The Warning Neglected
A Sermon
(No. 165)
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, November 29, 1857, by the
REV. C.H. SPURGEON
at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.
"He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning; his blood
shall be upon him."–Ezekiel 33:5.
IN ALL WORLDLY THINGS, men are always enough awake to understand their
own interests. There is scarce a merchant who reads the paper, who does
not read it in some way or other, with a view to his own personal
concerns. If he finds that by the rise or fall of the markets, he will
be either a gainer or loser, that part of the day's news will be the
most important to him. In politics, in everything, in fact, that
concerns temporal affairs, personal interest usually leads the van. Men
will always be looking out for themselves, and personal and home
interests will generally engross the major part of their thoughts. But
in religion, it is otherwise. In religion men love far rather to
believe abstract doctrines, and to talk of general truths, than the
searching inquiries which examine their own personal interest in it.
You will hear many men admire the preacher who deals in generalities,
but when he comes to press home searching questions, by-and-by they are
offended. If we stand and declare general facts, such as the universal
sinnership of mankind, or the need of a Saviour, they will give an
assent to our doctrine, and possibly they may retire greatly delighted
with the discourse, because it has not affected them; but how often
will our audience gnash their teeth, and go away in a rage, because,
like the Pharisees with Jesus, they perceive, concerning a faithful
minister, that he spoke of them. And yet, my brethren, how foolish this
is. If in all other matters we like personalities–if in everything
else we look to our own concerns, how much more should we do so in
religion? for, surely, every man must give an account for himself, at
the day of judgment. We must die alone; we must rise at the day of
resurrection one by one, and each one for himself must appear before
the bar of God; and each one must either have said to him, as an
individual, "Come ye blessed;" or else, he must be appalled with the
thundering sentence, "Depart, ye cursed." If there were such a thing as
national salvation; if it could be possible that we could be saved in
the gross and in the bulk, that so, like the sheaves of corn, the few
weeds that may grow with the stubble, would be gathered in for the sake
of the wheat, then, indeed, it might not be so foolish for us to
neglect our own personal interests; but if the sheep must, every one of
them, pass under the hand of him that telleth them, if every man must
stand in his own person before God, to be tried for his own acts–by
everything that is rational, by everything that conscience would
dictate, and self-interest would command, let us each of us look to our
own selves, that we be not deceived, and that we find not ourselves, at
last, miserably cast away.
Now, this morning, by God's help, I shall labor to be personal, and
whilst I pray for the rich assistance of the Divine Spirit, I will also
ask one thing of each person here present–I would ask of every
Christian that he would lift up a prayer to God, that the service may
be blessed; and I ask of every other person that he will please to
understand that I am preaching to him, and at him; and if there be
anything that is personal and pertinent to his own case, I beseech him,
as for life and death, to let it have its full weight with him, and not
begin to think of his neighbor, to whom perhaps it may be even more
pertinent, but whose business certainly does not concern him.
The text is a solemn one–"He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took
not warning: his blood shall be upon him." The first head is this–the
warning was all that could be desired–"he heard the sound of the
trumpet." Secondly, the excuses for not attending to the startling
warning are all of them both frivolous and wicked: and therefore, in
the third place, the consequences of inattention must be terrible,
because man's blood must then be on his own head.
I. First, then, THE WARNING WAS ALL THAT COULD BE DESIRED. When in time
of war an army is attacked in the night, and cut off and destroyed
whilst asleep, if it were impossible for them to be aware of the
attack, and if they had made all diligence in placing their sentinels,
but nevertheless the foe were so wary as to destroy them, we should
weep; we should attach no blame to any one, but should deeply regret,
and should give to that host our fullest pity. But if, on the other
hand, they had posted their sentinels, and the sentinels were wide
awake, and gave to the sleepy soldiers every warning that could be
desired, but nevertheless, the army were cut off, although we might for
common humanity regret the loss thereof, yet at the same time we should
be obliged to say, if they were foolish enough to sleep when the
sentinels had warned them; if they folded their arms in presumptuous
sloth, after they had sufficient and timely notice of the progress of
their blood-thirsty enemy, then in their dying, we cannot pity them:
their blood must rest upon their own heads. So, it is with you. If men
perish under an unfaithful ministry, and have not been sufficiently
warned to escape from the wrath to come, the Christian may pity them,
yea, and methinks, even when they stand before the bar of God, although
the fact of their not having been warned will not fully excuse them,
yet it will go far to diminish their eternal miseries, which otherwise
might have fallen upon their heads; for we know it is more tolerable
for unwarned Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment, than it is for any
city, or any nation that has had the Gospel proclaimed in its ears. My
brethren, if on the other hand, we have been warned, if our ministers
have been faithful, if they have aroused our conscience, and have
constantly and earnestly called our attention to the fact of the wrath
to come, if we have not attended to their message, if we have despised
the voice of God, if we have turned a deaf ear to their earnest
exhortation, if we perish, we shall die warned–die under the sound of
the Gospel, and our damnation must be an unpitied one, for our blood
must fall upon out own heads. Permit me then, to try, if I can, to
enlarge upon this thought, that the warning has been, in the case of
many of you, all that could have been needed.
In the first place, the warnings of the ministry have been to most of
you warnings that have been heard–"He heard the sound of the trumpet."
In far off lands, the trumpet sound of warning is not heard. Alas!
there are myriads of our fellow-creatures who have never been warned by
God's embassadors, who know not that wrath abideth on them, and who do
not yet understand the only way and method of salvation. In your case
it is very different. You have heard the Word of God preached to you.
You cannot say, when you come before God, "Lord, I knew no better."
There is not a man or a woman within this place who will dare then to
plead ignorance. And moreover, you have not only heard with your ears,
but some of you have been obliged to hear it in your consciences. I
have before me many of my hearers whom I have had the pleasure of
seeing now for some years. It has not been once, or twice, but many a
time, I have seen the tear guttering their cheeks when I have spoken
earnestly, faithfully, and affectionately to you. I have seen your
whole soul moved within you; and yet, to my sorrow, you are now what
you were: your goodness has been as the early cloud, and as the morning
dew that passeth away. You have heard the Gospel. You wept under it,
and you loved the sound of it, and you came again, and wept again, and
many marveled that you did weep, but the greatest marvel was, that
after having wept so well, you wiped away your tears so easily. Oh,
yes, God is my witness, there are some of you not an inch nearer
heaven, but ye have sealed your own damnation doubly sure, unless ye
repent: for ye have heard the Gospel, ye have despised prophesyings, ye
have rejected the counsel of God against yourself; and, therefore, when
you shall die, ye must die pitied by your friends, but at the same time
with your blood on your own heads.
The trumpet was not only heard, but, more than that, its warning was
understood. When the man, supposed in the text, heard the trumpet, he
understood by it that the enemy was at hand, and yet he took not
warning. Now, my brethren, in your case, the sound of the Gospel
warning has been understood. A thousand faults your minister may have,
but there is one fault from which he is entirely frees and that is, he
in free from all attempts to use fine language in the expression of his
thoughts; ye are all my witnesses, that if there be a Saxon word, or a
homely phrase, a sentence that is rough and market-like, that will tell
you the truth, I always use that first. I can say solemnly, as in the
sight of God, that I never went out of my pulpit, except with the firm
belief, that whatever might have happened, I was perfectly understood.
I had sought, at least, so to gather wise words, that no man might
mistake my meaning; gnash his teeth he might, but he could not say,
"The preacher was misty and cloudy, talking to me of metaphysics,
beyond my comprehension; he has been obliged to say, "Well, I know what
he meant, he spoke plainly enough to me." Well, sirs, then if it be so,
and if ye have heard warnings that ye could understand, so much the
more guilty are ye, if ye are living this day in rejection of them. If
I have preached to you in a style above comprehension, then on my head
must be your blood, because I ought to have made you understand; but if
I come down to men of low estate, and pick even vulgar phrases to suit
common people, then if you understood the warning, and if ye then
risked it, mark you, my hands are clean of your blood. If ye be damned,
I am innocent of your damnation, for I have told you plainly, that
except ye repent, ye must perish, and that except ye put your trust in
the Lord Jesus Christ, there is for you no hope of salvation.
Again, this trumpet sound was startling. The trumpet's sound is ever
considered to be the most startling in the world. Tis that which shall
be used on the resurrection morning to startle the myriads of sleepers,
and make them rise from their tombs. Ay, and ye have had a startling
ministry. Ye have sat, some of you, under ministers that might have
made the devil himself tremble, so earnest have they been; and they
have made you tremble sometimes, so much, that you could not sleep. The
hair of your head was well nigh moved to stand upright. They spake as
though they never might speak again: as dying men to dying men. They
spoke as if they had been in hell, and knew the vengeance of the
Almighty, and anon, they spoke as if they had entered into the heart of
Jesus, and read his love to sinners. They had brows of brass; they knew
not how to flinch. They laid your iniquity bare before your face, and
with rough language that was unmistakable, they made you feel that
there was a man there who told you all things that ever you did. They
so declared it, that you could not help feeling under it. You always
retained a veneration for that minister, because you felt that he at
least was honest with you; and you have sometimes thought that you
would even go and hear him again, because there at least your soul was
moved, and you were made to hear the truth. Yes, you have had a
startling ministry, some of you. Then, sirs, if ye have heard the cry
of fire, if ye are burned in your beds, your charred ashes shall not
accuse me. If I have warned you that he that believeth not must be
damned, if you are damned, your miserable souls shall not accuse me. If
I have startled you sometimes from your slumbers, and made your balls
and your pleasure parties uneasy, because I have sometimes warned you
of these things, then sirs, if after all you put away these warnings,
and you reject these counsels, you will be obliged to say, "My blood is
on my own head."
In many of your cases the warning has been very frequent. If the man
heard the trumpet sound once and did not regard it, possibly we might
excuse him; but how many of my audience have heard the trumpet sound of
the gospel very frequently. There you are, young man. You have had many
years of a pious mother's teaching, many years of a pious minister's
exhortations. Wagon loads of sermons have been exhausted upon you. You
have had many sharp providences, many terrible sicknesses. Often when
the death-bell has tolled for your friend, your conscience has been
aroused. To you warnings are not unusual things; they are very common.
Oh! my hearers, if a man should hear the gospel but once, his blood
would be upon his own head for rejecting it; but of how much sorer
punishment shall you be thought worthy who have heard it many and many
a time. Ah! I may well creep, when I think how many sermons you have
listened to, many of you, how many times you have been cut to the
heart. A hundred times every year you have gone up to the house of God,
and far oftener than that, and you have just added a hundred billets to
the eternal pile. A hundred times the trumpet has sounded in your ears,
and a hundred times you have turned away to sin again, to despise
Christ, to neglect your eternal interests, and to pursue the pleasures
and the concerns of this world. Oh! how mad is this, how mad! Oh, sirs,
if a man had but once poured out his heart before you concerning your
eternal interests, and if he had spoken to you earnestly, and you had
rejected his message, then, even then, ye had been guilty. But what
shall we say to you upon whom the shafts of the Almighty have been
exhausted? Oh, what shall be done unto this barren ground that hath
been watered with shower after shower, and that hath been quickened
with sunshine after sunshine? What shall be done unto him who being
often rebuked, still hardeneth his neck? Shall he not be suddenly
destroyed, and that without remedy, and shall it not then be said, "His
blood lieth at his own door, his guilt is on his own head?"
And I would just have you recollect one thing more. This warning that
you have had so often has come to you in time. "Ah," said an infidel
once, "God never regards man. If there be a God, he would never take
notice of men." Said a Christian minister, who was sitting opposite to
him in the carriage, "The day may come, sir, when you will learn the
truth of what you have just said. "I do not understand your allusion,
sir," said he. "Well, sir, the day may come, when you may call, and he
will refuse; when you may stretch out your hands and he will not regard
you, but as he has said in the book of Proverbs, so will he do, Because
I called, and ye refused; because I stretched out my hands, and no man
regarded, I also will mock at your calamity, I will laugh when your
fear cometh.'" But oh, sirs, your warning has not come too late. You
are not warned on a sick bed, at the eleventh hour, when there is but a
bare possibility of salvation, but you are warned in time, you are
warned to-day, you have been warned for these many years that are now
past. If God should send a preacher to the damned in hell, that were an
unnecessary addition to their misery. Surely, if one could go and
preach the gospel through the fields of Gehenna, and tell them of a
Saviour they had despised, and of a gospel that is now beyond their
reach, that were taunting poor souls with a vain attempt to increase
their unutterable woe; but O my brethren, to preach the gospel now is
to preach in a hopeful period; for "now is the accepted time: now is
the day of salvation." Warn the boatman before he enters the current,
and then, if he is swept down the rapids, he destroys himself. Warn the
man before he drinks the cup of poison, tell him it is deadly: and
then, if he drinks it, his death lies at his own door. And so, let us
warn you before you depart this life; let us preach to you while as yet
your bones are full of marrow, and the sinews of your joints are not
loosed. We have then warned you in time, and so much the more shall
your guilt be increased, because the warning was timely; it was
frequent, it was earnest, it was appropriate, it was arousing, it was
continually given to you, and yet you sought not to escape from the
wrath to come.
And so even this morning would I say to you, if ye perish, my skirts
are white of your blood; if ye are damned, it is not for want of
calling after, nor for want of praying for, nor for want of weeping
over. Your blood must be on your own heads; for the warning is all that
is needed.
II. And now we come to the second point. MEN MAKE EXCUSES WHY THEY DO
NOT ATTEND TO THE GOSPEL WARNING, BUT THESE EXCUSES ARE ALL FRIVOLOUS
AND WICKED. I will just go over one or two of the excuses that people
make. Some of them say, "Well, I did not attend to the warning because
I did not believe there was any necessity for it." Ah! You were told
that after death there was a judgment, and you did not believe there
was any necessity that you should be prepared for that judgment. You
were told that by the works of the law there shall no flesh living be
justified, and that only through Christ can sinners be saved; and you
did not think there was any necessity for Christ. Well, sir, you ought
to have thought there was a necessity. You know there was a necessity
in your inner consciousness. You talked very large things when you
stood up as an unbeliever, a professed unbeliever: but you know there
was a still small voice that while you spake belied your tongue. You
are well aware that in the silent watches of the night you have often
trembled; in a storm at sea you have been on your knees to pray to a
God whom on the land you have laughed at; and when you have been sick
nigh unto death, you have said, "Lord, have mercy upon me;" and so you
have prayed, that you have believed it after all. But if you did not
believe it, you ought to have believed it. There was enough in reason
to have taught you that there was an hereafter; the Book of God's
revelation was plain enough to have taught it to you, and if you have
rejected God's Book, and rejected the voice of reason and of
conscience, your blood is on your own head. Your excuse is idle. It is
worse than that, it is profane and wicked, and still on your own head
be your everlasting torment.
"But," cries another, "I did not like the trumpet. I did not like the
Gospel that was preached." Says one, "I did not like certain doctrines
in the Bible. I thought the minister preached too harsh doctrines
sometimes, I did not agree with the Gospel; I thought the Gospel ought
to have been altered, and not to have been just what it was." You did
not like the trumpet, did you? Well, but God made the trumpet, God made
the Gospel; and inasmuch as ye did not like what God made, it is an
idle excuse. What was that to you what the trumpet was, so long as it
warned you? And surely, if it had been time of war, and you had heard a
trumpet sounded to warn you of the coming of the enemy, you would not
have sat still, and said, "now I believe that is a brass trumpet, I
would like to have had it made of silver." No, but the sound would have
been enough for you, and up you would have been to escape from the
danger. And so it must be now with you. It is an idle presence that you
did not like it. You ought to have liked it, for God made the Gospel
what it is.
But you say, "I did not like the man that blew it." Well, if you did
not like one messenger of God, there are many in this city. Could you
not find one you did like? You did not like one man's manner; it was
too theatrical; you did not like another's: it was too doctrinal; you
did not like another's: it was too practical–there are plenty of them,
you may take which you do like, but if God has sent the men, and told
them how to blow, and if they blow to the best of their ability, it is
all in vain for you to reject their warnings, because they do not blow
the way you like. Ah, my brethren, we do not find fault with the way a
man speaks, if we are in a house that is on fire. If the man calls,
"Fire! Fire!" we are not particular what note he takes, we do not think
what a harsh voice he has got. You would think any one a fool, who
should lie in his bed, to be burned, because he said he did not like
the way the man cried, "Fire." Why his business was to have been out of
bed and down the stairs at once, as soon as he heard it.
But another says, "I did not like the man himself; I did not like the
minister; I did not like the man that blew the trumpet; I could hear
him preach very well, but I had a personal dislike to him, and so I did
not take any notice of what the trumpet said." Verily, God will say to
thee at last, "Thou fool, what hadst thou to do with that man; to his
own master he stands or falls; thy business was with thyself." What
would you think of a man? A man has fallen overboard from a ship, and
when he is drowning, some sailor throws him a rope, and there it is.
Well, he says, in the first place, "I do not like that rope; I don't
think that rope was made at the best manufactory; there is some tar on
it too, I do not like it; and in the next place, I do not like that
sailor that threw the rope over, I am sure he is not a kind-hearted
man, I do not like the look of him at all;" and then comes a gurgle and
a groan, and down he is in the bottom of the sea; and when he was
drowned, they said, that it served him right, if he would not lay hold
of the rope, but would be making such foolish and absurd objections,
when it was a matter of life and death. Then on his own head be his
blood. And so shall it be with you at last. You are so busy with
criticising the minister, and his style, and his doctrine, that your
own soul perishes. Remember you may get into hell by criticism, but you
will never criticise your soul out of it. You may there make the most
you can of. it. You may be there and say, "I did not like the minister,
I did not like his manner, I did not like his matter;" but all your
dislikings will not get one drop of water to cool your burning tongue,
nor serve to mitigate the unalleviated torments of that world of agony.
There are many other people who say, "Ah, well, I did none of those
things, but I had a notion that the trumpet sound ought to be blown to
everybody else, but not to me." Ah! that is a very common notion. "All
men think all men mortal, but themselves," said a good poet; and all
men think all men need the Gospel, but not themselves. Let each of us
recollect that the Gospel has a message to each one of us. What saith
the Gospel to thee my hearer ? What saith the Word to thee? Forget thy
neighbors, and ask this question. Doth it condemn thee? or doth it
assure thee of thy pardon? for recollect, all thou hast to do in the
hearing of the Word, is to hear with thine own ears for thine own soul,
and it will be idle for any one to say "I did not think it applied to
me," when we know that it is to be preached to every creature under
heaven, and therefore there must be something in it for every creature
or else it would not be preached to every creature.
Well, says another, "But I was so busy, I had so much to do, that I
could not possibly attend to my soul's concerns. What will you say of
the man who had so much to do that he could not get out of the burning
house, but was burnt to ashes? What will you say of the man that had so
much to do, that when he was dying, he had not time to send for a
physician? Why, you will say, then he ought not to have so much to do.
And if any man in the world has a business which causes him to lose his
own soul for want of time, let him lay this question to his heart,
"What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his
own soul?" But it is false–it is false–men have got time. It is the
want of will, not want of way. You have time, sir, have you not,
despite all your business, to spend in pleasure? You have time to read
your newspaper–have you no time to read your Bible? You have time to
sing a song–have you no time to pray a prayer? Why, you know when
farmer Brown met farmer Smith in the market one day, he said to him,
"Farmer Smith, I can't think how it is you find time for hunting. Why,
man, what with sowing and mowing and reaping and plowing, and all that,
my time is so fully occupied on my farm, and I have no time for
hunting." "Ah," said he, "Brown, if you liked hunting as much as I do,
if you could not find time, you'd make it." And so it is with religion,
the reason why men can not find time for it is, because they do not
like it well enough. If they liked it, they would find time. And
besides, what time does it want? What time does it require? Can I not
pray to God over my ledger? Can I not snatch a text at my very
breakfast, and think over it all day? May I not even when I am busy in
the affairs of the world, be thinking of my soul, and casting myself
upon a Redeemer's blood and atonement? It wants no time. There may be
some time required; some time for my private devotions, and for
communion with Christ, but when I grow in grace, I shall think it right
to have more and more time, the more I can possibly get, the happier I
shall be, and I shall never make the excuse that I have no time.
"Well," says another, "but I thought I had time enough, you do not want
me, sir, to be religious in my youth, do you? I am a lad, and may I not
have a little frolic and sow my wild oats as well as anybody else?"
Well–yes, yes; but at the same time the best place for pleasure that I
know of, is where a Christian lives; the finest happiness in all the
world is the happiness of a child of God. You may have your
pleasures–oh, yes! you shall have them doubled and trebled, if you are
a Christian. You shall not have things that worldlings call pleasures,
but you shall have some that are a thousand times better. But only look
at that sorrowful picture. There, far away in the dark gulf of woe,
lies a young man, and he cries, "Ah! I meant to have repented when I
was out of my apprenticeship, and I died before my time was up." "Ah!"
says another by his side, "and I thought, whilst I was a journeyman,
that when I came to be a master, I would then think of the things of
Christ, but I died before I had got money enough to start for myself."
And then a merchant behind wails with bitter woe, and says, "Ah! I
thought I would be religious when I had got enough to retire on, and
live in the country; then I should have time to think of God, when I
had got all my children married out, and my concerns settled about me,
but here I am shut up in hell; and now what are all my delays worth,
and what is all the time I gained for all the paltry pleasures in the
world? Now I have lost my soul over them." We experience great vexation
if we are unpunctual in many places; but we can not conceive what must
be the horror and dismay of men who find themselves too late in the
next world! Ah! friends, if I knew there was one here who said, "I
shall repent next Wednesday," I would have him feel in a dreadful state
till that Wednesday came; for what if he should die? Oh! what if he
should die? Would his promise of a Wednesday's repentance save him from
a Tuesday damnation?
Ah, these are all idle excuses. Men make not such when their bodily
life is concerned. Would God that we were wise, that we would not make
such pitiful pretences to apology, when our soul, our own soul, is the
matter at stake. If they take not warning, whatever their excuse, their
blood must be upon their own head.
III. And now, I come most solemnly to conclude with all the power of
earnestness; the warning has been sufficient, the excuse for not
attending to it has been proved profane; then the last thought is "HIS
BLOOD SHALL BE ON HIS OWN HEAD." Briefly thus–he shall perish; he
shall perish certainly; he shall perish inexcusably. He shall perish.
And what does that mean? There is no human mind, however capacious,
that can ever guess the thought of a soul eternally cast away from God.
The wrath to come is as inexpressible as the glory that shall be
revealed hereafter. Our Saviour labored for words with which to express
the horrors of a future state of the ungodly. You remember he talked of
worms that die not, and fires that are never quenched, of a pit without
a bottom, of weeping, and wailing and gnashing of teeth in the outer
darkness.
No preacher was ever so loving as Christ, but no man ever spoke so
horribly about hell; and yet even when the Saviour had said his best
and said his worst, he had not told us what are the horrors of a future
state. Ye have seen sicknesses, ye have heard the shrieks of men and
women when their pangs have been upon them. We, at least, have stood by
the bed-sides even of some dear to us, and we have seen to what an
extent agony may be carried in the human body, but none of us know how
much the body is capable of suffering. Certainly the body will have to
suffer forever–"He is able to cast both body and soul into hell." We
have heard of exquisite torments, but we have never dreamt of any like
unto this. Again, we have seen something of the miseries of the soul.
Have we never marked the man that we used to know in our childhood who
was depressed in spirits. All that ever could be done for him never
could evoke a smile from him–never did the light of cheerfulness light
up his eye–he was mournfully depressed. Ay, and it was my unhappy lot
to live with one who was not only depressed in spirits, but whose mind
had gone so far amiss, that it did brood fancies so mournful and
dismal, that the very sight of him was enough to turn the sunlight of
summer into the very darkness of a dreary winter. He had nothing to say
but dark, groaning words. His thoughts always had a sombre appearance
about them. It was midnight in his soul–a darkness that might be felt.
Have you never seen yourselves what power the mind has over us to make
us full of misery? Ah, brethren and sisters, if ye could go to many of
our asylums, and to our sick wards–ay, and dying beds, too, you may
know what acute anguish the mind may feel. And remember that the mind,
as well as the mortal frame, is to endure damnation. Yes, we must not
shirk that word, the Scripture saith it, and we must use it. Oh! men
and women, except we repent, except we do each of us cry for mercy to
him that is able to save, we must perish. All that is meant by that
word "hell" must be realized in me, except I be a believer; and so all
that is meant by "Depart, ye cursed," must be thine, unless thou dost
turn unto God with full purpose of heart.
But again, he that turneth not at the rebuke of the minister shall die,
and he shall die certainly. This is not a matter of perhaps or chance.
The things we preach, and that are taught in Scripture, are matters of
solemn certainty. It may be that death is that bourne from which no
traveller returns, but it is not true that we know nothing of it. It is
as certain as that there are men, and a world in which they live, that
there is another world to come, and that if they die impenitent, that
world will be to them one of misery. And mark you–there is no chance
of escape, die without Christ, and there is no gate out of which you
can escape–forever, oh, forever lost, and not one hope of mercy–cast
away, and not one outlet for escape, not one solitary chance of ransom.
Oh, if there were hope that in the world to come, men might escape, we
need not be so earnest; but since once lost, lost for aye–once cast
away, cast away without hope, without any prospect of a hope, we must
be earnest. Oh, my God, when I remember that I have to-day some here
present who in all probability must be dead before next Sabbath, I must
be earnest. Out of so large an assembly, the chances are that we shall
not all of us be found pilgrims in this world within another seven
days. It is not only possible, but probable, that some one out of this
vast audience will have been launched upon a world unknown. Shall it be
myself, and shall I sail to the port of bliss, or must I sail over
fiery waves forever, lost, shipwrecked, stranded, on the rocks of woe?
Soul, which shall it be with thee? It may be thou shalt die, my
gray-headed hearer, or thou young lad, thou boy, thou mayest die–I
know not which, nor can we tell–God only knoweth. Then let each one
ask himself–Am I prepared, should I be called to die? Yes, you may die
where you are, on the benches where you are sitting–you may now
die–and whither would you go? for recollect that whither ye go, ye go
forever. Oh! eternity–eternity–eternity–must I climb thy topless
steeps forever, and never reach the summit, and must my path be ever
misery or joy. Oh! eternity, thou depth without a bottom, thou sea
without a shore, must I sail over thy boundless waves forever in one
undeviating track–and must I either plough through seas of bliss, or
else be driven by the stormy winds of vengeance, over gulfs of misery?
"Then what am I?" "My soul awake and an impartial survey take." Am I
prepared? Am I prepared? Am I prepared? For, prepared or not, death
admits of no delay, and if he is at my door, he will take me where I
must go forever, prepared or not.
Now, the last thing is, the sinner will perish–he will perish
certainly, but, last of all, he will perish without excuse–his blood
shall be on his own head. When a man is bankrupt, if he can say, "It is
not through reckless trading–it has been entirely through the
dishonesty of one I trusted that I am what I am;" he takes some
consolation, and he says, "I can not help it." But oh, my hearers, if
you make bankrupts of your own souls, after you have been warned, then
your own eternal bankruptcy shall lie at your own door. Should never so
great a misfortune come upon us, if we can trace it to the providence
of God, we bear it cheerfully; but if we have inflicted it upon
ourselves, then how fearful is it! And let every man remember that if
he perish after having heard the Gospel, he will be his own murderer.
Sinner, thou wilt drive the dagger into thine heart thyself. If thou
despisest the Gospel, thou art preparing fuel for thine own bed of
flames, thou art hammering out the chain for thine own everlasting
binding; and when damned, thy mournful reflection will be this:–I have
damned myself, I cast myself into this pit; for I rejected the Gospel;
I despised the message; I trod under foot the Son of Man; I would have
none of his rebukes; I despised his Sabbaths; I would not hearken to
his exhortations, and now I perish by mine own hand, the miserable
suicide of my own soul."
And now a sweet reflection strikes me. A good writer says, "There are,
doubtless, spots in the world that would be barren forever, if we
recollected what had happened there." Says he, "I was once in St.
Paul's cathedral, just under the dome, and a friend just touched me
gently and said, Do you see that little chisel mark? and I said Yes.'
He said, That is where a man threw himself down, and there he fell, and
was dashed to atoms.'" The writer says, "We all started aside from that
little spot, where a fellow-creature's blood had been shed. It seemed
an awful place when we remembered that." Now, there is many a street,
there is many a way-side, there is many a house of God, where men have
taken the last decision, and damned their own souls. I doubt not, there
are some here this morning, standing or sitting, to whom the voice of
conscience says, "Decide for God," and now Satan and the evil heart
together are saying, "Reject the message; laugh it off; forget it: take
a ticket for the theater to-morrow: do not let this man alarm us: it is
his very profession to talk to us like this; let us go away, and laugh
it off; and let us spend the rest of this day in merriment." Yes, that
is the last warning thou wilt ever have. It is so with some of you.
There are some of you that will this hour decide to damn yourselves,
and you will look forever throughout eternity, to that place under the
gallery, and you will say, "Alas! woe was the day I heard that man, I
was half impressed–almost he persuaded me to be a Christian, but I
decided for hell." And that will be a solemn spot to angels where you
are standing, or where you are sitting, for angels will say to one
another, "Stand aside; that is a spot where a man ruined his own soul
for ever and ever. But the sweet thought is, that there are some places
just the reverse.
Why, you are sitting, my friend, this morning, on a spot where some
three weeks ago one sat who was converted to God; and that place where
you are sitting you ought to venerate, for in that place there sat one
who was one of the chiefest of sinners like yourself, and there the
Gospel message met him. And far back there, behind the door, many a
soul has been brought to Christ. Many a piece of good news have I heard
from some in yonder upper gallery. "I could not see your face, sir, all
the sermon through, but the arrow of the Lord found its way round the
corner, and reached my heart notwithstanding that, and I was saved."
Ah, well, may God so bless this place, that every seat of it this day
may be solemnized by his own grace, and a spot to be remembered in your
future history by reason of the beginning of your blessedness, the dawn
of your salvation. "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and be baptized, and
thou shalt be saved." This is the gospel we are told to preach to every
creature–"He that believeth, and is immersed, shall be saved, he that
believeth not shall be damned."
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