Signs Of The Times

A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 5, 1873,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"And He said also to the people, When you see a cloud rise out of the
west, straightway you say, There comes a shower; and so it is. And when
you see the south wind blow, you say, There will be heat; and it comes
to pass. You hypocrites, you can discern the face of the sky and of the
earth; but how is it that you do not discern this time? Yes, and why
even of yourselves judge you not what is right?" Luke 12:54-57.

THESE words were addressed by our Savior to the common people who had
gathered around Him. He appealed to their common sense. They were able
to foretell the weather from the signs which they saw in the heavens
and if they could do this, the signs of His coming were even more clear
and manifest, so that if they would but use their eyes they might see
that He was the Messiah. That they did not do so was an instance of
hypocrisy of heart–they did not see the Savior because they would not.
Our Savior's coming had been very clearly foretold by the Prophets. The
people were generally acquainted with the Prophetic writings and there
had been, consequently, a general expectation of the coming of the
Messiah at the time. Above all, the scepter had departed from Judah and
they knew by this sure signal that the set time for the coming of
Shiloh had arrived.

Beyond this, our Savior's Character and miracles attested His
Messiahship, for He worked among the people such works as no other man
had ever done and taught them with a Divine authority which they could
not resist. Did not the blind see? Did not the deaf hear? Did not the
lame walk? Were not lepers cleansed and the dead raised? And was not
the Gospel preached to the poor? What other tokens could they ask? Were
not these the ensigns which their great Prophet, Isaiah, had left on
record for their guidance? As certainly as a cloud in the western sky
predicted rain and a wind from the south was the sign of heat, so
assuredly there were infallible tokens, visible to all who chose to see
them, that the Messiah had come!

He charges them to use their common sense and not submit themselves to
be hoodwinked by their leaders. He asked, "Judge you not even of
yourselves what is right?" Why bow yourselves down that scribes and
Pharisees may go over you? Think and judge for yourselves like men! The
Lord, here, declares the duty of private judgment and exhorts the
people to use it, urging them to yield no more a slavish obedience to
the mandates of their false leaders, but to use their own wits as they
would upon ordinary matters–and even of themselves judge what was
right. The people needed awakening from spiritual slumber. They
required to be exhorted to manliness of spirit, for they had so
completely surrendered their judgments to their blind leaders that the
most conspicuous signs of the time were unperceived by them.

I believe that the passage before us might have been spoken by our Lord
at the present moment with quite as much appropriateness as when He
spoke it then, and therefore have I taken it for a text, hoping that,
perhaps, God might bless it to this crooked and perverse generation
which scorns the yoke of Christ, but willingly bows its neck to the
thralldom of a loathsome priestcraft! First, we shall consider our own
times, religiously, on a broad scale. And then, secondly, we shall
speak of the times within the little world of ourselves, and both to
Believers and unbelievers we shall have to say, "You can discern the
face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that you do not discern
this time? Yes, and why even of yourselves judge you not what is
right?"

I. First, then, let us carefully CONSIDER THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF OUR
OWN AGE. At the outset, it must be evident to every Christian man and
woman that the times are sadly darkened with superstition. The eastern
sky is generally cloudless and when a cloud was seen to arise from the
Mediterranean, which lay to the west, the Jews, very naturally, looked
for rain, and it came. Innumerable clouds have arisen in these latter
days, to the surprise and alarm of

all lovers of our nation. Popery, which we thought to be dead and
buried, as far as England was concerned, has displayed wonderful signs
of vitality and has come back to us–not as a foreign plant, but as a
home-grown upas tree–nurtured upon the fattest soil of our country in
the enclosure of the National Church.

The clouds of Sacramentarianism, priestcraft, and idolatry are hanging
over our nation like a pall. The heavens are darkened by their shadow.
When clouds cover the sky we look for showers and we may rest assured
that the almost universal tendency of our countrymen towards Popery
forebodes evil. Idolatry in a nation always brings down upon it the
judgments of God. Look at the pages of history and see whether any
once-enlightened nation has ever set up idol gods, Virgin Marys,
saints, holy wafers–and followed the superstitions of
Antichrist–without sooner or later being chastened of the Lord.
Remember the glories of Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella! See what a
nation it was in old times and what it has now become! Priestcraft is
the Delilah through whose means the Spanish Samson has been shorn of
his strength!

Read the story of France and all her late trials, and see if the great
bane of the land has not been superstition and the unbelief which is
the recoil from it. What good can come to a nation whose peasants are
the dupes of the priests and whose statesmen are servile to the Pontiff
of Rome? Have the Jesuits ever laid their hands upon a throne without
eventually shaking it to its foundations? Have they ever secured power
among a people without demoralizing them to the uttermost? Are they not
the common enemies of mankind? Are they not a thousand times more
dangerous to men than wolves or serpents? And is not their religion,
whether it takes the Roman or the Anglican shape, under all its
disguises, the "abomination of desolation," provoking God beyond
measure wherever it comes?

They bring in its train that bestial, or rather, devilish thing, the
confessional, with all the shameless vice and infamous uncleanness of
which it is both mother and nurse! It was but yesterday I read a little
book for the young, edited by a committee of clergy of the Church of
England, in which children are urged to confess to the priest–meaning,
thereby, the parish clergyman–every immodest word they may have spoken
and every indecent act they may have committed! They are taught, thus,
to repeat filthiness and to become unblushing in vice. The young girl
is told to confess to a man every sin against purity and modesty, and
she is told, (and I will quote the very words), that, "however painful
it is to acknowledge a fault of this kind, it must be bravely
confessed, without lessening it. It is almost always sins of impurity
that weak penitents dare not tell in confession." That is to say, young
women have a natural shame about them and the object of the
confessional is to make their faces brazen enough to speak of immoral
acts in the ear of a man!

This black cloud which hovers over my country warns of great evil to
her. As surely as Spain and France have been humbled, and as nation
after nation has crumbled down to anarchy, or been altogether
destroyed, so surely will this land sink from her greatness and lose
her rank among the nations if this deadly evil is not, by some means,
stamped out! May God in His infinite mercy take up the gage of battle
and go forth and fight His foes on this soil which is wet with the
blood of martyrs and still glows with the fires of Smithfield! Oh,
children of God, I pray you, discern the times before the threatening
shower descends upon our country! And learn to play your parts as men
of God, ordained to defend the

Truth of God.

What is your duty at the present crisis? It is clearly your business to
walk constantly in separation from everything which savors of the
abominations of Rome! I do not see this among my fellow Christians and
therefore I am ashamed and grieved at heart. I observe among many
evangelical churchmen an increased leaning to ritualistic practices–
they are even are tinctured with this gall and show it by evident
tokens. I see, also, among those who claim to be furthest apart from
sacerdotalism, namely, Nonconformists–many leaning in the direction we
have indicated. Their buildings are growing more ornate and are pitiful
mimicries of the ecclesiastical architecture most congenial to Popery.
More and more are they studying to attract, by music, chants and sham
liturgies. The Meeting House is now a Church, and in the Church the
simplicity of Scriptural worship is overlaid with the inventions of
human wisdom.

I hate sensuous worship quite as much in a Meeting House as in a
cathedral, and rather more. But I see many of my Brethren eager after
it and gradually introducing it, as the people will bear it. Again may
it be said, "And so we went towards Rome." It is the imperative duty of
every Christian man to say decisively, "I will have no union with this
abomination! I declare for God, for Christ, for His Truth–and to this
vile Antichrist I will not yield the smallest point! I will not be a
sharer of Babylon's sins, lest I be a partaker of her plagues." Happy
are those who have not the mark of the beast either on their hands or
on their foreheads, but keep the simple way of spiritual worship. In
evil times they will feel

the same quietude of conscience as Job did when he could say that he
had never been enticed to adore the sun or the moon, or to kiss his
hand in imitation of the worshippers of the hosts of Heaven.

Watchfully and earnestly should we avoid all communion with the great
apostasy. It is also high time for us all, as Christians, to work more
carefully in precise obedience to the Word of God. Brothers and
Sisters, we should never have had the errors of Rome back among us if
the Book of Common Prayer had been, from the first, conformed to the
Word of God. There were temporizers abroad of old who gained a present
peace for themselves by leaving to their descendants a heritage of
error. We need to return to the pure Word of God. Conform the Church to
the Scriptures and quicken her with God's Spirit, and she will resist
the encroachments of error. But fetter her with compromises and she
will become captive to falsehood before long.

Luther did grand service by his Reformation, but he stopped
half-way–he left the Church with her face half-washed–and in
consequence her whole visage has again become foul. O for a thorough
reformation! So long as words stood in the Anglican Prayer Book which,
to the common reader, taught baptismal regeneration, they were an
invitation and an encouragement to the Popish party to return! And
having returned, they are, for them, a castle and high tower! I shall
give great offense as I now go further and say, as in the sight of God,
that I am persuaded that so long as infant baptism is practiced in any
Christian Church, Popery will have a door set wide open for its return.
It is one of those nests which must come down, or the foul birds will
build in it again. We must come to the Law and to the Testimony, and
any ordinance which is not plainly taught in Scripture must be put
away!

As long as you give Baptism to an unregenerate child, people will
imagine that it must do the child good, for they will ask, "If it does
not do it any good, why is it baptized?" The statement that it puts
children into the Covenant, or renders them members of the visible
Church, is only a veiled form of the fundamental error of Baptismal
Regeneration. If you keep up the ordinance, you will always have men
superstitiously believing that some good comes to the baby thereby, and
what is this but sheer Popery? Since the child cannot understand what
is done, any good which it receives must come to it after the occult
manner so much in vogue with the superstitious–is it any wonder that
Popish beliefs grow out of it? And not only as to infant Baptism, but
as to every other doctrine, ordinance, or precept–we must each seek to
get back to this Book and follow closely the Word of God.

The Wesleyan, the Presbyterian, the Baptist, the Independent, the
Episcopalian must each be eager to put away everything, however
esteemed among them, which is founded upon denominational tradition and
not upon Inspired Authority. To the Law and to the Testimony must the
Church of God return if she would escape future outbreaks of the
Anti-Christian evil. Great errors spring from lesser errors. To favor
falsehood is to injure Truth. God give to His people to feel that the
utmost care becomes them in obeying the Lord and walking after His
commands, lest evil come of negligence. And, dear Brothers and Sisters,
as the voice of this evil abounds, let us abound in our testimony to
the Truth of God as it is in Jesus! The more the priests set up their
idols, the more let us lift up Christ and Him Crucified! The more they
compass sea and land to make proselytes, the more earnestly let us
plead with men that they will believe in the true Savior. Let the
diligence of our enemies shame our indolence–let their earnestness
rebuke our lethargy! Let us abundantly distribute the antidote while
they industriously disseminate the poison–let us pour out light and so
scatter their darkness. This is God's message to us and let every
Christian man and woman read it in the signs of the times.

Furthermore, anyone with half an eye can see that a parching wind of
unbelief is sweeping over the churches. Where superstition does not
rule, skepticism has fixed its seat. "When you see the south wind blow,
you say there will be heat"–this was a well-known weather sign among
the Jews, for the south wind blew from the desert, like a blast from
the mouth of a furnace. Even so, there will be a burning up of
spiritual life wherever the wind of infidelity speeds its course. Alas,
in how many of our pulpits are the great Truths of the Gospel kept back
and regarded as mere platitudes, unfit for men of culture to repeat!
These Truths of God may be believed in by the preacher, but he treats
them as worn-out truisms. There are many ministers, nowadays, whom it
would be premature to condemn, but whom it is unavoidable to suspect.
They profess, by their very position, to be preachers of the Gospel,
but their indistinct utterance upon vital points leads us to question
whether they know anything of the Truth in their own souls, or do
really and heartily believe any one of the articles of our faith. These
are the men who cry up freedom of thought and denounce all dogmas and
creeds.

Knowing this to be the case, and we do know it, for we cannot look
abroad without seeing it on all sides, is there not a voice to us out
of this evil? When unbelief abounds in the churches, is it not time for
true Believers to have done with all reliance upon human wisdom?
Gradually the churches have a thicket to look upon of clever preachers,
intellectual gentlemen, men of thought, great thinkers and the like, as
the necessity of the times, and they have idolized them. And, now, what
have these intellectual gentlemen done for their churches? To what have
the "men of thought" brought their brethren? Our churches under men who
preached Jesus Christ and nothing else were the bulwarks of
Protestantism, and no dissenters deserted to the foe. But under the
care of these wonderful thinkers, the rich among Nonconformists see
their families hurrying off to the superstitions which their fathers
abhorred!

It has come to this, that in one of the conferences about to be held
there is a paper to be read upon the "Infrequency of Conversions in the
Churches," a paper grievously needed. The Lord grant that the words
spoken on the subject may burn like flames of fire! Who could expect
conversions to be worked under many of the sermons which are now
preached? I once heard a sermon, most philosophic and metaphysical,
which was prefaced by a prayer that God would convert sinners by it, a
prayer which seemed a sarcasm upon the discourse! We have had enough of
intellectualism and oratorical polish–let them both be thrown out of
window, as Jezebel was, with her painted cheeks–and let something
better take their place–even the plain preaching of Christ Crucified!

Since there is such infidelity abroad, is it not time for Christians to
rise above the atmosphere of doubt and walk in the light of God? If you
merely attain to the theory of religion you may always live in question
as to every Truth of God. But if you rise above the theory, and walk
with God continually, doubts will vanish. I never doubt whether there
is a sun when it shines on me and makes me warm. I can never doubt the
existence of bread when I am eating it. He who feels the life of God
gets beyond the reach of philosophic questioning which is the very
atmosphere of the age. Brothers and Sisters, you will not question
whether prayer is a reality if every day you receive answers to your
petitions! You will never doubt the Atonement of Jesus Christ, or His
Deity, if sin is your daily grief and Jesus your abiding Companion. You
will look the scoffers of the age in the face and say to them, "Get
away from me! Our eyes have seen, our ears have heard and our hands
have handled of the good Word of Life."

When we have this faith, let us battle with the unbelief of others. The
voice of God is to you, O Believers, "Arise, and let your faith exhibit
itself." When Pharaoh said, "Who is the Lord?" then was the moment for
Moses to cast down his rod and let it become a serpent. And when Jannes
and Jambres cast down their rods and they became serpents, too, then
was the opportunity for Moses' rod to swallow up their rods! In
proportion to the unbelief of the age ought to be the energy of God's
saints in working wonders of faith! Do and dare for God, my Brethren!
Be bold for Him! Out-cry the clamor of the multitude–put it down with
the strong voice which proclaims, "There is a God in Israel, and men
shall hear it, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear."
Men of faith, gird on your harness and use the strength of God to
oppose the strength of unbelief.

Again, is it not clear to every observer who watches this age, that
religious apathy abounds? Like that lull which heralds the tempest, a
dead calm rests over many of the churches just now. And what is the
voice of the terrible sleep of Death but this, "O you that make mention
of the Lord, keep not silence, and give Him no rest till He awakens His
Church"? In your private prayers, I charge you, O men of God, make your
wrestling with the Most High far more intense. While the Church sleeps,
be on your watchtower. Neither day nor night refrain from supplicating
God to arise and bless His Zion. Meanwhile, the Churches which are
awake should, in their assemblies for prayer, be more importunate in
their pleading. Come together, every one of you, in the time appointed
for prayer and cry mightily unto God, for who knows, He might turn and
repent, and leave a blessing behind? Now, beyond all times gone by,
there is solemn need for supplication. See, my Brethren, that you
abound in it.

These times of lethargy require something of us besides prayer, namely,
personal activity. I would charge each Christian to be doing everything
that he can for his Lord, for his Church and for perishing sinners. Let
each man do his own work in God's sight and in God's strength–each one
taking care that the Church does not suffer through any neglect on his
part. Personal consecration is the demand of the age. These days of
lethargy are times when living saints should feel intensely for
sinners, when they should feel for them an anguish and an agony. In
proportion as others grow callous, we must become sensitive. If ever we
are to see better times, they must come through the intense earnestness
of

each separate Believer crying out in pain for the souls of men–as one
that travails in birth–till men are saved from everlasting burning.

May each Christian here feel this sacred anguish and in addition may
there be more intense and vigorous religious life in all. If we want to
awaken others, we must be awake ourselves! If we would urge the Church
forward, we must quicken our pace! If we would stimulate a laggard
Church, we must, ourselves, throw our whole soul into the cause of God!
Personal consecration, deepened daily, is the nearest way to promote
the quickening of the entire Church of God to a sense of her high
calling. May the Holy Spirit invigorate us to the full force of Grace
that we may be the means of awakening the whole Church!

Once again, there is another sad sign of the times which the watchman
must sorrowfully report. There is an evident withdrawal of the Holy
Spirit from this land. The spots where God is blessing the Word are few
and far between. A man may count them on his hand. Where is the pouring
forth of the Holy Spirit as in days gone by? Our fathers were known to
tell us of the days of Whitfield and Wesley, when the Gospel spread as
fire running among the stubble, for men's minds seemed prepared to obey
the impulses of God's Spirit. We, ourselves, have seen something of
these visitations. And in this place they have been almost continuous.
But take the bulk of the churches all round and where is the Spirit of
God at this time? Where are the converts that fly as a cloud? The earth
has her harvest, but where is the harvest of the Church? Where are
revivals now? The Spirit is grieved and is gone from the Church. And,
Brothers and Sisters, why?

Have Christian men become worldly? Is it true that you can scarcely
tell a Christian from a worldling nowadays? O for more holiness, then!
This is the demand which the times make upon us. You men of God be
holy, yes, be perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is
perfect. Has unbelief restrained the dew and rain of the Spirit? Is it
true that He cannot do many mighty works among us because of our
unbelief? O for more faith, then! Put up the prayer, "Lord increase our
faith," and rest not, day or night, till the prayer is heard! Or, my
Brothers, are we in this evil case because the Gospel has been veiled
with wisdom of words? Is it not a fact that too often the Gospel has
been preached with high-sounding elocution and not with simplicity of
speech?

The poor have left many of our places of worship because they cannot
understand the speaker's cumbrous sentences. Many have forgetter that
the power of God does not lie in elegance of diction. Is that the cause
of the Spirit's withdrawing? If so, let Gospel simplicity be cultivated
so that the common people may again hear our preachers gladly! Or, is
it that Jesus Christ and His atoning blood have been kept in the
background? In many pulpits doctrine is preached, but not the Cross.
Precepts are preached, but not the blood. Philosophy is preached, but
not the Crucified Savior. If it is so, in God's name let us come back
to Jesus Christ and Him Crucified! And if we do so the Spirit of God is
sure to be present, for never is Christ preached aright without the
Spirit of God, more or less, attending to set His seal to the
testimony! He will always honor those who honor the Son of God.

Beloved, we pause for one moment, here, to add, with much gratitude,
but far more of jealous trembling, that this little spot does not
always wear the same signs as to spiritual weather as the great Church
outside, for we have been much favored and just now the tokens with us
are those of a more than ordinarily copious shower of Grace. Many of
the spiritual have told me that of late they have felt God's Presence
among us in a special degree. And if it is so, the voice of God to us,
which I trust we shall hear, is, "Servants of God, continue in prayer!
Watch for the blessing! Cleanse yourselves from the sins which defile
you! Be up and doing in order to win it! Prove the Lord by all holy
actions and enterprises, according to His mind, and see if He will not
open the windows of Heaven and pour you out a blessing such that you
shall not have room enough to receive it!

II. Now, I have to use the text in reference to THE TIMES WITHIN US.
There is a little world within our bosom which has its winds and its
clouds and if we are wise we shall watch. First, I shall speak to
Believers. Believers, there are times with you when the "cloud rises
out of the west, and straightway you say, There comes a shower." Times
of refreshing–you have had them–look back upon them, they are choice
memories. The Holy Spirit bedewed your souls and bestowed on you the
excellence of Carmel and Sharon–

"What peaceful hours you then enjoyed, How sweet their memory, still."

Perhaps you have lost them–then sigh for their speedy return! Perhaps
you are enjoying them now–be very grateful if you are. Brethren, you
need such visitations! How can the vineyard of the Lord flourish and
bring forth fruit to Him if it is not watered from on high?

Sometimes you need refreshing so grievously that you are painfully
conscious of the need. Your praises languish and your prayers almost
expire. You need to be visited from on high and you feel it. Beloved,
since these refreshing are so precious and so much needed, you should
eagerly watch for them. You should go up to the top of Carmel, like
Elijah's servant, and with anxious eyes look towards the sea. And
whenever you have to say, "There is nothing," you should go back to
your knees. But you should rise, yet again, with expectancy, even to
seven times, and still watch until the cloud appears! You must have the
Spirit of God, or how can you live? Much more, how can you bring forth
fruit unto perfection? Watch for these showers, then, and when they
come, use them! Open your heart, as the earth opens her furrows after a
long drought, when there are great gaping cracks in the soil ready to
drink in the shower. Let your heart be receptive of the Divine
influence. Wait upon the Lord and when the Lord comes to bless you, be
like Gideon's fleece, ready to imbibe and retain the dew till you are
full of it.

Alas, I fear that many professors are dead to the visitations of the
Spirit of God. They have no changes–their Christian profession knows
neither drought nor rain. Like the statues in St. Paul's Cathedral,
unaffected by heat or cold, they stand all the year round in rigid
propriety. They have a dead religion and having a dead religion they
are not at all conscious of any spiritual power or weakness. No
droughts desolate them and no falling showers cheer them–they are as
unaffected by heavenly influences as the deep caverns of Adullam.
Brethren, above all things beware of a religion altogether destitute of
the changes, feelings, sorrows and joys which are inevitably connected
with life. If you have passed into a cast-iron state, may the Lord be
pleased to break your profession to shivers–for the heart of flesh out
of the heart of iron–is the result of Grace.

I fear that some professors are not grieved at the absence of the Holy
Spirit from themselves or others. If God does not bless the ministry
upon which they attend, it does not concern them one half so much as a
rise in the price of wheat. And if they, themselves, never experience
spiritual joy, they never expected it and are not so much troubled as
they would be if they lost a shilling! As to godly sorrow, they avoid
it, they call it unbelief and improper anxiety. Whether blessed or
unblessed, they remain stupidly contented, drugged into indifference.
When God places some professors in the center of blessing they make no
use of it. They are not sensible of the Spirit's approach and set no
store by His operations. If they are not dead they are in such a swoon
that God, alone, can discern the difference between them and those who
are "dead in trespasses and sins." Beloved, may we never fall into that
state–God save us from it! We ought to be sensitive to the approach or
removal of the Spirit of God–walking in His power and dwelling under
His shadow–and never satisfied unless we daily feel the going forth of
His strength.

Believers, we have to speak to you, also, about spiritual drought, for
you have such seasons. "You see the south wind blow, and you say, There
will be heat; and it comes to pass." You have your times of drought–at
least I have mine. They may be sent in chastisement. We do not value
the blessing of the Spirit enough and so it is withdrawn. Sometimes
they may be intended to try our faith, to see whether we can strike our
roots deep down into rivers of waters which never dry and tap the
eternal springs which lie beneath, and yield not to the summer's
drought. Perhaps our times of drought are sent to drive us to our God,
for when the means of Grace fail us and even the Word no longer
comforts us, we may fly to the Lord Himself, and drink at the Wellhead.

Perhaps, however, this drought has been occasioned by ourselves.
Worldliness is a south wind which soon brings a parching condition upon
the spirits of men. If Christian people lie and act as worldly people
do–go to worldly amusements and follow worldly maxims–there is no
wonder if they become as parched up as the Eastern land when the hot
wind has swept over it! There is a tendency, even in our necessary
associations with ungodly men, to wither our spiritual verdure–and
unless we resort to God, in whom are all our fresh springs–we shall
soon find a parching heat burning up our religion. And, ah, Brothers
and Sisters, if worldliness does not do it, there is the wind of carnal
security which will soon bring barrenness into the soul. Begin to think
that you are perfect and the dew of Heaven will forsake you! Fancy that
matters are so right with you that you have no need to watch, no call
to abound in prayer, no need to walk humbly with God, and your Lord
will surely punish you for this by bidding the clouds rain no more upon
you!

And if you become proud and haughty and domineering over your Brethren,
and talk loftily concerning God's trembling ones, then, again, will the
wind from the south turn your garden into a wilderness and make your
fruits to perish. Or if you neglect the means of Grace and forsake the
assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is, you will
soon be dry as the desert sand. Keep away from the Communion Table,
neglect secret prayer, forget reading the Word of God, and you will
find that your Lebanon and Bashan will languish and all your flowing
brooks will be dried up. Then the lilies of fellowship will droop and
the roses of joy will pine away and die for lack of heavenly moisture.
Yes, your fat pastures shall be a wilderness and your plenteous
harvests shall turn to desolation. May God save us from this! My
Brothers and Sisters, if any of the signs of the times in the little
world within you betoken such a drought, cry mightily to God and give
Him no rest till once again He bids the showers of His mercy gently
distil upon your soul, that you may bring forth fruit to His name.

My last and most solemn work is now to come. I have to speak to
sinners. Ungodly men are fools before God, but they are very often the
reverse of fools in common life. They know what weather there will be.
They can read the signs of the skies. Now I ask them to use the wit
they have and, of themselves, judge that which is right. If you lived
in Palestine, when you saw a cloud you would expect a shower. When you
see sin, do you not expect punishment? Can the righteous God permit His
laws to be violated and forever sit still? How, then, can He rule the
world? Does it stand to reason that the Judge of all the earth will
deal out, eventually, the same measure to the righteous and to the
wicked? As you are reasonable men, I beseech you answer that question!
God has not punished you yet. He has spared you though you are still
opposed to Him and His holiness. What does this cloud of the
long-suffering of God mean?

I will tell you. It bears drops of gentle mercy in its bosom. The
long-suffering of God is salvation. It leads you to repentance. If the
Lord had been anxious to destroy you, would He have spared you so long?
Does it not look as if He had designs of Grace toward you? You have
been rescued from shipwreck, spared from fearer, preserved in battle or
accident–and why? Listen to the oath of God, "As I live, says the
Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dies, but had rather
that he should turn unto Me and live." Let the very fact of God's
long-suffering be to you an inducement to seek mercy, for where there
is such a cloud of long-suffering you may expect a rain of Grace!

The preaching of the Gospel to you, today–does it not argue showers of
mercies waiting for you? Why does the Lord commission ministers without
number to proclaim His mercy to sinners if He does not wish to save
them? The very fact that you are in the House of Prayer and not in
Hell–that you are listening to a Gospel warning and not listening to
the blast of the Judgment trumpet–seems to me like a hopeful cloud
betokening a gracious rain! Come to Jesus, Sinner! By the love that
spared you, I entreat you, come to Jesus! We urge you to come to Him by
the love which sent the Savior, and which now declares to you that if
you believe in Him you shall live. May God grant that you may read
these blessed signs of the times and hope in God because of them!

Perhaps at this moment you feel some quickening of your conscience,
Sinner! You say, "I wish I were saved! Oh, that I knew where I might
find my Lord!" Take these desires as marks of favor to you. Yield to
the mysterious impulse. Quench not the Spirit of God! Bow down, now,
while there is some life in you, before evil days of hardness come, and
kiss the Son lest He be angry! Trust your soul in Jesus' hands,
according to the Gospel command, and you shall live. Listen to me! Do
you say, "I will put it off till a more convenient season"? That is the
parching wind from the south! Do you not know what it will work upon
you? It will dry up all the waters of feeling–it will parch in you all
plants of hope. Your soul is hopeful, now, and like the field in spring
when the young grass is coming up–but if you delay, this wind of
sluggishness will blast all expectation of your salvation–and leave
you without hope.

Ah, how many have I seen in this condition! How I have tried to speak
with them, but have failed, for they have told me, "I was hopeful once,
I was impressible once, but now the harvest is passed and the summer is
ended, and I am not saved. I cannot feel, I cannot repent, I cannot
desire, I am perfectly dead–sun burnt, parched, and dried up." One has
been obliged to fear that they spoke the truth and to turn away from
their death-beds with this feeling–"You did call them, O God, and they
refused. You did stretch out Your hands and they would not regard them.
And now, not even a sense of fear or terror is left to them."

Have any of you been abroad in the fields during the past week? If so,
you must have marked the waning year. The leaves are fading all around
us, clothing the departing year with a wonderful beauty. As they fade
away one by one, they preach to us and say, "You, too, O Men, will soon
fall to earth and wither." Have you heard the sermons of the falling

leaves? You say to yourselves, "Winter will soon be here." You begin to
lay in your stocks of fuel to meet the coming cold. And do you not see
those gray hairs upon your head–are they not wintry tokens, too? Do
you not note those decaying teeth, those trembling limbs, those
loosened sinews, that furrowed brow? Do not these betoken that your
winter is hastening on? Have you made no provision for eternity? Will
you be driven forever away, away, away, where there shall be no hope?
Have you laid by no stores of comfort for another world?

O fools, and slow of heart! Let even the birds of the air rebuke you!
The other day I saw the swallows gathering, holding assemblies, as
though they were enquiring and answering questions. And then, when the
time was come, away they flew across the sea to sunnier climes! They
did not wait here till all their food was gone and they must famish.
No, they took to themselves wings and followed the sun. Has all the
wisdom entered into birds and have men none? "The stork in the Heaven
knows her appointed times, and the turtle and the crane and the swallow
observe the time of their coming; but My people know not the judgment
of the Lord."

You will wait in this world and linger among its dying joys till you
die and perish forever. Oh, that you would take the wings of faith and
fly where the Sun of Righteousness points the way! There, where the
Cross is the guiding constellation–there steer your course–and you
will reach the land of everlasting summer where fading flowers and
withering leaves are never known! Believe in Jesus, Sinner! Set your
hopes on Him, or if not, I must say to you as Christ did to the people,
"When you see the south wind blow, you say, There will be heat; and it
comes to pass. You hypocrites, you can discern the face of the sky, and
of the earth; but how is it that you do not discern this time? Yes, and
why even of yourselves judge you not what is right?"

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Luke 12:13-21; 30-59.
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"Forever With The Lord"