smiling with thoughts of
lust? Yonder voluptuary, entering the abode where virtue never finds a
place, and indulging in pleasures unworthy to be named in this hallowed
house–does he ever excite your envy? I ask you, when you see the
pleasures, the bright side, the honors, the emoluments, the gains, the
merriments of sin, do you then say, "Gather not my soul with sinners"?
There is a class of sinners that some would wish to be gathered
with–those easy souls who go on so swimmingly. They never have any
trouble. Conscience never pricks them. Business never goes wrong with
them. They have no bands in their life, no bonds in their death.
They are not in trouble as other men, neither are they plagued like
other men. They are like the green bay tree which spreads on every side
until its boughs cover whole acres with their shade. These are the men
who prosper in the world, they increase in riches. Can we say, when we
look at these, when we gaze upon the bright side of the wicked, "Gather
not my soul with sinners"? Remember, if we cannot do so without
reservation, we really cannot pray the prayer at all. We ought to alter
it and put it, "Gather not my soul with openly reprobate sinners." And
then mark you, as there is only one place for all sorts of sinners,
moral or immoral, apparently holy or profane, your prayer cannot be
heard, for if you are gathered with sinners at all–with the best of
sinners–you must be gathered with the worst of sinners, too.
I know, children of God, you can offer the prayer as it stands and say,
"In all their glory and their pomp. In all their wealth, their peace
and their comfort, my soul abhors them, and I earnestly beseech You, O
Lord, by the blood of Jesus, 'Gather not my soul with sinners.' "
Brethren, why does the Christian pray this prayer? He prays it, first
of all, because as far as his acquaintance goes with sinners, even now
he does not wish for their company. The company of sinners in this
world to the saint is a cause of uneasiness. We cannot be with them and
feel ourselves perfectly at home. "My soul is among lions, even among
them that are set on fire of Hell." "Rid me from strange children." We
are vexed with their conversation, even as Lot was with the language of
the men of Sodom. We lay an embargo upon them–they cannot act as they
would in our society–and they lay a restraint upon us. We cannot act
as we would when we are with them.
We feel an hindrance in our holy duties through dwelling in the tents
of Kedar. When we would talk of God, we cannot in the midst of company
to whom the very name of Jesus is a theme for jest. How can we well
engage in family devotions when more than half the family are given up
to the world? How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? You
who sojourn in Mesech, you know how great a grief it is, what a damper
it is to your spirituality, what a serious hindrance it is to your
growth in Divine Grace. Besides, the company tempts Believers to sin.
Who can keep his garment pure when he travels with sinful companions?
If I am condemned to walk continually in the midst of thorns and
briars, it is strange if I do not mar my garments. Often our nearest
friends get a hold upon our hearts and then, being enemies to God, they
lead us to do things which we otherwise would never have dreamed of
doing.
The company of the sinner is to the Christian a matter of real loss in
another respect, for when God comes to punish a nation, the Christian
has to suffer with the sinners of that nation. National judgments fall
as well upon the holy as upon the profane, and therefore, through being
mingled with the ungodly of this world, the Christian is a sufferer by
famine, war, or pestilence. Well may he, from the little taste he has
known of their company, cry, "Gather not my soul with sinners."
Why, Brothers and Sisters, I will put you for a moment to the test–you
shall be in the commercial room of an inn–you are on a journey and you
sit down to attend to your own business, or to await the train. Now, if
two or three fast men come into the room and they begin venting their
filth and blasphemy, how do you feel? You do not wish to hear. You wish
you were deaf. One of them cannot speak without larding his
conversation with an oath. There is another, perhaps a man elevated
above the situation which his education fits him to occupy, who, in his
conversation utters the most abominable and atrocious language and the
others laugh at him.
Before many minutes you will steal out of the room, for you cannot
endure it. What must it be to be shut in with such persons forever? On
board a steamboat, it may be, you fall into the middle of a little knot
who are talking on some infidel subject in a manner far from palatable
to you. Have you not wished yourself on shore, and have you not walked
to the other end of the boat to be out of their way? I know you have
felt that kind of thing. Your blood has chilled. Horror has taken hold
upon you because of the wicked who keep not God's Law. If such has been
your experience, you can well understand the reason of the Psalmist's
prayer, for much of such torment you could not bear.
Moreover, I do not know any class of sinners whose company a Christian
would desire. I should not like to live with the most precise of
hypocrites. What ugly company to keep! You cannot trust them
anywhere–always hollow–always ready to deceive and to betray you. I
would not choose to live with formalists, self-righteous people,
because whenever they begin to talk about themselves and their own good
deeds, they do, as it were, throw dirt upon the righteousness of
Christ, which is our boast–and that is ill company for a Christian.
The Believer triumphs in the free Grace of God, the power of the Holy
Spirit, and the efficacy of the blood of Jesus.
But the self-righteous man speaks only of his Church attendance or his
going to Chapel, his fasting, his almsgivings and the like. We cannot
agree with the person who relies on his self-trust. We could almost as
well associate with the profane as we could with the self-righteous. As
for blasphemers, we could not endure them a moment. Would you not as
soon be shut up in a tiger's den as with a cursing, swearing, thievish
profligate? Who can endure the company of either a Voltaire or a
Manning? Find out the miserly, the mean, the sneaking, the
grasping–who likes to be with them?
Who wants to be with the angry, the petulant who never try to check the
unholy passion–one is always glad to be away from such folks. You are
afraid lest you should be held responsible for their mad actions, and
therefore if you must be with them, you are always ill at ease. With no
sort of sinners can the child of God be a fellow. Lambs and wolves,
doves and hawks, devils and angels are not fit companions. And so
through what little trial the righteous have had, they have learned
that there is no sort of sinners that they would like to be shut up
with forever.
But then, we have other reasons. We know that when impenitent sinners
are gathered at the last, their characters will be the same. They were
filthy here, they will be filthy still. Here on earth their sin was in
the bud–in Hell it will be fullblown. If they were bad here, they will
be worse there. Here they were restrained by Providence, by company, by
custom–there, there will be no restraints. Hell will be a world of
sinners at large, a land of outlaws, a place where every man shall
follow out his own heart's most horrible inclinations. Who would wish
to be with them?
Then again, the place where they will be gathered alarms us–the pit of
Hell, the abode of misery and wrath for-ever–who would be gathered
there? Then, their occupation. They spend their time in cursing God–in
inventing and venting fresh blasphemies. They go from bad to
worse–climbing down the awful ladder of detestable depravity. Who
would wish to be with them? Remember too, their sufferings. The pain of
body and of soul they know, when God has cast both body and soul into
Hell. Who would wish to be with them? Remember, too, that they are
banished forever from God and God is our sun, therefore they are in
darkness. God is our life, therefore they are worse than dead. God is
our joy, therefore they are wretched to the extreme.
Why, this would be Hell, if there were no other Hell to a Christian–to
be banished from his God. Moreover, they are denied the joys of
Christ's society. No Savior's love for them, no blissful communion at
His right hand, no living fountains of water to which the Lamb shall
lead them. O my God, when I think of what the sinner is, and where he
is, and how he must be there forever, shut out from You, my soul may
well pray with anguish that prayer, "Gather not my soul with
sinners."–
"You lovely chief of all my joys, You sovereign of my heart! How could
I bear to hear Your voice Pronounce the sound 'Depart'? Oh wretched
state of deep despair, To see my God remove, And fix my doleful station
where I must not taste His love. Jesus, I throw my arms around, And
hang upon Your breast; Without a gracious smile from You My spirit
cannot rest."
III. But I am afraid I weary you and therefore, dear Friends, let me
take you very briefly to the third point. There is in our text A FEAR,
as if a whisper awakened the Psalmist's ear to trembling, "Perhaps,
after all, you may be gathered with the wicked."
Now, that fear, although marred by unbelief, springs, in the main, from
holy anxiety. Do you not think that some of us may well be the subjects
of it? This holy anxiety may well arise if we recollect our past sins.
Before we were converted we lived as others lived. The lusts of the
flesh were ours. We indulged our members. We permitted sin to reign in
our mortal bodies without restraint. And there will be times to the
pardoned man, even though he has faith in Christ, when he will begin to
think–"What if, after all, those sins should be remembered and I
should be left out of the catalogue of the saved?"
Then again he recollects his present backwardness. And as the little
apple on the tree, so sour and unripe, when it sees the crabs gathered,
is half afraid it may be gathered with them, so is he. With so little
Grace, so little love, he is afraid he shall be gathered with the
ungodly. He recollects his own unfruitfulness and as he sees the
woodman going round the orchard, knocking off first this rotten bough,
and then cutting off that other decayed branch, he thinks there is so
little fruit on him that perhaps he may be cut off, too. And so, what
with his past sins, his present backsliding and unfruitful-ness, he is
half afraid he may yet have to suffer the doom of the wicked.
And then, looking forward to the future, he recollects his own weakness
and the many temptations that beset him. And he fears that he may fall,
after all, and become a prey to the enemy. With all these things before
him, I wonder not that the poor plant, set yonder in the garden, is
half afraid that it may be pulled up with the weeds and burned on
yonder blazing fire in the corner of the garden. "Gather not my soul
with sinners."
What man is there among you who has not need, sometimes, to tremble for
himself? If any of you can say you are always confident, it is more
than I can say. I would to God I could always know myself saved and
accepted in Christ, but there are times when a sense of sin within,
present evil, and prevailing corruptions make the preacher feel that he
is in jeopardy and compel him to pray, as he does sometimes now, in
fear and trembling, "O God, gather not my soul with sinners."
IV. And here comes in, to conclude, THE ANSWER TO THIS PRAYER, which is
a word of consolation. Brothers and Sisters, if you have prayed this
prayer, and if your character is rightly described in the Psalm before
us, be not afraid that you ever shall be gathered with sinners. Have
you the two things that David had–the outward walking in integrity and
the inward trusting in the Lord? Do you endeavor to make your outward
conduct and conversation conformable to the example of Christ? Would
you scorn to be dishonest toward men, or to be undevout toward God? At
the same time, are you resting upon Jesus Christ's sacrifice, and can
you compass the altar of God with humble hope? If so, then rest assured
with the wicked you never shall be gathered, for there are one or two
things which render that calamity impossible.
The first is this, that the rule of the gathering is like to like.
"Gather you together first the tares and bind them in bundles to burn
them"–all the tares together–"but gather the wheat into My barn." It
is not, "Make a mixture of them. Throw them together in a heap–put the
corn and the tares in My garner." Oh, no–"Tares in bundles. Wheat in
sheaves." If then, you are like God's people, you shall be with God's
people. If you have their life within, their character without. If you
rest on their Savior. If you love their God. If you have a longing
towards their holiness, you shall be gathered with them–like to like.
There is another rule–those who have been our proper comrades here are
to be our companions hereafter. God will be pleased to send us where we
wish to go in this life. That is to say, if in this life I have loved
the haunt of the sinner. If I have made the theater my sanctuary. If I
have made the drinking house my abode of pleasure and have found my
solace with the gambler, and my comfort with the debauched. If I have
lived merely for business and for this world, and never for the next,
then I shall go with my companions. I shall be sent where I used to
go–being let go, I shall go to my own company among the lost.
But on the other hand, if I have loved God's House. If I can say with
the Psalmist, "I have loved the habitation of Your House and the place
where Your honor dwells." If the excellent of the earth have been my
companions, and the chosen of God have been my Brothers and Sisters, I
shall not be separated from them. I shall have the same company in
Heaven that I have had on earth. If I have walked with God here, I
shall reign with God there. If I have suffered with
Christ here, I shall reign with Christ hereafter. That is another thing
which prevents your being gathered with the wicked.
Again, you cannot be gathered with the wicked, for you are too dearly
bought. Christ bought you with His blood and He will not cast you into
the fire. It is a doctrine we never can hold, that Christ redeemed with
His precious blood any that are damned in Hell. We cannot conceive it
possible that Christ should have stood their Sponsor in suffering and
yet they should be punished, too. That He should pay the debt and then
they should have to pay it also.
And again, you are loved too much. God the Eternal Father has loved you
long and well, and proved that to you by His great gift and by His
daily consideration and care of you. And it is not, therefore, possible
that He should permit you, the darling of His heart, the child of His
desire, a member of the mystical body of His only Beloved Son, to
perish forever in Tophet.
Again that new nature within you will not let you be gathered with
sinners. What does your new nature do–what must it do? It must love
God. What? Love God and be in Hell? Your new nature must pray. What?
Pray in the pit? Your new nature must praise the God that created it.
What? Sing songs to the Divine Being amidst the howling of the damned?
Impossible! If you have a new heart and a right spirit. If your soul
clings with both its hands to the Cross of Christ. If you love Jesus
and long to be like He is, you may have this fear, but it is a
groundless one–for you shall never be gathered with sinners! Your feet
shall stand in the congregation of the righteous in the day when the
wicked are cast away forever.
I had hoped, this morning, so to have handled my text that perhaps God
might bless it to the sinner–and who can tell it may be so? Sinner, if
it is a dreadful thing to be gathered with you, what a frightful thing
your gathering must be! My dear careless and thoughtless Hearer, this
morning I have no burning words with which to awake you. I have no
earnest tones with which to startle you. But still, from my soul I do
entreat you consider that if it is a subject of horror to us to dwell
with you forever, it must be an awful thing to be a sinner. And will
you be a sinner any longer? Will you abide where you now are?
Alas, you cannot save yourself. You are hopelessly ruined–you have
lost all power as well as all virtue. You are as a dead thing, as a
potter's vessel that is broken to shivers with a rod of iron. But there
is one who can save you, even Jesus. And His saving voice to you this
morning is, "Believe in Me and you shall be saved." To believe in Him
is to believe that He can save you, and therefore to trust Him. Do you
not believe that of Him who is God? Can you not believe that of Him
whose ways are not as your ways, whose Grace is boundless, and whose
love is free! Will you now believe that Christ can save you and that He
will save you?–and will you now trust yourself to Him to save you?
Say in your heart, "Here, Lord, I give my soul up to You to save it. I
believe You will and You can. Your nature and Your name are love, and I
trust Your name. I believe in Your goodness. I repose in You." Sinner,
you are saved! God has saved you. No soul ever so believed in Christ
and yet was left unpardoned. Go your way. Be of good cheer, "Your sins
which are many, are all forgiven you." Rejoice in Him evermore, for you
shall never be gathered with sinners. May God give His blessing to you
now, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.