The Pleading of the Last Messenger

The Pleading of the Last Messenger

A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 6, 1887,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"Having yet therefore one son, his well-beloved, he sent him also last
unto them, saying, They will reverence my son. But those vinedressers
said among themselves, This is the heir, come, let us kill him and the
inheritance shall be ours. And they took him, and killed him, and cast
him out of the vineyard. What shall, therefore, the lord of the
vineyard do? He will come and destroy the vinedressers, and will give
the vineyard unto others." Mark 12:6-9.

BROTHERS AND SISTERS, you know the story of God's dealing with Israel
and Israel's dealing with God. The Lord chose their fathers, Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob. He made them a race separated unto Himself; He brought
them out of Egypt from under the iron yoke; He led them through the Red
Sea; He fed them for 40 years in the wilderness. He led them about and
tutored them, even as a man teaches His son. In due time He brought
them into the land which flows with milk and honey and He put them
under a dispensation eminently gentle and full of tenderness where, as
a nation, they might enjoy unbroken prosperity, "sitting every man
under his vine and under his fig tree, none making them afraid." All
that He required of them was that He should be their God and that they
should put no idols in His place, but should obey His statutes.

Alas, from the first, they copied the nations among whom they
dwelt–they set up the gods of Egypt when they were in the wilderness
and, in Canaan, they went astray after the polluted deities of the
nations. They worshipped defiled gods with obscene rites–they even
passed their children through the fire to Moloch–and did horrible
things which angered the Most High. In His long-suffering, He sent them
Prophets one after another–Prophets who received unworthy treatment at
their hands whenever they rebuked their sins. The Prophets were
derided, persecuted and even slain with the sword. God, in great
patience, sent them more of His messengers, some of them grandly
eloquent, like Isaiah and Ezekiel; others of them full of tears, like
Jeremiah, or clothed with dignity, like Daniel. They warned the people
and ceased not to plead with them, whether they would hear or whether
they would forbear. Cruel treatment awaited many of the servants of the
Lord–they were stoned, they were sawn asunder.

Israel rejected the servants that came from the great Householder
asking for the rent of His vineyard. They repudiated the claims of God
and cast off allegiance to Him with contempt and disdain until, at
last, the nation was led into captivity and, in the end, only lingered
on the chosen soil as a mere remnant. Judah wept upon the
dunghill–whereas before she was adorned with bridal ornaments and sat
upon the throne! The adversary ruled in the halls of David, for the
days of Herod, the Idumaean tyrant, had come. The Roman yoke was heavy
upon the people–their sins had brought them low. God, in His infinite
compassion, gave them one more opportunity. He had one Son, His
well-beloved Son, and He sent Him to His Israel. With lips that dropped
mercy and with eyes that overflowed with tenderness, He came. "Oh, that
you had known," He said, "even you, in this your day"! He wept over the
city which would not be saved. But His warning and His weeping were
lost upon the blinded people. Those who had rejected the Prophets also
rejected the Lord! The fate of the servants was repeated in "the Heir."
"Let us kill Him," they said, and they put Him to the death of the
Cross.

You know the story–it is full of infinite mercy on God's part and of
immeasurable guilt on the part of man. God seemed to out-do Himself in
His long-suffering and man seemed to out-do himself in his wanton
defiance of the Most High! Sin culminated in the murder of the Son of
God–it reached its utmost height of horror when the cry was heard,
"Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" Yes, they crucified the Lord of Glory!

What has this to do with us? I am not going to preach this morning
merely to rehearse a piece of ancient history which has no bearing on
today. I do not so regard the death of our Lord. My anxiety is to reach
the consciences of living men and, if possible, to win to the Blessed
Heir of all things, who has risen from the dead, some of those who have
had a share in His death. I would bring to the Great Householder the
fruits of the vineyard which He, Himself, has planted, and I would move
many hearts to relent towards Him at the remembrance of the wicked
injuries which have been done to His servants and to His Son. May the
Spirit of God silently move over this audience at this time, as I try
to use this passage, not in its strictest application, but with such an
application as I am sure the Spirit of God will approve! May He bless
the Savior's Word to present uses, that we may this day repent!

The fact is that unless changed by Divine Grace, we have all refused to
pay to our great God the service which is due Him. He has put us here
and given us this life, like a vineyard, for us to cultivate, but many
have cultivated that vineyard entirely for themselves–themselves or
their families and friends–and not for their God, their Maker. "God is
not in all their thoughts." Now, the Lord has sent to such, many
messengers. We have had no Prophets in these days living among us, but
we have the Word of God and the record of the testimonies of His
Inspired Messengers and these virtually speak to us. We have Moses and
the Prophets–they are speaking to us even now. Besides that, we have
been surrounded by men of God and encompassed by holy women who have
appealed to us on God's behalf. They have been urged to speak by the
love of their hearts and they have tried to bring us to repent of past
rebellion and to yield ourselves at once to God. Many are the voices
around us and within us which persuade to render unto the great
Householder His due–but in many cases none of these have been
successful.

Last of all, God has sent to each one of us His Son, that He, in His
own Person, may lovingly repeat with greater emphasis the requirements
of the Lord of Love. The Incarnate Wisdom now cries to us, "My son,
give Me your heart." Jesus warns us, "Except you repent, you shall all
likewise perish." He sets before us the way of reconciliation and bids
us believe in Him and live. With many a charming parable He would draw
the far-off prodigal home to the bosom of forgiving love. The very
coming of the Son of God in human form, as Emmanuel, God With Us, is
Love's great plea for reconciliation! Who can resist so powerful an
argument? It is in the Person of Jesus Christ that God makes His last
and strongest appeal to the human conscience. By the Christ of God, He
virtually says this morning, "Turn you, turn you: why will you die, O
house of Israel?" And I would to God that the answer might be from many
a heart, "Come, let us return unto the Lord; for He has torn, and He
will heal us." Cause it to be so, O great Spirit!

Three things I shall speak of this morning. The first will be the
amazing mission–"Having yet therefore one son, his well-beloved, he
sent him also last unto them, saying, They will reverence my son."
Secondly, the astounding crime– "they took him, and killed him, and
cast him out of the vineyard." And, therefore, thirdly, the appropriate
punishment, of which the text says, "What shall therefore the lord of
the vineyard do?" What vengeance can be sufficient for so base a

deed?

I. First, then, let us dwell for a few moments upon the amazing
mission–"Having yet therefore one son, his well-beloved, he sent him
also."

Please remember concerning the Son of God, sent to us to reconcile us
to the Father, that He came after many rejections of Divine Love. As to
Israel, He followed the Prophets, so to us He comes after many others.
There are none among us, I should think, who have been left without
admonitions and expostulations from God. He began early with some of
us, calling us, like Samuel, when as yet we were children. He repeated
those calls to us all through the days of our youth. It was never cheap
to some of us to sin–we never went astray but what there was a
something within which plucked us by the sleeve and warned us of our
wrong-doing. We have been called to God by most earnest entreaties of
faithful men and affectionate women. Discourses have been addressed to
us which might have moved hearts of stone, but yet, though stirred for
the moment, we remain obstinate enemies to God, dishonest to His
claims, careful of this world and forgetful of the world to come.

After all these refusals, if the Lord had closed the casket of mercy
and had opened the vials of vengeance and had poured them out upon us,
who could have blamed Him? Instead of which, He still, in His
long-suffering pity, speaks to us by His Son! Jesus Christ, by whom He
made the worlds, condescends to be the Messenger of the Covenant of
Grace. He gently reminds us of our offenses against the great Father,
of our willfulness in not returning to Him and of the tremendous peril
which we incur by remaining in opposition to the great God. The very
existence of our Savior gives us warning

of our sin, of our ruin and of the only way of escape. If it is so,
that we have rejected God's claims so often, will not the time past
suffice us to have played this dreadful game? Have we not had enough of
trifling with our souls? O Lord, how long shall men act the part of
fools and risk their immortal souls? Oh, will they not, at last, yield
to wisdom? Jesus Himself, by the preaching of the Gospel, pleads with
us–are we determined to persevere in our evil ways? Do we not feel
some tender relenting? Does not a "still small voice" urge us to arise
and go to our Father? After many provocations, will we not, at last,
yield to the God of Grace?

Remember, that Jesus Christ, when He comes to us today, as the
Messenger of the Father, comes for no personal ends. When the
messengers were sent by the householder, it was to claim the
householder's rent. When the heir came, it was for the same purpose. So
it is in the human emblem, but in the Divine, this becomes less
conspicuous. When Jesus pleads with us, although He urges us to render
unto God our love and our obedience, yet God does not stand in need of
these as the householder stood in need of his rents. What is it to the
infinite Jehovah whether you serve Him or not? If you rebel against
God, will He be less glorious? If you will not obey the Lord, what
difference can it make to His boundless happiness? Will His crown shine
the less brightly, or His Heaven be less resplendent because you choose
to be a rebel against Him? What if the straw strives with the fire,
will the fire be quenched by it? If a gnat should contend with yonder
blast furnace, you know what the end would be! It is for your own sake
that God would have you yield to Him–how can it be for His own? If He
were hungry He would not tell you, for the cattle on a thousand hills
are His! He can crush whole worlds to dust, "with His word or with His
nod"–do you think He has anything to gain from you? You alone will be
the gainer or the loser and, therefore, when Jesus prays you to repent,
believe in the disinterestedness of His heart! Believe that it can be
nothing but the most tender regard for your well-being which makes Him
warn you. Hear how Jehovah puts it–"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." A messenger after many rejections–a messenger
who comes solely out of love to us ought to have our respectful
attention.

Let us see for a minute who this Messenger is. He is one greatly
beloved of His Father and in Himself He is of surpassing excellence.
The Lord Jesus Christ is so inconceivably glorious that I tremble at
any attempt to describe His Glory. Assuredly, He is very God of very
God, co-equal and co-eternal with the Father and yet He deigned to take
upon Himself a human form! He was born an Infant into our weakness and
He lived as a carpenter to share our toil. When He quits the bench and
the saw, it is to follow still more laborious ways as a Teacher and
Healer of the people. He was the lowly and suffering Teacher of the
blessed will of the Father. He took upon Himself the form of a Servant
and yet in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily! He is the
Prince of the kings of the earth and yet He took a towel and washed His
disciples' feet!

Such is He who pleads with you! So majestic and so compassionate, so
great and yet so good–will you refuse Him? If I plead with you, I am
but as you are–flesh of your flesh. But if Jesus speaks to you, I
beseech you by the Glory of His Godhead, as well as by the tenderness
of His Manhood, do not refuse Him! Because of His Godhead you must not
dare to harden your hearts. He is God's Well-Beloved and if you are
wise, He will be yours. Do not turn your back on Him whom all the
angels worship! Beware, lest you reject One whom God loves so well, for
He will take it as an insult to Himself–He that despises the Anointed
of God has blasphemed God Himself! You put your finger into the very
eye of God when you slight His Son! In grieving the Christ you vex the
very heart of God–therefore do not do it. I beseech you, then, by the
love which God bears to His Son, to listen to this matchless Messenger
of mercy who would persuade you to repent.

I have already said that He is so glorious that I cannot describe Him.
I will, therefore, only say that His graciousness is as conspicuous as
His Glory. There was never such a one as He! None of us loves men as
Christ loves them and if the loves of all the tender-hearted in the
world could be run together, they would make but a drop compared with
the ocean of the compassion of Jesus! Of old His delights were with the
sons of men and though He might have been happy enough among the
angels, yet He left their company that He might take up this inferior
race. Yes, He espoused our Nature and became bone of our bone and flesh
of our flesh for love of that chosen company whom He calls His bride.
He hid not His face from shame and spitting, nor His body from the
shedding of blood, nor His soul from deadly agony, but He loved the
Church and gave Himself for it.

It is this lover of souls that becomes God's Advocate with us and
pleads with us that we would cease from our rebellion. Do not refuse
Him! If He were stern and unloving I could imagine that all the
obstinacy of your nature might be awakened, but His love, which passes
the love of women, deserves another treatment. If you reject Him, He
answers you with tears. If you wound Him, He bleeds out cleansing. if
you kill Him, He dies to redeem. If you bury Him, He rises again to
bring us resurrection. Jesus is Love made manifest–

"Heart of stone, relent, relent;

Break, by Jesus' Cross subdued!

See His body, mangled, rent,

Covered with a gore of blood!

Sinful soul, what have you done?

Crucified God's only Son!"

Furthermore, His manner is most winning. When I have been pleading for
men with God and I have ceased my pleading, I have feared that
something in my tone or in my manner would cause my pleading to fail. I
am not, perhaps, so tender as I should be, nor is there sufficient
pathos in my tones. If I could do better, I would go to any school to
learn. God has put me often to the school of suffering to instruct me
in this respect and yet I do confess my failings with deep regret. But
when Jesus, my Lord, pleads with you, this charge cannot be laid
against Him! His pleading is perfect. When Jonah preaches, his tones
are harsh and his spirit forbidding–but that can never be said of
Jesus. When Jeremiah weeps, there is an undertone of bitter complaint
within the sweet sorrow of his love, but it is never so with Jesus.
"Never men spoke like this Man." If ever His words thunder–as they
often do–even in that thunder there is heard the voice of love! When
He flashes with the lightning of judgment against Scribes and
Pharisees, yet soft drops of mercy follow every flame of fire. He is
stern because He is tender–His utterances of terror are born of a love
which dares not conceal the Truth of God, even though it breaks its
heart in the telling of it. God is Love, and Christ is God's love
Incarnate among men. Therefore, my Hearer, if you see anything about me
of which you disapprove, censure me if you will, but be all the more
attentive to my Lord, about whom there is nothing but what is wooing
and melting. God has sent to you His own Well-Beloved Son–I implore
you, do not refuse Him! My heart trembles at the bare suspicion that
even one of you should reject the pleading of one so jealous for your
eternal welfare!

Yet again, when God sends His Son to plead with men, remember He does
not urge us to anything which will be for our loss and
detriment–obedience to Him is happiness for ourselves. He does not
urge us to follow a life of misery, nor to begin a course which will
end in our destruction. Far from it! The ways in which He would have us
run are ways of pleasantness. And all the paths in which He would lead
us are paths of peace. Even repentance is charming sorrow, far more
sweet than the joy of sin. They that repent and turn to God through
Jesus Christ find such joy, such happiness, that earth becomes to them
the vestibule of Heaven! The joy-bells ring within the Father's house
when a soul returns to its home! The great Father leads the joy and all
the household rejoice with Him! To persuade you to be holy is to induce
you to be happy! To urge you to seek God is to urge you to seek your
own best welfare! To urge you to lay down the weapons of rebellion and
be reconciled to the Most High is to set before you the wisest, safest
and best course that you can follow. Therefore, hear Him! The Lord God
out of Heaven cries to you–"This is My beloved Son; hear Him!" Well
may you hear Him, when every word that He speaks intends your
salvation!

Remember, once more, that if you do not hear the well-beloved Son of
God, you have refused your last hope. He is God's ultimatum. Nothing
remains when Christ is refused. No one else can be sent. Heaven,
itself, contains no further messenger. If Christ is rejected, hope is
rejected! Neither would you be converted though one rose from the dead,
for Jesus has risen from the dead and you have refused Him. I should
like every person here that is unconverted to remember that there is no
other Gospel and no more Sacrifice for sin. I have heard talk of "a
larger hope" than the Gospel sets before us–it is a fable, with
nothing in Scripture to warrant it! Rejecting Christ, you have rejected
all–you have shut against yourself the one door of hope! Christ, who
knows better than all pretenders, declares that, "He that believes not
shall be damned." There remains nothing but damnation for those who
believe not in Jesus! "There is no other name under Heaven given among
men, whereby we must be saved." This is clear, for Heaven's grandest
effort has been made! What more can God do? O heavens and earth, I
appeal to you, what more can Jehovah do? If He gives His Son to die and
that great Sacrifice is rejected, what remains? Infinite Wisdom has
done its best and Infinite Love has surpassed itself–a fearful looking
for of judgment is all that despisers may expect.

Thus, this amazing mission is set forth before you and I pray you, as
you love yourselves, do not refuse Him that speaks, for if they escaped
not who refused Him that spoke on earth, how shall they escape who
despise Him that speaks from Heaven?

II. I beg your attention while I look, in the second place, to THE
ASTOUNDING CRIME. It was nothing less than an astounding crime, that
when this householder sent his well-beloved son, the vinedressers said
one, to another, "This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the
inheritance shall be ours. And they took him, and cast him out of the
vineyard." "No," says one, "we never killed the Son of God." I will not
charge you with having done so literally–that were to make myself
chargeable with exaggeration. But a man may do virtually what he cannot
do actually. If a murder is committed and I approve of it. If my own
principles lead up to it; if I feel no indignation against it, but
express myself very coolly about it. If there is reason to believe that
if I had been there, I would have done the same, then I may be, in the
sight of God, a partaker in the crime. There are many among us who are
guilty of the body and blood of Christ. The hymn we just now sung does
not bring a groundless charge–

"Yes, your sins have done the deed,

Driven the nails that fixed Him there,

Crowned with thorns His sacred head,

Plunged into His side the spear,

Made His soul a sacrifice,

While for sinful man He dies!"

Now, I say this, that all those who persistently deny the Deity of
Christ–virtually kill Him–for the Son of God is not alive if His
Godhead is not in existence. It is essential to the idea of Christ, the
Heir of all things, that He is God–and to deny His Godhead is to stab
at His heart.

All those who deny His Atonement also slay Him, for the blood of
Sacrifice is the life of the Christ of God. The very essence of His
Christhood, the soul of His Character as Jesus, lies in His having been
appointed to be a Propitiation for sin. No Cross, no Christ. No
Atonement, no Cross. Deny the great Expiation for sin and to the full
extent of your power you have annihilated the Christ! As far as you can
do it, you have destroyed the Savior.

"Well, we have not done that," cry some of you. "We have been no
opposer of the Deity or Sacrifice of Jesus." But let me remind you that
if you do not judge Him to be worthy of your most careful thoughts–if
you are indifferent to His claims and refuse to obey His Gospel–you
have virtually put Him away. To you it is the same as if there were no
Christ–

"Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by? Is it nothing to you that
Jesus should die?" You have virtually answered, "It is nothing." You
have set Christ down as nothing compared with the business of daily
life and thus you have virtually slain Him! You have put Him out of
existence so far as you are concerned. In the little world of your mind
there is no living Savior–He is dead and buried to you–and the claims
of God which He pleads you will not think about! You have been occupied
all the week with trivial amusements, or unimportant discussions, but
you have not deigned to think of Him whose advent into the world is so
great a wonder that if you never thought of anything else, you might be
justified in a life of devout meditation. He who deserves all your
thoughts gets none of them! You have nothing to do with Christ, His
Cross, His people, or His cause and, therefore–I say it with no
harshness, but with much grief–you are killers of Christ and are
guilty of His blood! I charge you with murdering your Savior! I press
the accusation home and trust that it will strike you with horror!

I have still closer work with some of you who are most assuredly
guilty. You were once members of the Church. You came to the communion
table where we gather who remember His precious body and blood. You
used to glory in His name, but you have gone back–you have denied the
faith, you have ceased to be followers of the Lamb. Now, these are no
words of mine, but Inspired Words–You have "crucified the Son of God
afresh, and put Him to an open shame." You are, beyond all question,
among those who have cast the Heir out of the vineyard and slain Him,
deliberately turning your backs upon His sacred cause. The Lord have
mercy on you! You have had no mercy on Christ, or on yourselves.

I must press this home upon a great many more who have heard of Christ,
believe Him to be God and assent to all the Truths of God about Him but
who yet have never yielded themselves to His authority. O Sirs, what
have you done? You have preferred the world to Christ! You have chosen
Barabbas and condemned the Savior! You have said to the claims of

Jesus, "Wait." For whom has your Lord had to wait? What? For a harlot?
For a bribe of gold? For your giddy pleasure? When a great question is
postponed to let another take precedence over it, we do not object if
that other is of pre-eminent importance, but can you say that anything
has a greater claim on you than the Son of God? Is there anything that
has a greater right to your thoughts, to your consideration, to your
love, than the great salvation which Jesus Christ has worked out? If
you have pushed the Lord Jesus Christ out of the first place, He will
occupy no other and, therefore, you have virtually un-Christed Him and
you are guilty of His blood! You must either be justified by Him or you
must be condemned by Him! There is no third course to take–you must
either believe in Him or disbelieve Him. Now, to refuse to believe Him
is to make Him a liar–and to call Him a liar is virtually to slay the
Lord of Truth. His blood must be on you by faith to cleanse you, or
else it will lie on you to condemn you, as it did the Jews of old!

What was the reason why these dressers of the vineyard dared, thus, to
treat the heir? The reason is one which presses upon those here present
who have rejected Christ! They did it, first, because they had enjoyed
a long immunity from punishment. They had not been at once punished for
their defiance of their lord. They had rejected his messengers without
provoking him to war; they had gone on to stone and slay others of his
servants and the householder had not come upon them to overthrow them.
The first time they mocked at the messenger they were somewhat afraid.
They feared lest soon the sword of the prince whom they had defied
would threaten their gates. But as there was no invasion, they grew
bold. The next messenger they slew and washed their hands, in
presumption, saying, "Nothing will come of it." They grew, at last, to
be very hardened. I know not what they said, but I conceive that
certain of them propagated the theory that their lord took no notice of
what they did, or that he was too loving to punish them severely.
"See!" they said, "he only sends fresh messengers if we kill the old
ones! And even if we kill his son, he will bear it. Let us not imagine
that he will take vengeance. He is love, and even should we murder his
son, he will lay up in store for us a larger hope. At any rate," they
seemed to say, "we will run all risks. We will test his graciousness.
We will kill his son and so challenge him to do his worst."

Ungrateful men abuse God's long-suffering today as they did of old.
They say, "Well, I have refused the Gospel a long time. I have put
aside many appeals, but I am not dead, nor struck with blindness, nor
smitten down with a stroke. I can go on at least a little longer in
safety. I may refuse Christ yet again, for God is merciful." "Certain
teachers," you say, "tell us that God is so good that if we even kill
His Son He will take no account of it. We will kill His Son and so we
will reject the Atonement and trample on the precious blood–and yet we
doubt not all will come right in the long run and the evil of our crime
will prove to be only temporary." You do not put your thoughts into
those words, but you are saying as much by your actions! You dare not
say it and yet it lurks in your hearts and works itself out in your
deeds! You are going to run the dreadful risk of trifling with the Son
of God! To you this seems a little thing, but horror takes hold of me
at the thought of it!

O Sirs, I will be no partner in your crime! I will not cease to warn
you that it must be, of all risks, the most tremendous! Gracious as He
is–and God has proven His Grace by sending His Son–yet God is not
effeminate nor unjust! If you refuse the mercy which He so freely
proffers you, He will deal with you in His justice! He is the Judge of
all the earth and He must do right. Remember how He puts it–"My sword
shall be bathed in Heaven." "If I whet My glittering sword, and My hand
takes hold on judgment, I will render vengeance to My enemies" (Deut
32:41). For as truly as He is love, so truly is He holiness! He is
wondrous in His power to forgive, but He is also terrible out of His
holy places. "If the sinner turn not, He will whet His sword; He has
bent His bow and made it ready." "Beware, you that forget God, lest He
tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver you."

The great reason, however, why these vinedressers determined to kill
the heir was this–they said, "Then the inheritance shall be ours."
This is what the heart of man vainly desires. It says, "Let us be rid
of this troublesome talk of religion and then we can live for ourselves
and study our own pleasure without remorse of conscience. Are we not
our own? Who shall be lord over us? If we are rid of this Jesus, we
shall not have this claim being always made upon us, that we are God's
creatures and that we ought to live to Him. We do not intend to serve
God. We will pay no rent to this Householder. We will be our own
proprietors. God shall have nothing from us. Who is the Lord, that we
should obey His voice? If we can get rid of this Christ business, we
can live as we wish and do as we please–and no one will call us to
account. If we can persuade ourselves that religion is not true, we
shall then care nothing for checks and warnings, but we

shall take our full swing and enjoy ourselves without stint! A short
life and a merry one will suit us. We might enjoy ourselves if this
matter of God, Christ and eternity could be disposed of."

Yes, young man, this is what your prototype thought when he said to his
father, "Give me the portion of goods that falls to me." Then he
gathered all together and went into a far country and spent his
"substance in riotous living." This is what you hanker after. But your
folly is exceedingly great. I grieve as I look into your young face and
read the idle dream of your heart. You little know what a tyrant he
serves who lives as he likes. May God grant that I may never live as my
sinful lusts would make me live! I had rather be a machine and be
compelled to do always what is right than have free will and with that
free will give myself up to do that which is wrong! But there is no
need to be made into a machine– the Grace of God can make you as free
in holiness as in sin! Grace can make you more free in the service of
God than in the service of yourself!

Self lies at the bottom of all rejection of Christ–"Let us kill him,
and the inheritance shall be ours." Ah, my Hearer! It will not be yours
and if it were yours for a little while–and you could do just as you
pleased with it, yet remember that the inheritance which is so gained
will soon pass away–and you yourself will soon have to stand before
the Judgment Seat of Christ to give an account of the deeds done in the
body, whether they are good, or whether they are bad! And what will you
do who have slain your Savior? What will you do in that day, who have
lived and died unsaved?

III. I must close with that third head which is so dreadful to me–THE
APPROPRIATE PUNISHMENT. I do not

suppose that the thought of this subject will be half so dreadful to
anybody here who is unconverted as it is to me. I tremble as I meditate
upon the wrath to come. How glad I would be if I had not to preach from
such a theme! But I must preach from it, or be a traitor to God and an
enemy to you. If you perish, your blood will be required at my hands if
I do not warn you of the punishment of sin. This is how the Savior put
it–"When the lord therefore of the vineyard comes, what will he do
unto those vinedressers?" He leaves our conscience to award the
penalty. He leaves our imagination to prescribe a doom sufficient for a
crime so base, so daring, so cruel! They have killed the only son of
their lord–what will he do unto those men?

Here I must interject a terrible passage which burdens me to deliver.
At this present moment I am afraid that this parable is being written
out, again, in the history of the Church of God. God has put into His
vineyard, or allowed to come into His vineyard, a number of religious
teachers who are not rendering to Him the honor due. Those religious
teachers to whom I refer are not teaching the Gospel as it is delivered
in Holy Scripture, but they are adapting it to the age and to the
scientific knowledge of the period. They are described in the book of
the Prophet Jeremiah–"Thus says the Lord of Hosts, Listen not unto the
words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they
speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the
Lord. They say still unto them that despise Me, The Lord has said, You
shall have peace; and they say unto everyone that walks after the
imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you."

The thoughts of their own minds are given instead of the Revelation of
God! Thus they set up another gospel which is not another and there are
some that trouble you. My fear is that the Lord will not much longer
bear with these vinedressers. He will not long bear these "prophets of
the deceit of their own hearts." He will bring an everlasting reproach
upon them and cut them off in His anger. He will destroy those wicked
men and He will give His vineyard to other husbandmen who will deal
more faithfully with the souls of men. I feel in my own soul that it
must be so. I dare not live as a preacher of my own inventions! I dare
not die as a preacher of my own thoughts, or of the thoughts of other
men. I must tell my Master's message or be accursed! The spirit of the
age is the spirit of proud self-sufficiency. Be it ours to sit at
Jesus' feet. My Lord will one day say to me, "I gave you a message, did
you deliver it? I bade you speak in My name, did you speak My Words or
your own? I gave you a Revelation, did you deliver that Revelation as
best you could? Or did you invent a new thing out of your own brain?"

I know how I shall answer. I fear that a terrible doom awaits those who
go after the fashionable falsehoods of the day. Be they clergymen or
dissenting ministers, an unutterably horrible damnation from the right
hand of God awaits those who prostitute the office of the ministry for
the delivery of human philosophies instead of teaching the Gospel of
the blessed God! Brothers, beware that none of us sin against the Holy
Spirit by setting up our dreams in rivalry with His certainties! Pray
for those who do so, lest God deal with them speedily in vengeance. The
Lord have mercy upon all false

prophets and bring them humbly and tremblingly to His feet, lest they
ensnare the people yet more, to the overthrow of this nation and the
taking away of the candlestick out of its place!

I return to you whom I have already addressed. You have crucified the
Son of God by refusing to believe in Him. What shall the Lord do to you
when He comes? The sentence cannot be too severe, for the crime is
horrible beyond measure! It must be the highest form of punishment
known to the Law of God. They slew the servants and they slew the
heir–no temporary punishment can meet the case. Those who plead for a
light doom for such a crime must, in their own hearts, be rebels. Those
who are always making light of Hell are probably doing it in the hope
of making it easy for themselves. He is the devil's advocate who would
judge the punishment of the impenitent to be a light one! God's true
servants say, "Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade
men." Our Lord leaves our own consciences to depict the overwhelming
misery of those miserable men who carry their rebellion to its full
length.

In the chapter which we read (Matthew 21), our Lord gives us a terrible
Word. Comparing Himself to the stone which should be the foundation,
but which the builders reject, He says, "On whomever it shall fall, it
will grind him to powder." Sinner, if you reject the Savior, you will
have to feel His full weight! Boundless in power, infinite in majesty,
the whole weight of Him will fall on you. Will you think that over?
Since He breaks the nations in pieces with a rod of iron, judge for
yourself His power! Since from His Presence Heaven and earth flee away,
judge for yourself His power! And whatever that power may be, you will
have to feel the full force of it! This foundation stone falling upon
you shall grind you to powder!

I will not dwell further upon this TERRIBLE thought, but I will repeat
it in set and solemn form–the full weight of the Incarnate God, in the
day of His wrath, you will have to bear! It is put in another way in
that expression–"The wrath of the Lamb." Is not that a marvelous
combination, "The wrath of the Lamb"? Love when it turns to jealousy is
the fiercest of all passions–and when the love of Christ in infinite
justice shall be turned into holy indignation against
unrighteousness–then it will be something terrible to think of and to
bear it will be the second death! Are you prepared to bear the awful
weight of a Savior's anger? No, you are not! Come, then, to Jesus.
"Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish from the way, while His
wrath is kindled but a little."

O my Hearers, my dear Hearers, do not refuse the Lord Jesus who now
pleads with you! I am not worthy to be His ambassador. I am not fit for
the office, but yet I would plead with you as a loving brother! Will
you lose your souls? Will you reject Christ? O Sirs, will you refuse
the Son of God? Men and women, can you be so mad as to live and die
without the Savior? Are you so far gone as this? Turn, I beseech you,
turn this day! Lord, turn them, for your dear Son's sake! Amen.