The Voice Of Cholera

The Voice Of Cholera

DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, AUGUST 12, 1866,

BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"Can two walk together, except they are agreed? Will a lion roar in the
forest, when he has no prey? Will a young lion cry out of his den, if
he has caught nothing? Will a bird fall in a snare on the earth, where
there is no trap for it? Will a snare spring up from the earth, if it
has caught nothing at all? If a trumpet is blown in a city, will not
the people be afraid? If there is evil in a city, will not the Lord
have done it." Amos 3:3-6.

WE have all felt grieved when reading our bills of mortality to observe
the mysterious spread of cholera in our great city. It is high time
that it should be made the subject of special prayer, and that the
nation should seek unto the Lord for its removal. While as yet there
has been but comparatively little of the evil, we should be humbled
under it, that we may be spared a greater outbreak. There are different
ways of looking at this disease. Men viewing it from one point of view
have frequently despised those who have regarded it under another
aspect.

Occasionally Christian men indignantly express themselves concerning
those who speak of cholera as the product of ascertained and governable
causes to be checked and even prevented by due attention to the laws of
health. I have never shared in that indignation. It seems to me that
this disease is, to a great extent, in our own hands and that if all
men would take scrupulous care as to cleanliness, and if better
dwellings were provided for the poor, and if overcrowding were
effectually prevented, and if the water supply could be larger, and
other sanitary improvements could be carried out, the disease, most
probably, would not occur. Or, if it did visit us occasionally, as the
result of filth in other countries, it would be in a very mitigated
form.

I am thankful that there are many men of intelligence and scientific
information who can speak well upon this point, and I hope they will
never cease to speak until all men learn that the laws of cleanliness
and health are as binding upon us as those of morality. So far from a
Christian man being angry with those who instruct the people in useful
secular knowledge, he ought rather to be thankful for them and hope
that their teaching may be powerful with the masses. The Gospel has no
quarrel with ventilation, and the Doctrines of Grace have no dispute
with chloride of lime! We preach repentance and faith, but we do not
denounce whitewash–and as much as we advocate holiness, we always have
a good word for cleanliness and sobriety.

We would promote with all our hearts that which may honor God, but we
cannot neglect that which may bless our neighbors whom we desire to
love even as ourselves. On the other hand, it is even more common for
those who look to natural causes alone to sneer at Believers who view
the disease as a mysterious scourge from the hand of God. It is
admitted that it would be most foolish to neglect the appointed means
of averting sickness–but sneer who may, we believe it to be equally an
act of folly to forget that the hand of the Lord is in all this. The
singular manner in which this disease seizes frequently upon unlikely
persons and turns aside from its expected path should show us that
there is an unseen hand which directs its gloomy circuit.

Let the wise man work below, but fix his hope above. Let him cleanse
and purge away the hotbeds of death, but let him look up to the Lord
and Giver of Life for success in all his doings. It is not my business
this morning to describe the sanitary aspect of the subject. This is
not the day nor the place, but I shall claim a full liberty to enter
into the theological view of it, and if that should happen to excite
the contempt of the practical man, we shall be more grieved for his
narrowness of mind than for his contempt of us! We do not despise him,
but wish him God speed in his reforms, and he should not despise us,
but recognize in us his true allies.

We believe that God sends all pestilences, let them come how they
may–and that He sends them with a purpose, let them be removed in
whatever way they may. And we conceive that it is our business as
ministers of God to call the people's attention to God in the disease
and teach them the lesson which God would have them learn. I am not
among those, as you know, who believe that every affliction is a
judgment upon the particular person to whom it occurs. We perceive that
in this world the best of men often endure the most of suffering and
that the worst of men frequently escape. And therefore we do not
believe in judgments to particular persons except in extraordinary
cases. But we do, nevertheless, very firmly believe that there are
national judgments, and that national sins provoke national
chastisements.

As to individuals, their punishment or reward is reserved for the next
state–but nations will not exist in the next world–there is no such
thing as a judgment of nations, as such, at the Last Great Day. That
will be the judgment of individuals one by one. The trial and
punishment of nations takes place in this state, and it is here that we
are to look for the judgment of God upon national sin.

Upon the present visitation as a national chastisement we shall speak
this morning. I shall not detain you with further preface but conduct
you at once to the questions of the text.

I. THE FIRST QUESTION is a metaphor taken from the traveler: "Can two
walk together except they are agreed?" which means, being interpreted,
that it is no wonder if God does not continue to walk with a sinful
people. It is not to be expected that when a nation falls out with God,
God should continue to bless it. Two travelers have been walking
together for some little time, but all of a sudden they fall to angry
words and after awhile one strikes the other and maltreats him. You
cannot suppose that the person thus attacked will continue to walk with
him who maliciously assaults him. They must part company.

Now, when God walks with a nation, that nation prospers, but if that
nation falls to words with God, quarrels with Him about His will and
Law, and rushes perversely into sinful courses–if there are some in it
who would have no God at all, who do their best to extirpate His very
name from the earth which He Himself has made–then we cannot expect
that God should continue to walk with such offenders! Brethren, let me
ask you soberly, without fanaticism, to consider whether there has not
been enough in England, and especially in this great city, to make God
angry with us? Has there not been grievous disagreement between the
dwellers in this city and God? Has there not been enough to make Him
say, "I will walk no more with this people. I will chasten them sorely,
and send heavy judgments upon them"?

We will not speak of those sins of this city which are common to all
other places. But let me ask whether the drunkenness of England is not
enough to provoke God to strike it with all His thunderbolts. If it is
said that there is as much drunkenness elsewhere, I reply that possibly
there may be places found which are quite as besotted, where the gin
palace blazes with glaring lights at every corner, and the gates
through which drunkards reel to Hell are opened at every turn. It may
be so, but I must still hold that there is no other country where
drunkenness is carried on to such an extent under so strong a
protest–for drunkenness happens to be a sin against which not only the
pulpit, the press, and the bench are continually exclaiming–but tens
of thousands of earnest, indefatigable, courageous, self-denying men
are both, by their example, and their teaching, denouncing this vice.

We certainly have no deficiency of protests against excess of drink,
for there are few companies in which the most sweeping censures are not
frequently heard. There is not a place throughout the world where
drunkenness is so vehemently and abundantly cried down as in England!
There is no place where there is established so strong a public
sentiment against this degrading form of self-indulgence. There has
been much done, not, I say, only by those who preach the Gospel, which
lays the axe at the root of all sin, but also by those who dedicate
their strength to the sawing off of this particular limb from the great
tree of evil.

This vice, then, is known by every man to be a vice, and is no longer
winked at as a venial offense. It wears upon its front the damning
mark–it is no longer misnamed conviviality, and excused as an amiable
weakness. The public mind, to a great extent, is enlightened upon the
subject of strong drink, and consequently this sin of drunkenness is
more God-provoking in this country than in any other. There may be
countries where there is just as much drunkenness, but none in which
the protest is more clear and plain! And we all hold that sin is
increased by the measure of light against which a man commits it, and
that when an evil practice is by the common consent of mankind
denounced and put down, it becomes the more atrocious on the part of
those who still pursue it.

Alas, alas! This drunken city may well expect that God should visit it!
Moreover, we know enough–and we do not wish to know more of the evil
which the moon sees–of the debauchery with which certain of the
streets of our city are reeking. We thank God it has never come to such
a pass in England, that we nationally recognize and systematically
regulate lasciviousness so that it may be indulged in with comparative
impunity. But there can be no sort of doubt that among all classes and
ranks of men there is enough of lewdness to bring down Heaven's wrath
upon our city! The sins of the flesh are sure to be visited before long
by that God who loathes iniquity, and in whose nostrils fornication is
a stench. He will not forever endure this abounding sin, for it is
committed, be it remembered, in a country famous above all others for
its love of home and its estimation of the joys which cluster around
the family hearth.

We have not the pestilential influence of a licentious court and a
degraded public opinion, but this sin is carried on in the teeth of a
general reverence for purity. Shall not God visit London for the sins
which nightly pollutes her streets, festers in gilded halls, and riots
amid revelry and music? Like a terrible monster, the social evil drags
our daughters down to destruction, and our young men to the gates of
the grave! And while this lasts we need not wonder if God's
health-giving Providence should refuse to walk with us, for He cannot
be agreed with a people who choose the way of filthiness.

Constant neglect of the worship of God is a sin for which London is
peculiarly and pre-eminently guilty. In some of our country towns and
villages the accommodation in places of worship is even larger than the
population! And I know places in England where there is scarcely a soul
to be found at home at the hour of public worship–certainly not more
than absolutely necessary to nurse the sick, care for the infants, and
protect the doors–for the whole population turns out to attend a place
of worship. But in London the habitual forsakers of public worship are
probably in a large majority! It must be so, because we know that even
if they wished to go, the provision of seat room is most lamentably
short of what they would require, and yet, short as it is, there is not
half so much need of churches and chapels in London as there is of
inclination to go to either the one or the other.

The masses of our people regard not God, care not for the Lord Jesus,
and have no thought about eternal things! This is a Christian city, we
sometimes say, but where shall be found more thorough heathens than we
may find here? In Canton, Calcutta, or even Timbuktu, the people have
at least a form of worship and a reverence for some idea of a god, but
here tens of thousands make no pretense of religious worship. I protest
unto you all that whereas you think Christianity to be well-known in
our streets and lanes, you only think so because you have not
penetrated into their depths–for thick darkness covers the people.

There are discoveries yet to be made in this city that may make the
hearts of Christendom melt for shame that we should have permitted such
God-dishonoring ignorance–that in the very blaze of the sun, as we
think our country to be–there should be black spots where Christian
light has never penetrated! O London! Do you think that God's Sabbaths
are forever to be forgotten? That the voice of the Gospel is to sound
in your ears and forever to be despised? Shall you forever turn your
foot from God's House and despise the ministrations of His Truth, and
shall He not visit such a city as this?

This dreaded cholera is but a gentle blow from His hand, but if it is
not felt, and its lesson are not learned, there may come, instead of
this, a pestilence which may reap the multitude as corn is reaped with
the sickle! Or He may permit us to be ravaged by a pestilence worse
than the plague–I mean the pestilence of deadly, soul-destroying
error! He may remove the candle of His Gospel out of its place and may
take away the bread of life from those who have despised it, and then,
O great city, your doom is sealed!

Brothers and Sisters, if there is any one thing which yet provokes God
above all this, it is the fact that we have once again, as a nation,
permitted downright Popery to claim to be our national religion! Dark
is the day and dismal is the hour which sees the ancient superstitions
defiling the houses which are at least nominally dedicated to the God
of Heaven. In our Established Church the Gospel is no longer dominant,
albeit that a little band of good and faithful men still linger in it,
and are like a handful of salt amid general putrefaction. We have no
longer any right to speak of our national Protestant Church–it is not
Protestant–it tolerates bare-faced Popery, and swarms with worshippers
of the god whom the baker bakes in the oven, and whom they bite with
their teeth!

Not many streets from this building in which we are assembled you may
have your candles, and your incense, and your copes, and your albs with
all the other pomp and vanities of the detestable idolatry of Rome.
That Romanism against which Latimer bore testimony at the stake has
been suffered to hold its mummeries and practice its fantastic tricks
in the name of this nation until it counts its deluded admirers by tens
of thousands! That monster which stained Smithfield with gore and made
it an ash heap for the martyrs of God has come back to you! The old
wolf that tore your fathers and tore their palpitating hearts out of
their bosoms you have allowed to come back into your houses–and you
are cherishing it and feeding it with your children's meat!

Once again the harlot of Babylon flaunts her finery in our faces almost
without rebuke. Do not tell me it is not Popery! It is the same
Antichrist with which your fathers wrestled–and a man with but half
his wits about him may see it to be so–and yet this land bears it, and
rejoices in it, and crouches at the foot of a priest once more! Our
great ones, our delicate women, and dainty lords, are once again the
willing vassals of priest-craft and superstition. And amid all this, if
anyone speaks out, he is assailed as uncharitable, and abhorred as a
troublemaker in Israel! Is it for nothing that God has favored this
land with the Gospel? Must all her light be turned to darkness? Must
all the gains of the valiant men of old be lost by the sloth and
cowardice of this thoughtless generation?

In days of yore, men like Knox and Welch in Scotland, and Hugh Latimer,
and John Bradford fought like lions for the Truth of God, and are we to
yield like cowardly curs? Are the men of oak succeeded by the men of
willow? The men who cried, "No Popery here!" now sleep within their
sepulchers, and their descendants wear the yoke which their fathers
scorned! Shall not God visit us for this? I would that a voice of
thunder could arouse this slumbering generation! I am for liberty of
conscience for every man–I would have, by all manner of means, the
Catholic as free to practice his religion as anyone else!

I would have religion left to its own native power for its support, and
would allow no church to offer to God what it had taken from an
unwilling people by the legalized robbery of a church-rate and tithe!
But, above all things, if we must be doomed to have an Established
Church, I pray God it may not forever be a den of superstition and the
haunt of Papist heresies! If the Church of England does not sweep
Tractarianism out of her midst, it should be the daily prayer of every
Christian man that God would sweep her utterly away from this
nation–for the old leprosy of Rome ought not to be sanctioned and
supported by a land which has shed so much of her blood to be purged
from it!

Can two walk together, then, except they be agreed? And as these things
cannot be supposed to be agreeable to the mind and will of God, we
cannot wonder if there should be a plague upon our cattle, and then a
plague upon men, and if these should come sevenfold as heavy as they
have ever come as yet!

II. THE SECOND QUESTION of the Prophet is, "Will a lion roar in the
forest, when he has no prey? Will a young lion cry out of his den, if
he has caught nothing?" Amos had observed that a lion does not roar
without reason. By this question he brings forward the second Truth of
God, that when God speaks it is not without a cause, and especially
when He speaks with a threatening voice.

My brethren, our God is too gracious to send us this cholera without a
motive. And He is, moreover, too wise, for we all know that judgments
frequently repeated lose their force. It is like the cry of, "Wolf–if
there is no meaning in it, men disregard it. God therefore never
multiplies judgments unnecessarily. Besides, He is too great to trifle
with men's lives. We heard of some twelve hundred or more who died in a
week in London, but did we estimate the aggregate of personal pain
couched in that number–the aggregate of sorrow brought to so many
hundred families? The aggregate, too, of eternal interests which were
involved in those sudden deaths?

Time and eternity, both of them big with tremendous importance, were
wrapped up, just so many times in those hundreds who fell beneath the
Mower's scythe. Do you think the Lord does this for nothing? The great
Lion of Vengeance has not roared unless sin has provoked Him. Since I
have already indicated our great public sins, I should like to ask
Christians present how far they have been concerned in them. You who
profess to be people of God, and who recognize God's hand in this
visitation, I ask you how far has justice found provocation in jou?

What have you had to do, professing Christians, with the drunkenness of
this city? Are you sure that you are quite clear of it? Have you, by
your teaching and by your example, shown men that the religion of Jesus
is not consistent with drunkenness? Have you tried to put down this
vice, or are you in some degree a fellow criminal–an accomplice before
or after the fact? Oh if you have been guilty, I pray you seek to be
purged of this sin! You cannot wipe out all the national iniquity, but
if each man reformed himself of this vice, by God's Grace, this great
evil would cease. Let each Christian look at home. How far, you
professors of religion–how far are you clear in the matter of sins of
the flesh? Has there never been any lightness of speech about these
sins?

When merriment has become uproarious upon impurity, have you ever
joined in such laughter? And what about your course of conversation?
Have you always been free–I will not say from the grosser acts of
sin–I scarcely like to ask you such a question, but have you been
clear from everything that verged upon it? Have you heard ringing in
your ears the precept, "Be you holy, for I am holy"? Has the Holy
Spirit by His mighty Grace kept you from indulging in unclean words and
thoughts? Have you in any way fallen into lightness of talk and
thought, and so helped to increase the flood of this evil? Oh, my
Brothers, who among us must not confess to some guilt when we remember
the Savior's words, "He that looks upon a woman to lust after her has
committed adultery with her already in his heart"?

Let us bow our heads in penitence, and seek to the God of all Grace
that He would not roar over this, His prey, but be pleased to purge us
from it that we may be clean in His Presence! And so with the other
sins which we have indicated. Have we all borne our earnest, fervent
protest against them? Have we been negligent of the House of God, or
has our continual meeting for public worship cleared us of this? I
think most of us are clear here, but I know there are some professors
who neglect the assembling of themselves together, who spend their
Sunday occasionally, at any rate, where it ought not to be spent, and
who thus by their lax example increase the general forgetfulness of
God.

And as to this Anglican Popery–have we spoken out about that? Or do we
lend it our direct or even indirect support? God grant that if we have
not repudiated it we may do so, and holding the Truth of God in the
love and power of it may we come out of Babylon, lest we be partakers
of her plagues in the day when God shall visit her in His wrath.

Such, I think, was what Amos indicated by his second question.

III. THE THIRD QUESTION is this: "Will a bird fall in a snare on the
earth, where there is no trap for him?" The first question was taken
from travelers, the second from wild beasts, and the third from
fowlers. You see the bird aloft in the sky. All of a sudden it flies to
the ground and is taken in the net. Now Amos says it would not be taken
in the net unless a net had been designedly laid to catch it. It is
taken because the snare was meant to take it–and Amos means to remind
us that men do not die without a design on God's part.

It is the same thought as before, but it is held up in another light.
The bird is not taken in the net without the design of the fowler–and
men do not fall into the net of death without an intent on God's part.
Death, with all which it involves on earth and in eternity, is not sent
by God without a reason. Forever banished from the Christian's
conversation is the word "chance." "It repents me greatly," says
Augustine, "that I ever used that heathenish word, fortuna," for
fortune or chance is a base heathenish invention. God rules and
overrules all things, and He does nothing without a motive.

Brothers and Sisters, the falling of a sparrow to the earth is in the
Divine purpose and answers an end. Every grain of dust that is whirled
from the threshing floor is steered with as unerring a wisdom as the
stars in their courses, and there is not a leaf that trembles in the
autumn from the tree but is piloted by the plan and purpose of the
Lord. Surely, then, in so great an event as death, involving, as we
have already said, so much of pain to the person falling, so much of
bereavement and sorrow to the families of those who are struck, we
cannot believe but what God has a purpose.

The insatiable archer is not permitted to shoot his bolts at
random–every arrow that flies bears this inscription, "I have a
message from God for you." When God permits disease to walk through the
streets at night, to stretch out his mighty but invisible hand and take
away here a child, and there an adult, and consign to the grave those
who might have otherwise long survived, you will not believe that the
Lord commissioned so dread a messenger without intending to answer some
end by his errand. Let us conclude most surely that a purpose,
consistent with the love and justice of God, lies hidden in the present
harvest of death.

IV. Now follows a FOURTH QUESTION: "Will a snare spring up from the
earth, if it has caught nothing at all? By which he means that the
fowler does not remove the net until he has caught his bird, so that
this fourth question implies that inasmuch as God had a purpose in
sending tribulation, we may expect that He will not remove it until
that design is answered.

Whatever God has to say to London, if it is heard at once He need not
speak again, but if it is not heard the first time, there shall come a
second voice, and yet another. The fowler takes not away his net unless
some bird is caught, and God takes not away the trouble which He sends
unless He has answered His design by it. If you ask me what I think to
be the design, I believe it to be this–to waken up our indifferent
population–to make them remember that there is a God! To render them
susceptible to the influences of the Gospel, to drive them to the House
of Prayer. To influence their minds to receive the Word, and moreover
to startle Christians into energy and earnestness that they may work
while it is called today.

My reason for selecting this subject at all was that I might be helpful
in the hands of God the Holy Spirit to aid this great design, that you,
dear Friends, might hear at once God's voice, that for you, at any
rate, it might not be necessary that there should be a repetition of
the judgment. Brothers and Sisters, you are acquainted with history,
and you have reason to bless God, I am sure, in turning over its pages
that we have, during the last half century, been spared many of those
dreadful calamities which in former days occurred in this and other
lands.

Who can read the story of the plague of London without a shudder? And
who can close the book without thankfulness that such a black death is
unknown among us? Who has read of famines in this land without
gratitude for the abundance of bread? Who can turn to the descriptions
of the sack and pillage of cities under such armies as those conducted
by Tilly and other savage commanders, without thankfulness that we live
in better days? Who can even read the story of the last campaign in
Austria without thanking God that our country is an island, and that so
we are preserved from the horrors of war?

But it is much to be feared that a constant run of prosperity,
perpetual peace and freedom from disease may breed in our minds just
what it has done in all human minds before, namely, security and pride,
heathenism and forgetfulness of God. It is a most solemn fact that
human nature can scarcely bear a long continuance of peace and health.
It is almost necessary that we should be, every now and then, salted
with affliction lest we putrefy with sin. God grant we may have neither
famine, nor sword–but as we have pestilence in a very slight degree it
becomes us to ask the Lord to bless it to the people that a tenderness
of conscience may be apparent throughout the multitude–and they may
recognize the hand of God.

Already I have been told by Christian Brethren laboring in the east of
London that there is a greater willingness to listen to Gospel Truth,
and that if there IS a religions service it is more acceptable to the
people now than it was–for which I thank God as an indication that
affliction is answering its purpose. There was, perhaps, no part of
London more destitute of the means of Divine Grace, and of the desire
to use the means, than that particular district where the plague has
fallen. And if the Lord shall but make those teeming thousands anxious
to hear the Gospel of Jesus, and teach them to trust in Him, then the
design will be answered! And without a doubt the great Fowler will
gather up His net. May it be so, O Lord, for Your Son Jesus Christ's
sake.

V. The questions have all worked to one point. We have seen that it is
no wonder if disease should come. We have learned that it does not come
without a cause. We have seen that when it does come there is a design,
and that it will not be removed unless that design is answered. And now
we are prepared to take the further step, raised by THE FIFTH QUESTION,
namely, that an awakening should be the result. "If a trumpet is blown
in a city, will not the people be afraid?"

In times of war in olden times there were men stationed upon watch
towers, and when they saw the enemy coming the cornet was sounded, and
the people rushed to arms. The sound of a trumpet was the warning of
war. This cholera is like the sound of a trumpet. The voice of the
Christian ministry is not heard. Those who go to listen to it do not
all hear it, for they hear as though they heard not, while the great
masses know nothing and care less about the preacher's message. The
ministry of London is not altogether powerless to those who attend it,
but it is utterly without point or force to the dense masses who lie
outside the House of God.

Disease, however, is a trumpet which must be heard! Its echoes reach
the miserable attics where the poor are crowded together and have never
heard nor cared for the name of Christ–they hear the sound–and as one
after another dies, they tremble. In the darkest cellar in the most
crowded haunt of vice–yes, and in the palaces of kings, in the halls
of the rich and great–the sound finds an entrance and the cry is
raised, "The death plague is come! The cholera is among us!" All men
are compelled to hear the trumpet! Would to God they heard it to better
purpose! Would to God all of us were aroused to a searching of heart,
and, above all, led to fly to Christ Jesus, the great Sacrifice for
sin, and to find in Him a rescue from the greater plague–the wrath to
come!

VI. The great end and design of God, then, it seems, is to arouse the
city, and that arousing should follow from the fact declared in THE
LAST QUESTION: "If there is evil in a city, will not the Lord have done
it?" Here is not intended moral evil–that rests with man–but physical
evil, the evil of pestilence or famine! Shall there be cholera in the
city, and God has not done it? My soul cowered down under the majesty
of that question as I read it. It seemed to stretch its black wings
over my head, and had I not known them to be the wings of God, I should
have been afraid!

The text talked with me in this fashion–It is not the cholera which
has slain these hundreds. The cholera was but the sword. The hand which
scattered death is the hand of a greater than mere disease. God Himself
is traversing London! God, with silent footstep, walks the hospitals,
enters the chamber, strikes the wayfarer in the street, and chills the
heart of the suppliant kneeling by his bed. God, the great Judge of
all, at whose belt swing the keys of Death and Hell, the mysterious One
whose voice bids the pillars of Heaven's starry roof to tremble, who
made the stars, and can quench them at His will–it was none other than
He who walked down our crowded courts, and entering our lanes and
alleys called one after another the souls of men to their last account!
God is abroad!

There are times when God comes especially near to men. He is
everywhere, and yet He is frequently described in Scripture as saying,
"Let Us go down, that We may see whether it is altogether according to
the report." God has come down, and is going through this city! Tread
solemnly when you go to your business tomorrow morning–you walk the
streets where God has walked–you who will go to the cemetery with your
dead ones, I had almost said. Take off your shoes from your feet, for
the place where you stand is holy ground, for God is there! The last
time this disease was here I had a pervading sense of the Presence of
God wherever I went. It seemed to me as if the veil between time and
eternity were more transparent than usual.

If anything ought to compel our attention to God's voice, it should be
the remembrance that it is attended with God's Presence, and if
anything ought to make us feel His rod, it is the fact that it is not
the rod that smites, but God Himself that uses the rod!

Leaving the text itself, I want to gather up my thoughts, as God shall
help me, in a few earnest words. My dear Hearers, I would speak as
God's mouth to you as His Holy Spirit shall enable me. Is not the Lord
speaking to all of us, both saints and sinners, and warning us to be
agreed with Him? O you who are His blood-bought people, Believers in
Jesus–is there any sin that has parted you from communion with Christ?
Have you fallen into anything which has provoked the Spirit, so that
His comforts are withdrawn? If so, by deep humility and earnest prayer,
standing at the foot of the Cross of the Lord Jesus, pray–

"Return, You heavenly Dove, return Sweet messenger of rest! I hate the
sins that made You mourn, And drove You from my breast."

At all times it is well for the Christian to acquaint himself with God
and be at peace, but especially just now. How can you help others if
you yourself have lost the sense of the love of God shed abroad in your
heart? I know you are His and He will never cast you away, but if you
do not enjoy His Presence you will be as weak as water. And oh, those
of you who are not His people! Can you bear to be at disagreement with
God? How can He walk with you? You ask His protection, but how can you
expect it if you are not agreed with Him?

Now, if two men walk together, there must be a place where they meet
each other. Do you know where that is? It is at the Cross! Sinner, if
you trust in Jesus, God will meet you there! That is the place where
true at-one-ment is made between God and sinners. If you go repenting
to Jesus, saying, "Have mercy upon my iniquity. Wash me in Your blood,"
you shall be agreed with God, and then you may look forward to living
or dying with equal delight! For if we Live we shall walk with God on
earth, and if we die we shall walk with God above!

Brethren, while the lion roars, should we not remove any evil which may
have caused his anger to burn? Christian, search yourself now and purge
out the old leaven! The head of the Jewish household, when the feast of
unleavened bread draws near, not only puts away the loaves of bread
ordinarily used in the household, but takes a candle and searches every
part of the house lest there should be even a crumb of leaven anywhere.
He cleans it all out, that he may keep the feast not with leavened
bread.

Now, Christian, as this is God's visitation, ask for the candle of the
Holy Spirit to discover any little sin. Let any little self-indulgence
into which we have fallen be conscientiously given up, and for the sake
of that dear Savior who denied Himself every comfort for us, let us
take up our cross and follow Him, determined that if the lion shall
roar, it shall not be because of any prey in us.

And oh, Sinner, against whom God has been roaring, do you not remember
His own words, "Beware, you that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces,
and there be none to deliver"? Who can remove the iniquity which
provokes the Lord to jealousy except the dying Savior, the Lord Jesus?
He has put away sin by bearing it in His own body, and if you trust Him
there shall he no sin in you to provoke God. But it shall be said of
you as of Israel, "In those days, and in that time, said the Lord, the
iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none. And
the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found: for I will pardon them
whom I reserve."

Moreover, the Lord our God speaks to us by His Providence, and says,
"Submit yourselves, this day, to God's design." The great Fowler has
spread the net–He will not take away that net till He has caught the
bird. Be caught in it! Saint, fly not from your God! If He puts out
even an angry hand, fly into it–there is no shelter from an angry God
but in the pierced hand of His dear Son! When vengeance would strike a
heavy blow, the closer you can get to it, the less will it wound you.
Get close to God in Christ! Cling to Him, and He will not destroy you.
Fly to Jesus! Sinner, fly! Be taken in God's net! Say to God, "What
would You have me to do? Would you have me to be Yours? Here I am,
Lord! Before you take me in the net of death, take me in the net of
Grace. Before the snares of Hell prevent me, let the blessed snare of
Your eternal love sweetly entangle me. I am, I would be, Yours."

Be awake, Christian, and be aware of God's design, for the trumpet is
sounding, and when the trumpet sounds the Christian must not slumber.
Let the Presence of God infuse into you a more than ordinary courage
and zeal. My Brothers and Sisters, I wish I could speak to you this
morning as I had hoped to have done, for then I would thrown my whole
soul into every word! I charge you, as you love Jesus, as you know the
value of your own soul–now, if never before–be in earnest for the
salvation of the sons ofmen!

Men are always dying! Time, like a mighty rushing stream is always
bearing them away–but now they are hurried down the torrent in
increasing numbers! If you and I do not exert ourselves to teach them
the Gospel, upon our heads must be their blood. It is God's work, we
know, to save, but then He works by instruments, and we have His own
solemn word for it–"If the watchman warns them not, they shall perish,
but their blood will I require at the watchman's hands." Are there no
houses round your dwelling where Jesus is unknown? Is there no court,
no lane, no alley near to where you reside without God and without
Christ?

Have you no friends unconverted? Have you no acquaintance unsaved? May
there not be even sitting in the pew with you some unpardoned person?
May there not be, Sunday after Sunday, sitting in the next seat someone
who knows not Christ– who was never warned of his danger or pointed to
the Remedy? It is a great mercy, when the bell tolls, if we can say of
those who die, "I did all I could to save them from ruin." I thought
when I read Whitfield's words to his congregation, I wish I could
always say as much. He said, "Ah, Souls, if you are lost, it is not for
lack of praying for! It is not for lack of weeping over! It is not for
lack of faithful Gospel preaching."

I can say the last, but I cannot say the first as I could wish. And yet
I know that there are some of you here, who, if you are lost, are not
lost for lack of warning, nor for lack of teaching, nor for lack of
invitation. We have set before you life and death! We have threatened
you in God's name, and we have invited you by the precious blood of
Jesus! Years ago there seemed to be some hope about you, but it was
like the morning cloud and the early dew, for you are still unsaved.
When I heard the other day that Mrs. So-and-So was dead, and that she
died of cholera, I could not lament, for she was one who had long
feared God! When they told me that a worthy young man had fallen, I was
sorrowful to have lost so good a student from the College, but I was
thankful that one who had served his God so well in his youth had gone
to his rest.

But if I heard of the death of some of you, it would cause me unmingled
grief and fear! Some of you have been sitting here for years who will,
I fear, go out of this Tabernacle to destruction–you know you will
unless you are changed! If you die as you now are you have nothing to
expect but a fearful looking for ofjudgment and of fiery indignation!
Some of you know well the result of sin and yet you choose it–your
consciences prick you often–and yet you run against them! You have
been alarmed and so awakened that it seems impossible that you can
continue as you are! But alas, you will not turn and your end is
coming.

My Hearer, I can hardly face the thought of your fate! I feel like
Elijah when he looked into the face of Hazael and trembled as he
foresaw his history. It is terrible to think of your doom! He who has
warned you and prayed for you will meet you in another world, and when
he meets you, you shall not have to say he did not speak plainly and
pointedly to you. You will be speechless because the trumpet was
sounded and you did not take the warning! God was in the city and you
would not hear Him! Death spoke as well as the minister, but you
stopped both your ears because you were resolved to die! And your heart
was set on mischief!

You scorn eternal life and choose destruction for the sake of a few
paltry pleasures, or a deceitful darling lust which will treacherously
stab you through your heart! You let Jesus go, and Heaven go, and all
this for a moment's pleasure! Ah, my Hearer, you shall have much to
answer for. I speak to you as a dying man and pray you not to venture
into eternal wrath. Give these words some consideration, I pray you,
and as you consider them, may God the Holy Spirit fasten them as nails
in a sure place, and may you seek the Lord while He may be found, and
call upon Him while He is near, for this is His word to you– "As I
live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked,
but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn you, turn you from
your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?"

And Jesus adds His loving words, "Come unto Me all you that labor and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." And, "The Spirit and the
bride say, Come. And let him that hears say, Come. And let him that is
athirst come. And whoever will, let him take the water of life freely."