A Clarion Call to Saints and Sinners

A Clarion Call to Saints and Sinners

(No. 2225)

A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, OCTOBER 11, 1891,

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, APRIL
2, 1891.

"Arise you, and depart; for this is not your rest: because it is
polluted, it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction." Micah
2:10.

THERE is a miserable tendency in men to cling to things that are seen.
Though that which we behold is only temporal and shadowy, lacking any
true substance or permanence–though the things round about us can only
endure for a little while and then will vanish away–yet we give our
hearts to them and are ensnared by their false glitter and glamour.
Like the poor birds that light on birdlime and cannot get away, we are
entangled by the things of time and sense, instead of rising, as on
eagle wings, to a higher sphere. Forgetting that the soul of man cannot
be satisfied with the poor baubles of earth, nor his yearning heart
filled with the fleeting joys of time, we often put away from us the
things that are unseen and eternal. One of the most necessary words for
us to hear at such a time is this, "Arise you, and depart; for this is
not your rest."

Suppose that the children of Israel, when they came out of Egypt and
were on the way to Canaan, instead of living in tents and moving as the
fiery cloudy pillar guided them, had taken it into their heads to build
houses and cities and temples wherever they stopped–as if they were to
stop in the wilderness forever? Would they not have missed much by such
a plan? In the wilderness, not only would all who came out of Egypt
have perished, but their children and their children's children would
also have found graves in the desert, nor ever have seen the goodly
land promised to their fathers. On the contrary, as you know, they
lived in their canvas cities and when the cloud moved, every tent was
struck, and they began the march. When the cloud halted, they rested
under canvas, never knowing how long they would continue in any one
place, always expecting that they would be on the move, again, seeing
that they had not yet come to the land that flowed with milk and honey.
They well knew that in the wilderness was no abiding place for them,
for the sand which was all around them yielded them no meat–and if
their food had not dropped from above, they would have had no supply
from the barren desert. They were strangers and pilgrims with God–and
sojourners–as were their fathers.

Now, our sad tendency is to be building cities, digging out
foundations, laying courses of brick and saying, "Here I am going to
rest. I have journeyed long enough and now I have come to a place where
I can say, 'Soul, you have much goods laid up for many years. Take your
ease–eat, drink and be merry.'" It is a sorry business when the heirs
of Heaven wish to dwell in the wilderness and when men who have an
inheritance on the other side of Jordan forget the land that God has
given them by Covenant and seek to enjoy their portion in this life! We
do not wonder that the ungodly do so– they may well make as much as
they can of their little enjoyment here, for, unless they repent of
their evil ways, that is all that they will ever have! I do not wonder
that such as have their lot in this life should seek after carnal
merriment, fleshly pleasures and the giddy dance. What more do they
have? It is not astonishing to see the swine greedy at the trough,
pushing one another aside as they struggle to get their mash. But when
those who have been redeemed with a strong hand and an outstretched arm
sink into worldly conformity, worse, because more deadening, than the
slavery of Egypt, then, indeed, we see the sad havoc sin can work and
mourn because of it.

Unawakened men have not a thought above these minor things and yet, if
they could for once shake off the spell that has lulled to sleep their
immortal spirits and turned them into comrades of the brutes, they
would begin to feel that this is not their rest and would hear a voice
saying to them, "Arise you, and depart." Perhaps they would even
answer, "I will arise and go to my Father. I will leave the husks with
which I gladly would have filled myself, and I will eat of the bread,

whereof in my Father's house there is enough and to spare." But the
trumpet call to "arise" is not only needed by prodigals in the far
country! Careless professors who once ran well, but have been hindered,
and who now rest content with the world, as if they were to stay here
forever, require to be awakened from their slumber. "Awake you that
sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light." God
means His Church to be a separated people on the earth. Our citizenship
is in Heaven, yet too many of us and, perhaps, all of us, at times,
fall into the ways of the unregenerate and have fellowship with the
unfruitful works of darkness–even if we, ourselves, do not do them.
Because of this slothful and carnal tendency, even in the best of us,
it is continually necessary that the awakening call should come, "Arise
you, and depart; for this is not your rest."

I am going to talk, first, to God's people and sound an alarm for them.
Then I shall have a word for awakened sinners and shall also sound the
trumpet in their midst.

I. First, I shall view the text as A CLARION NOTE FOR BELIEVERS IN
CHRIST. As a soldier hears the bugle in the early morning and starts up
ready for the duty of the day, so may every servant of Christ who hears
these words, arise girded for service! The soldier, at the sound of the
awakening call, must forsake the warmest bed and turn out to take his
place in the ranks. With hope of a similar result would I sound the
trumpet today. Let the clarion note ring out shrill and clear, "Arise
you, and depart."

To begin, I remark that there are occasions when this call comes
especially to us. It may be heard in our everyday life above the din
and bustle, but it is most needed when, perhaps, we are least inclined
to listen to it. "Arise you, and depart." This note needs to be sounded
in the ears of saints when they begin to be comfortable. When you have
been going up the Hill Difficulty with a very heavy pull, you have come
to the arbor on the side of the hill which has a seat very hospitably
provided by the Lord of the Way. There is a table put in front of the
seat so that you can sit down and, if so minded, put your arms on the
table and have a good nap. Now, these arbors are built for the
refreshment of pilgrims, but they are not meant for them to sleep in!
They may sit still and gather strength with which to go on up the hill.
They may look back and be grateful that they have climbed so far. But
they must not go to sleep! If they do, it will happen to them as it did
to one Christian of whom Mr. Bunyan wrote, who lost his roll of
assurance, there, and had to come back and search for it with many
tears. If any of you are very comfortable just now and things are going
well with you. If, after a long struggle, the tide has now turned and
you are floating along without needing either oar or sail, I would
caution you to beware–

"For more the treacherous calm I dread Than tempests bursting over my
head."

Dear child of God, when you begin to be very comfortable, unless you
take care to be very grateful and sanctify your prosperity, you will be
likely to drift into a sad state. I take down the trumpet and venture
to come very close to you and, though it may seem a rude thing to blow
a blast right in your ear, yet I will do it! And this is the
sound–"Arise you, and depart; for this is not your rest." God has
given you many blessings, but you will turn them into curses if you
make them to be your god. Jonah had a gourd, but when he made a god of
his gourd, it was very soon withered! Take heed when all things go well
with you here below, lest you begin to be glued to this world and find
your comfort here. It will not do– God will not permit it! If you say,
like David, in his prosperity, "I shall never be moved. Lord, by Your
favor You have made my mountain to stand strong," you may soon have to
add like he, "You did hide Your face, and I was troubled."

This note, also, is very necessary in the ears of Christian people when
they begin to fraternize with the world. Nothing but evil can come of
such association, for, "what communion has light with darkness? And
what concord has Christ with Belial?" But you will say, "We have had
some nice company lately. We have invited to our house some very decent
people. It is true that we had no family prayer that night–we could
not bring out the Bible and read a chapter before them, for we did not
know if they would like it. But, in spite of that, they were a nice
sort of people. We are going to their house another night–we do not
quite know how they will propose to spend the evening, but we shall
have to put up with their way of doing things because, you see, if you
are in the world, you must do as the world does."

Now, Friends, I shall, without asking your leave, blow my trumpet on
both sides of your head! And I shall give a very loud blast, too, as my
friend, Mr. Manton Smith, sometimes does when he uses his silver
cornet. "Arise you, and depart; for this is not your rest: because it
is polluted!" Beware when the world loves you, lest that which attracts
them towards you is something that ought not to be there! Beware when
men of the world are very fond of your society, for

then surely you must have got out of touch with your Master, who says,
"If you were of the world, the world would love his own: but because
you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world,
therefore the world hates you." It is well, if consistent with
righteousness, to have everybody's love, but when saints begin to be
the admiration of the ungodly, depend upon it, there is something about
them that God does not admire–there is an unhallowed conformity that
is a signal of danger!

When the world patronizes the Church, the Church will need tenfold
Grace to maintain her spirituality, just as on an ocean steamer any
speed beyond a certain limit is only attained by an expenditure of
power altogether out of proportion to the increase of the distance
traveled. "Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you!" Such
praise is not for good soldiers of Jesus Christ! If the enemy begins to
love one of the king's generals, the king may half suspect that his
general is turning traitor. God save us from such treachery! "Love not
the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves
the world, the love of the Father is not in him." So again I sound the
trumpet–"Arise you, and depart; for this is not your rest."

Perhaps there are some who are neither beginning to be comfortable, nor
to fraternize with the world, but to whom this trumpet note will still
come with special emphasis, for the Lord's people need this call when
they dream of long life on earth. You may, perhaps, have lived a long
time, now, without any sickness or illness. You are certainly getting a
little gray, your hair tells of the passing of years. Still, your
father lived to a good old age. So did your grandfather and you reckon
that you, also, will live for a long time to come. You have heard, this
last week, perhaps, of the deaths of several people who were younger
than you, but you do not reckon upon dying. Far from it–you have not
even made your will yet, nor have you anything in order for your
departure. A long stretch of health has a tendency to make us think
that we are immortal. But though we may imagine this to be the case,
the worms do not think so! The wood which will make your coffin may
already be sawn and the linen which will be your shroud may be all
ready. There is a spot of land where you must lie unless the Lord
should suddenly come to His Temple. Here, certainly, we have no
continuing city and, therefore, we ought not to make this world our
rest.

Dear Friends who have been here one Sabbath have been called away
before the next came round–and some who have seemed to be best in
health have been the very persons who have gone first. Therefore, my
Soul, stand on tiptoe–be not flat-footed as some beasts are–have your
wings always ready for flight so that if your Lord should come at
cockcrow, or at daybreak, or at midnight, you shall be equally ready,
at His bidding, to be up and away! I sound for myself and for my
beloved friends, this clarion note–"Boot and saddle, up and prepare!
Arise you, and depart." To whom that note may come with greatest point
I cannot tell, for I am no Prophet, but let it come to us all. Let none
of us begin to strike root here below, for this is not our rest!

Having thus sounded this note, I make a second remark. There is an
argument by which this call is greatly strengthened. The bugle note
"Arise you, and depart," is made doubly shrill by the statement that
follows, "This is not your rest." You see, that is given as a reason
for our action. The word, "for," which joins these two clauses of the
text, is being used in the sense of, "because." At times this argument
appeals to us with special force. Of this reason and these seasons let
me now speak.

Remember, child of God, that you have a rest of another sort. "This is
not your rest." "There remains, therefore, a rest for the people of
God." That happy home, that flourishing business is not to be your
abiding place. You would not like the change, I am sure, if the best
portion here below might be yours forever instead of your dwelling
place up above–

"Oh, the delights, the heavenly joys, The glories of the place Where
Jesus sheds the brightest beams Of His o verflo wing Grace."

What must it be to be there, where saints and angels find a Heaven in
beholding the face of the Lord of Glory and paying their humble
adoration before Him! O Sirs, if we had a palace here, below, and parks
and gardens reaching too far for a man to travel through them in a
day–yes, if we had all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of
them–we would not even, then, say, "This is our rest," nor consent to
exchange Heaven for such things as these! What is there that we could
possess on this round globe, with all its treasures, at all comparable
with the eternal felicity, the rivers of pleas-

ure that are at God's right hand forevermore? As you attempt to make
the comparison, you will, each one of you, say, "I must not and I
cannot cleave to these poor things below, for my rest is not here.
Thank God that it is not here!"

I think you will hear this call very distinctly when troubles come.
When a man begins to have pain of body. When the one who is dearer to
him than his life, sickens before him and is carried to the grave. When
everything goes amiss with him in business and daily life, he does not,
then, so much need my trumpet, for he already has heard the call
sounding very loudly and there are many things saying to him, "This is
not your rest." He knows that it is not! He is so troubled that he
begins to let loose of all earthly things. He is like one at sea,
tossed up and down with the billows–wave upon wave comes rolling over
him and he says, "Now I clearly see that this is not my rest." Come,
then, tried child of God, at this moment! Let this Word of God sound as
sweet music to you rather than as a disturbing trumpet blast. Let it be
as a heart-note that can lull you to peace. "This is not your rest." Do
not wonder, therefore, if you find thorns and thistles growing
here–your paradise lies in another land where no thorn or trial shall
be brought forth to trouble and annoy you–

"There everlasting spring abides And never-withering flowers. Death,
like a narrow sea, divides

This heavenly land from ours."

The troubles of this life cause us to hasten forward to cross that
Jordan and the call is thus all the more powerful. "Arise you, and
depart; for this is not your rest."

We hear this same note when success is enjoyed. I think that the time
in which I have been most humbled before God and in which I have been
lowest in spirit, is the time when mercies have been multiplied and I
have met with some great success. Though it seems very strange, I look
back upon the hours which have immediately followed some great triumph
in the service of my Lord as the saddest which I have spent. I could
fight my Lord's battles with both hands, but when the day was won,
those same hands seemed nerveless. When this House of Prayer was being
built, I was able to face every difficulty, as it arose, full of
earnestness, zeal and with unshaken confidence! But when the place was
opened and the work completed, I felt like Elijah who was faint after
he had done the Master's service with the priests of Baal.

Ah, dear Friends, God has only to give you what you want to make you
feel the emptiness of it! If you are His child, the more you have the
less you will see in it. The child of God who has possessions in this
life, is just the man who says, "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity!"
When you look at that which has been bestowed, you say, "Why was I so
anxious to get this? I thank God for it, as His gift, but there is
nothing in it apart from His giving it to me! Toil and trouble and care
come with increase of goods. This, this is not my rest." If any young
man here thinks that if he gets on in business and reaches a point when
he can retire upon a competence, he will then have reached his rest, he
is very greatly mistaken! If he is a child of God and if he gets all
that his heart wishes for, he will find that there is nothing
satisfying in it whatever. There is, in God, an all-sufficiency, but in
all the things of this life, apart from the Grace of God, there is no
solid satisfaction or rest!

Beloved, I am sure that we feel that this is not our rest when we have
gracious seasons. Do we not sometimes sit in this House of Prayer and
feel as if we would like to sit here forever? Last Sunday morning, when
I had done preaching, Brother Stott said that he did not want to go. He
said that his willing soul would stay in such a frame as this and I
suspect that there were a great many more in the congregation who, like
the preacher, felt the same! A Brother was describing to me the effect
of a certain amusement upon him–a very proper amusement in which there
was no wrong what-ever–but he said, "Well, you know, I felt like a man
who had gone out of a warm house into the cold. There was nothing in it
for me, though I saw others very much enjoying it. But I have been used
to better things than that and I cannot get on with it." I believe that
such is the experience of all God's people who delight themselves in
Him, with reference to the pleasures of the worldly.

You will generally notice that when the Believer gets near to God,
tastes the unseen joys and eats the bread that was made in Heaven, all
the feasts of earth, all its amusements and all its glories seem very
flat, stale and unprofitable! It is like drinking ditch water after
having slaked your thirst from the cool brooks that come from the snows
of Lebanon! After having laid our heads on Jesus' bosom, we feel, with
regard to the world, "No, this is not our rest." We have laid hold on
something better, more substantial, more satisfying and enduring–and
when we come to the best the world can give, we, somehow, turn our
backs upon it and cry–"This is not our rest."

Surely we feel this strongly and hear very clearly the clarion note,
"Arise you, and depart," when our many friends are taken Home. I can
scarcely look upon any part of the Tabernacle without saying to myself,
"Such a friend used to sit there, and such a friend there, and here,
behind me, certain of my kind and good Elders and Deacons used to sit."
I cannot look round without missing many. When you got well on in
years, you will find that your best friends are on the other side of
the river and that some of the dearest you have had are gone before
you. When you think of it, you say to yourself, "I, too, must arise and
depart; for this is not my rest." I have heard that sailors, when they
leave England, drink to the health of those they leave behind them till
they get a certain distance. And within so many weeks of the port to
which they are sailing they change the toast and drink to the health of
those that are before them, whom they hope soon to see. It might be
better for the sailors and none the worse for their friends if they
grasped the idea that such drinking tends to the health of neither, but
such I understand is their custom and, undoubtedly there is such a
change of outlook in the Christian life. I have nearly reached that
state in which I am thinking more of those before me than of those
behind me or with me! We are looking forward to the grand reunion when
those who went before us shall again appear and we shall, with them, be
welcomed by our Lord into everlasting habitations! With such
anticipations we can rejoice to hear the bugle sound again and again,
"Arise you, and depart; for this is not your rest."

In the third place, notice that there is a fact by which this call is
further enforced. In the text there is another expression which puts
confidence into this bugle note and gives us a new reason for
continuing our pilgrim march. The reasons which exist in ourselves for
answering the trumpet call are not the only ones–others may be found
all around us–and I ask your attention to this for a moment. "This is
not your rest: because it is polluted." You cannot go out into the
world without feeling that it is polluted–therefore heed well the Word
of God which comes to you, "Arise you and depart."

The call receives new strength by the pollution which is around us.
Where do you live? You are a very happy man if you live in a part of
London which is not defiled. Can you go down any of our streets without
hearing conversation that makes you feel that the place is polluted?
This region, indeed, I may say with deep sorrow, is polluted! And there
are still lower depths. The newspapers bear daily testimony to the
awful extent the pollution has reached. And the terrible poison seems
to be continually spreading. Do you not feel, if you know anything of
the Grace of God, that you cannot forever live in the midst of such
evil? Even Lot, among the people of Sodom, "dwelling among them, in
seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their
unlawful deeds." To him, one day, there came, by angelic messengers,
the call to arise and depart! In his heart of hearts he must have been
glad to get away! We, too, because of the pollution that surrounds us,
should learn that this is not our rest.

But what shall I say of the way in which the call is enforced by the
pollution which comes home to us, even the defilement of our own house,
of our own business and of our own daily experience? I am sure that if
you look well into it, you will see sin in even your holy things! And
if there is sin in your holy things, certainly there will be much that
grieves God and should grieve you in your ordinary daily life. Within
your domestic circle you may have those that make you feel, "This is
not your rest: because it is polluted." You have those whom you love,
for whom you pray with deep anxiety, who make you often realize that
your relationships in life are both strained and stained. How many a
godly man has to say with David, "Although my house is not so with God;
yet He has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things
and sure"! Yes, this is not our rest–the evil comes into such close
contact with us that we long to be away from it all! We seek to arise
and depart from the pollution which seems to cling to us like a wet
garment. Thus the call is greatly enforced.

It becomes more forcible because of the holiness for which we sigh.
Look at your own heart. Examine your own thoughts, your own words and
even those actions which are right in motive. How often pride comes in!
You say to yourselves, "I did that very well, indeed," and then the
good deed becomes polluted, for you trust in yourself and distrust God.
And the little self-confidence, or the little lack of faith in God will
soon pollute that which you bring to the Lord. Oh, no, we can never
rest till we got where there is no sin!–

"Then shall I see, hear and know All I desired or wished below,"

but we shall never be content until we get up where Satan cannot tempt
and where corruption will be done with forever–

"Far from a world of grief and sin! With God eternally shut in!"

Blow the bugle again! Ring out the note with clarion clearness–"Arise
you, and depart; for this is not your rest; because it is polluted."

In the fourth place, we must not forgot that there is a danger by which
this call is rendered loudest. There is one more note that gives new
intensity to it, when it is added, "Because it is polluted, it shall
destroy you, even with a sore destruction." Upon this I will say to the
children of God that the things of this world are our destruction.
There is nothing here that helps us on our way to God. It is a
wilderness at the very best–

"Pricking thorns through all the ground,

And mortal poisons grow.

And all the rivers that are found

With dangerous waters flow."

God keeps His own and preserves them to the end, but they get nothing
out of this world save the discipline of avoiding it. Vain world! It is
no friend to Grace! It does not help us on to God. Were it not for
Grace, it would be our destruction!

Look at the temptations around you. Are you ever forced to cry, "Good
Lord, help me"? Remember Bunyan's pilgrim, Mr. Stand-Fast, when Madame
Bubble encountered him? It was on the Enchanted Ground that she met him
and offered him her purse and all manner of carnal delights. What did
poor Stand-Fast do? In an agony he fell down and prayed! Because he was
poor, he was tempted by her purse and his heart began to go after
vanity–what could he do but kneel down and pray? Ah, this is not your
rest! It is a place for wrestling rather than for resting! A place for
prayer, not for sleep! It is not your rest, for it is polluted and,
"because it is polluted, it shall destroy you, even with a sore
destruction," unless the Grace of God shall prevent it! Does not this
consideration make the call become very loud?

Have you not felt the deadening influence of the world? Can you busy
people be up and down the city, or in your shops all day, without
feeling that these things tend to harden you? Grace comes in and raises
you above it, but the thing, itself, and the care and the thought that
you are obliged to give to it have a tendency to make you sink instead
of rise. How grateful you ought to be for your Sabbaths! And how
thankful you should be for this little sanctuary in the middle of the
week, this appointed evening when you can steal away and shake the
earth off your feet and brush the dust from your clothes and go back to
your toil refreshed and strengthened! God grant us Grace to live above
the world! The world, itself, will not help us–it will be our
destruction if we do not arise and join the company who "Ask the way to
Zion with their faces toward it, saying, Come, and let us join
ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant that shall not be
forgotten." Thus the call waxes long and loud.

But it becomes loudest of all when we have to always mourn the fatal
effect of worldliness in others. When I look over the Church Book,
sometimes I cannot help shedding tears. There is the name of a Brother
who used to pray so sweet-ly–where has he gone? There is the name of a
Sister who used to be one of the most earnest followers of
Christ–where is she now? I should hardly like to know where they are
and yet they did once seem to run well. I remember a Brother who fell
into gross sin, of whom I never heard any more, and one said, "If that
man is not a child of God, I am not one, myself." I could not help
saying, "Hush, hush! Do not talk of staking your soul against any other
man's. You know but little about yourself and you do not know anything
about him."

I do not like to hear such a thing said and yet I have known some of
whom I could almost have said the same! We have thought, "He must be a
child of God" but, after all, the man has turned aside to crooked ways
and proved that he never had the Grace of God in his heart. Ah, dear
Friends, while those things happen, "this is not your rest." As well
seek for shelter in an enemy's country, or seek rest in a storm at sea,
as expect to find anything like rest here. No, "Arise you, and depart;
for this is not your rest: because it is polluted, it shall destroy
you, even with a sore destruction," unless the God of Infinite Love and
Mercy shall keep you as the apple of His eye!

Thus I have spoken to those who are Believers in Christ. God bless
them! Now I turn to others for the few minutes that remain.

II. Secondly, my text may be viewed as AN AWAKENING NOTE FOR AWAKENED
SINNERS. "Arise you, and depart; for this is not your rest." In dealing
with this head, I want to say a word to those who are thoughtful, but
are not yet Believers in our Lord Jesus Christ. I desire to take my
silver trumpet and come to each one of you and sound in your ear that
same note which I tried to sound in the ears of God's people. "Arise
you, and depart." Get up! Sleep no more! Lie in indifference no longer!
God help you to say, "I will arise and go to my Father"! You must clear
out of your present

position or you will be lost. The name of the place where you now dwell
is the City of Destruction and if you would escape, you must run from
it. Flee from the wrath to come!

You are called upon to depart from sin and self. You must, through
Divine Grace, be ready to quit self and the righteousness that is of
self–and sin and the follies that go with sin. "Arise you, and
depart." O man, or woman, if you stay where you are by nature, you stay
in a land which, like Sodom and Gomorrah, is given up to destruction by
fire from Heaven! "Escape for your life; look not behind you, neither
stay you in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest you be
consumed." You that are in a state of nature, a state of guilt and
condemnation, arise you and depart. "Seek you the Lord while He may be
found, call you upon Him while He is near: let the wicked forsake his
ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the
Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will
abundantly pardon."

And here is the reason why you should thus arise and depart–you have
found no rest in the world–"This is not your rest." I put it to
you–have you found any true peace in the ways of sin? Ah, if you have
been awakened to see your state before God, you know that you are not
happy! How can you be? An immortal soul contort with mortal things?
"Too low they build who build beneath the stars." He has a poor
treasury who has not a treasury in Heaven. If all your possessions are
here, it is a poor all, for you lose it when you die, or it may at any
moment be taken from you while you live. You now have no rest. You know
many men and women who may enjoy themselves as much as they can, so far
as means are concerned, but they never really enjoy themselves at all.
They used to get pleasure when they were younger, but now they go to
the same places and they come away dissatisfied. I am glad of it. I am
glad that the Lord will not allow them to find satisfaction in the joys
of this life.

And if you had a rest, here, you would soon have to leave it. What if
you had to leave all you have tonight? What if, tonight, instead of my
voice, it should be the angel who should sound the trumpet, "Arise you,
and depart"? What if, instead of going home tonight, you went into the
eternal state to meet your God and Judge? How would it be with you? How
can you rest if you are unable to give a joyful answer to these
questions? You are hanging over the mouth of Hell by a single thread
and that thread is breaking! Only a gasp for breath, only a stopping of
the heart for a single moment and you will be in an eternal world,
without God, without hope, without forgiveness! Oh, can you face it? I
pray God that you may not have a bronze countenance, but may feel that
it is time for you to listen to the voice that says, "Arise you, and
depart; for this is not your rest."

But another reason why you should hasten to flee is because of the sins
of your life. You have polluted it. And what happens to you? Why, the
older you get, the more polluted you are! What a mercy it is that men
do not live eight or nine hundred years, now, as they used to do! What
monsters of sin would be on the earth if men kept on doing evil at the
rate some of them do now! Living 80 years, sinners get to be quite
sufficiently putrid in talk and life. But if they lived 800 years, this
world would almost be a second Hell! Well might God, in the olden days,
wash the world clean when there were sinners upon it so ripe for
destruction, so rotten in their lives! Because sin thus fouls your
nest, "Arise you, and depart."

With all the earnestness of my heart would I urge you to arise from
your sin and hasten away from your peril, for destruction threatens
you. You that have sinned cannot afford to always live here, for, even
now, your sins begin to come home to you. They will come home even more
as you grow older. When sickness begins to take away your spirits and
departed health leaves you without the possibility of your present
joys, your state will be almost too terrible for contemplation! Oh, I
would not be the man who has lived a sinful life and who is about to
die without hope! A pack of wolves around a man must be nothing to it!
I heard the other day of one, in India, who was thought to be dead and
the Parsee method, you know, is not to bury their dead–they leave them
naked in what are called the "Towers of Silence," where there are
vultures always waiting and, within three or four hours after a corpse
is laid there, there is no flesh left upon the bones.

One poor man, who was only in a swoon, was thought to be dead and was
laid out in the tower. The vultures came and one or two of them tore
his flesh so terribly that he started up as from a dreadful dream!
There were the vultures coming to devour him while he was yet alive
and, defending himself as best he could, he managed to escape. What a
plight to be in, lying in the place of the dead, surrounded by the
cruel beaks of those fierce, ravenous birds! But in a far more awful
position is a sinner when his sins come home to him. Only the Lord can
drive those vultures away and restore him

to life and safety. He comes for your deliverance and it is His voice
that says, today, "Arise you, and depart; for this is not your rest."
Fly to Him now, for if not, this rest of yours that you seem to have,
will destroy you! You will grow more worldly and more callous as the
years go on!

He that is filthy will become yet more filthy! As an old man, you will
say, "It is no use talking to me. If I could have my curly hair back
again and sit on my mother's knee once more, I might feel something,
but now I am given up to hardness." The world will ruin you as the
world has ruined its millions and is still ruining its thousands! Fly
to Jesus, fly to Jesus! Sinner, fly this moment! God help you! I shall
be well rewarded for having preached if but one soul should be awakened
to flee away to Christ, my Lord! And why should not many more, in
answer to our prayers? The Lord bless you, for Jesus Christ's sake!
Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Micah 2.