To The Thoughtless

A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 7, 1872,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"The ox knows his owner, and the donkey his master's crib: but Israel
does not know, My people do not consider." Isaiah 1:3.

IT IS clear from this chapter that the Lord views the sin of mankind
with intense regret. We are obliged to speak of Him after the manner of
men and in doing so we are clearly authorized to say that He does not
look upon human sin merely with the eye of a judge who condemns it, but
with the eye of a friend who, while He censures the offender, deeply
laments that there should be such faults to condemn. "Hear, O heavens,
and give ear, O earth: I have nourished and brought up children and
they have rebelled against Me," is not merely an exclamation of
surprise or an accusation of injured justice, but it contains a note of
grief, as though the Most High represented Himself to us as mourning
like an ill-treated parent and deploring that after having dealt so
well with His offspring they had made Him so base a return.

God is grieved that man should sin. That thought should encourage
everyone who is conscious of having offended God to come back to Him.
If you lament your transgression, the Lord laments it, too. Here is a
point of sympathy. He will not meet you upon rigid terms and say to
you, "By your own choice you have sinned, and now what remains to you
but to bear the penalty?" No, He will rejoice when you return, even as
He has sorrowed that you departed from Him! Let that thought of love be
the keynote of our discourse this morning. The point immediately in
hand is the inconsiderateness of mankind towards God.

Israel in this case is not so much a type of Believers as a
representative of sinners in general. The accusation will lie against
all ungodly men–they do not know, they will not consider. The greatest
difficulty in the world is to make men think! I mean think about
spiritual things, think about their souls, think about their God. You
can bring them to any other point but this. They will listen to holy
words, but they will not lay them to heart. They will go through a
round of ceremonial performances–but to worship in spirit the God who
is a Spirit is far from them! Thoughtfully and carefully to consider
their way is what they will never do until the Spirit of the living God
comes upon them and teaches them true wisdom.

I shall this morning speak about this inconsiderateness of men, first,
as a serious fault. And then as attended in many cases with most solemn
aggravations. I shall next try, if I can, to find out the secret causes
of this fault and then we shall close with mingled expostulation and
invitation.

I. We have to speak of A SERIOUS FAULT, common, yes, universal. "Israel
does not know, My people do not consider." Men are most inconsiderate
towards God. One would pardon them if they forgot many minor things and
neglected many inferior persons–but to be inconsiderate to their
Creator, to their Preserver, to Him in whose hands their everlasting
destiny is placed–this is a strange folly as well as a great sin.
Whoever a courtier may neglect he is sure to consider his king. Men,
when they start their sons in business, will bid them mind the main
chance and attend to the principal point–and especially take care that
they stand well with such a man who has the power to help or to ruin
them.

Men, as a general rule, are far too ready to seek the assistance of
those who are in power, and this makes it the more strange that the
all-powerful God who lifts up and casts down should be altogether
forgotten, or where remembered should still be dishonored by mankind.
If it were only because He is so great and therefore we are so
dependent upon Him, one would have thought that a rational man would
have acquainted himself with God and been at peace! But when we reflect
that God is supremely good, kind, tender and gracious, as well as
great, the marvel of man's thoughtlessness is much increased.

Every good man desires to be on good terms with the good. Unusual
goodness wins admiration and an invitation to associate with the
eminently excellent is generally accepted with pleasure. Yet in the
case of the thrice holy God whose name is Love, it is not so. All
attractions are in the Character of God and yet man shuns his Maker. If
God were a demon, man could hardly be more cold towards Him. Why is
this? Why should I neglect One who is superlatively glorious, who has
done me no evil, but has bestowed upon me boundless good? If I reflect
upon the way in which He provides for me day after day. If I remember
how He spares me, notwithstanding the provocations of my sin. If I
consider how He still entreats me to be at peace with Him, I may well
hear Him ask me the question, "For which of these good things do you
neglect Me, and on account of which of these benefits do you forget
Me?"

Strange freak of the madness of sin, that it should make a man
forgetful of the everywhere-present God and unmindful of the Being
whose bounties are constant and countless as the moments of the day!
Oh, grief upon grief, Israel does not consider her God! Then, again,
man is inconsiderate towards himself in reference to his best
interests. Alas, that in a matter of the greatest possible importance,
involving his all, man fails to use his thoughtful reason! Most men
trifle with their past history. They do not sit down and look it in the
face and mark, with repenting eyes, what sins they have committed.

They are often wantonly thoughtless with regard to the present–they
waste life as though it had no relation to eternity–as though time
were only meant for pastime, or for earthly task work. Neither its
mercies nor its judgments, nor its obligations nor its sins will they
worthily think upon! But like men in a thick darkness they travel
onward unobservant of the solemnities which surround them. The future,
too, is equally unthought upon–the bright or the terrible future–the
Heaven eternal or the Hell unending. 'Tis strange, 'tis passing
strange, 'tis amazing that immortal man should press on towards
unspeakable misery with closed eyes, unconcerned of the wrath to come!

He will not weigh his soul in the balances of the Truth of God and
learn what its end will be. A thousand voices call to him and bid him
pause and think awhile, but he lashes, still, the steeds of life and
like another Phaeton drives on, madly on, towards his own destruction!
Man is inconsiderate towards himself. When we ask men to attend to
matters which do not concern them, we are not astonished if they plead
that they have little time and no thought to spare. If I were, this
morning, to address you, my dear Hearers, upon a matter which affected
the interests of the dwellers in the Dog Star, or had some relation to
the inhabitants of the moon, I should not marvel if you were to say,
"Go to those whom it may concern and talk to them, but, as for us, the
matter is so remote that we take no interest in it."

But how shall we account for it that man will not know about himself
and will not consider about his own soul? Any trifle will attract him
but he will not consider his own immortality or meditate upon the joy
or the misery which must be his portion. I state the fact in far too
cold a manner and you also hear it with mournful indifference! This
must surely be because we have heard it so often and the fact is so
universal. Yet, it is in very truth a miracle of human depravity–what
if I say insanity–that man should be unmindful of his immortal soul!

Here we must add that thoughtless man is inconsiderate of the claims of
justice and of gratitude, and this makes him appear base as well as
foolish. I have known men who have said, "Let the heavens fall, but let
justice be done," and they have scorned, in their dealings with their
fellow men, to take any unrighteous advantage, even though it were as
little as the turning of a hair. I believe there are such present. I
have known some also, who, if they were called ungrateful, would
indignantly spurn the charge. They would count themselves to be utterly
loathsome if they did not return good to those who have done them good.
They feel that the obligations of gratitude cannot he disputed, nor do
they wish to avoid them.

And yet it may be these very same persons have been throughout life
unjust towards God and ungrateful towards Him to whom they owe their
being and all that makes it endurable. Think of it! God created
you–ought He not to be the object of your worship? Besides creating
you, He has preserved you in being–ought He not have some service in
return for this? You have been indulged, perhaps, with a smooth
pathway. You are not, today, among the poorest of the poor. You have
not been deprived of the use of your limbs. You have your reasoning
faculties–you have not been struck down with a stroke of
paralysis–you are still able to mingle with men and go about your
business. And for all this ought not God to be thanked?

His service is a delight to those who are in it–ought you not to
render service to Him? His Law is the most just Law that can be
conceived. It contains the essence of all honest Law, yet you have not
observed His commands nor loved Him

with all your heart and strength. Is this right? You discharge right
willingly the obligations due to man–but will you rob God? You would
think it shameful to be dishonest to your fellow creature, but will you
be a robber to your God? Will you withhold the honor and glory which
you ought to render to Him?

You will observe that the text says, "Israel does not know." Now,
Israel is a name of nobility. It signifies a prince. And there are some
here whose position in society, whose condition among their fellow men
should oblige them to the service of God. That motto is true "noblesse
oblige"–nobility has its obligations–and where the Lord elevates a
man into a position of wealth and influence, he ought to feel that he
is under peculiar bonds to serve the Lord.

I speak also to those who are the sons of pious parents. I address
myself to those who have been trained in the fear of God–you have been
nourished and brought up with the children of God, you have often been
looked upon as belonging to them–surely you ought not to have been
unmindful of your gracious Benefactor! To you more is given and
therefore of you more is required. Does it not disgrace you, as a man
of godly lineage, to be no better than the sons of Belial in the matter
of earnest consideration? You should, at this moment, feel a deep
regret that up to this present moment you have been false to your
pedigree and traitorous to your God. Man is forgetful of what is due to
his position and his ancestry.

One sad point about this inconsiderateness is that man lives without
consideration upon a matter where nothing but consideration will avail.
Nothing can stand in lieu of thoughtfulness in religion. There are some
who say, "Well, I cannot think about it, but I will pay a man to do it
for me. I will find a priest and give him so much money that he may see
to my soul, just as my doctor attends to my body." This is an invention
of a rebellious heart to quiet a conscience, but it is both idle and
wicked. The Lord demands personal love of the heart and He will be
content with nothing less.

"But I go up to the House of God regularly. I sit with God's people. I
give of my substance." Just so, but God demands your heart and if the
heart is not given–if you do not love Him with all your soul, mind and
strength–you have done nothing whatever in religion! In vain your
Baptism! In vain your coming to the sacramental table! True religion is
not a bodily exercise, nor a manual performance. The soul, the mind,
the heart–with all its intents and faculties–must think of God and
yield submission to Him! Otherwise, though all the ceremonies ordained
of God Himself were rightly performed upon you, yet would they yield
you not one particle of Divine Grace! Religion is a spiritual business
and if man lives and dies refusing to consider it, he has put away from
him altogether all hope of being saved, for Grace comes not into us by
mechanical process, but the Holy Spirit works upon the mind and soul.

This inconsideration, also, it should be remarked, occurs upon a
subject where, by the testimony of tens of thousands, consideration
would be abundantly remunerative and would yield the happiest results.
We should not marvel at men if they would not think upon topics which
made them unhappy–it would not seem strange if subjects, known to
deprive men of joy and gladness–were avoided by wise men. But although
there are some who have suffered frightful depression of spirits in
connection with true religion, yet its general and ultimate fruit has
ever been peace and joy through believing in Christ Jesus–and even the
exceptions could be easily accounted for.

In some melancholy spirits their godliness is too shallow to make them
happy. They breathe so little of the heavenly air that they are
distressed for need of more. In others the sorrows occasioned by
gracious reflection is but a preliminary and passing stage of
Grace–there must be a plowing before there can be a harvest–there
must be medicine for the disease before health returns. In some, the
newly-awakened are just in the stage of plowing and the condition of
drinking bitter medicine. This will soon be over and the results will
be most admirable.

A great cloud of witnesses, among whom we joyfully take our place,
bears testimony to the fact that the ways of the Lord are ways of
pleasantness. Our deepest joy lies in knowing our God and considering
Him. God in Christ Jesus is to us an unfailing fountain of peace, joy,
content and blessedness. O that you would hearken unto the Lord, for
then would your peace be as a river and your righteousness as the waves
of the sea! Thus says the Lord, "O that My people had hearkened unto
Me, and Israel had walked in My ways! I should soon have subdued their
energies and turned My hand against their adversaries. I should have
fed them, also, with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the
rock should I have satisfied them."

Down here below, godliness has the promise of the life that now is and
after death its weight of glory is unspeakable! O that you thoughtless
ones knew the joy which you are losing and were aroused from apathy!

II. Thus have I spoken upon the serious fault. Let us note next,
AGGRAVATIONS WHICH ATTEND IT in many cases. And remember, first, that
some of these careless persons have had their attention earnestly
directed to the topics

which they still neglect. Observe in this passage that these people had
been summoned by God to consider. The heavens and the earth were called
to bear witness that they had been nourished and brought up by the good
Father. And in the fourth verse they are rebuked–they are earnestly
scolded because they continue to be so unmindful of their God.

Now, if a person should, for awhile, forget an important thing, we
should not be surprised, for the memory is not perfect. But when
attention is called to it again and again. When consideration is
requested kindly, tenderly, earnestly, and when, because the warning is
neglected, that attention is demanded with authority and possibly with
a degree of sharpness, one feels that a man who is still unmindful is
altogether without excuse and must be negligent on purpose and with
determined design.

Some of you now present have thought of everything except your souls
and your God, and though this morning I would, even with tears, beg you
to give an hour before the sun goes down to serious reflection upon
spiritual matters, the probabilities are that you will do no such
thing. Here is the aggravation of your folly–that you have again, and
again, and again been reminded of this weighty business–and all in
vain. When you were running on in childish waywardness, parents plucked
you by the sleeve and said, "Consider your ways." They exhorted you,
when you were rejoicing in your youth, to look forward to the day when
for all this God would bring you into judgment.

Since then, if you have been a sermon-hearer, you have often been
called earnestly and urgently by men who spoke with all sincerity, to
amend your ways and turn unto the Most High. Yes, and God's voice has
come to you in the very midst of your business. When you have had a
quiet interval and have been sitting down awhile, a voice, silent, but
not unheard, has said to you, "Will you never think? Will you plunge
into eternity without consideration? Will you never open your eyes and
look about you till you are in Hell?"

Your conscience, by fits and starts, has troubled you. The Bible in
your house, which you have not read, has yet, from the very fact of its
being there, upbraided you. And the mere presence of godly men has been
a rebuke to you. When you have recollected how family prayer used to be
offered in your father's house when you were a child, and how it is
neglected in your own house, the neglect has rebuked you. Can you deny
this? And can you doubt this, also, that he who is often reproved and
hardens his neck, deserves that he shall be suddenly destroyed–and
that without remedy?

The Prophet then mentions the second aggravation, namely, that in
addition to being called and admonished, these people had been
chastened. They had been chastised, indeed, so often and so severely
that the Lord wearied of it! He saw no use in striking them any more.
Their whole body was covered with bruises, they had been so sorely
beaten. The nation as a nation had been so invaded and trodden down by
its enemies that it was utterly desolate, and the Lord says, "Why
should you be stricken anymore? You will revolt more and more."

Of course I cannot tell what has been the history of all of you, but I
may be addressing someone this morning whose life of late has been a
series of sorrows. You have plunged from one calamity to another. You
have sailed over every known sea of affliction. You know what sickness
means–there are in your body the scars of old diseases. You have known
what perils mean on the waters and perils on land. Perhaps you have
been brought down from competence to poverty. Perhaps you have been
deserted, too, by those who should have comforted you–you know almost
all the pangs which wring the human heart with anguish.

Don't you know that all these are sent to wean you from the world? Will
you still cling to it? All these are calls from Heaven, like the voice
of hunger in the prodigal when he could not fill his belly with the
husks and therefore said, "I will arise and go to my father." Will you
never say the same? How shall God afflict you, now? Is your wife dead?
Would you like to lose your child? Is one child gone? Shall death take
away the other? Shall the last darling be taken from you?

What stroke would touch your hard heart? Must the Lord strike again and
again, and again and again before you will hear Him? If He is resolved
to save you, depend upon it, He will not spare you! He will bring you,
somehow or other, to Himself if He means to bless you. Be you not as
the horse and the mule which have no understanding–whose mouth must be
held in with bit and bridle–but yield now to the afflictions you have
already suffered, or else you will certainly enhance your guilt by
despising the chastening of the Lord!

It was an additional piece of guilt that these people were, all the
while that they would not consider, very zealous in an outward
religion. They would not serve God in His own way, but they were very
diligent in a way of their own. As you read the chapter you will notice
how attentive they were to burnt offerings, new moons and feast
days–and yet they would not consider. Certain individuals will become
out-and-out Ritualists and yet will not think upon the Lord. They

will go the whole hog with Popery and yet they will not turn unto the
Most High and confess their sins and seek mercy at His hand, or yield
their souls to His Truth. Strange, but yet it is so.

There are persons here who seldom miss a service and even come to
Prayer Meetings, and yet are not a bit the better for it. They are men
of bad lives and yet they love the preacher–yes, and would stand up
for him if any spoke against him–and yet they are still evil,
regardless of that preacher's warnings, and what is worse, they are
careless concerning God and the world to come. They live, and I fear
they will die, without Christ and without hope! O Sirs, how can I
reason with you? Your inconsistency is so glaring. You stand up today
and sing the praises of God, yet tomorrow you will blaspheme Him! What?
Will you shut your eyes when we are praying and pretend to join with us
when you know that tomorrow you will act wantonly or do unjustly?

How can you habitually sit with the people of God, yes, and in some
measure feel at home with them, and yet afterwards keep company with
the children of darkness and find yourselves at home at the bar of the
alehouse, on the settle of the gin palace, or in the theater, or in
other places where blasphemy is on all sides to be heard and iniquity
on all sides to be seen? Will a man mock God and insult Him to His
face? I beseech you, yes, I implore you to think of this, for it
greatly aggravates your thoughtlessness that you still continue in the
midst of the people of God. To be in a man's house and not to think of
him–to sing a man's praises and not respect him–to mix up with that
man's children and yet not care about him, why, surely this would be
most provoking! Shall such conduct be shown towards the Most High?

Yet, further, I need you to notice that there was an aggravation to
Israel's forgetfulness of God because she was most earnestly and
affectionately invited to turn to God by gracious promises. Let me read
you that Word of God, "Come now, and let us reason together, says the
Lord: though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.
Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

A man might say, "Why should I think of God? He is my enemy. Why should
I meditate upon my sinfulness, for it cannot be forgiven. And why
should I think of righteousness when I know I can never attain to it?"
O Man, you know better! You know that God is Love! You know that there
is forgiveness with Him that He may be feared. You know that a change
of heart is possible and the Spirit of God can make a new man of you.
If the case were hopeless I should not wonder if you refused to enter
into such dreadful contemplations–but when the brightness of Jehovah's
Grace invites you–how can you turn your back upon Him and still
continue unmindful of Him?

As a last aggravation, carefully note that these very people had
ability enough to consider other things, for we find that they
considered how to get bribes, and were very sharp and shrewd in
following after rewards–yet they did not know and did not consider
their God! Oh, how quick are some men in the ways of evil, and yet if
you talk to them about religion, they say it is mysterious and beyond
their power of apprehension. Those same persons will discuss with you
the knottiest points of politics, or unravel the mysteries of
science–and yet they pretend they cannot understand the simplicities
of Revelation!

"I am a poor man," says one, "I am a poor man and you cannot expect me
to know much." Yet, if anybody were to meet that same "poor man" in the
street and tell him he was a fool, he would be indignant at such an
accusation and would zealously prove that he was not inferior in common
sense. "I cannot," says one, "vex my brain about such things as these."
Yet that very man wears his brain far more in pursuit of wealth or
pleasure. Oh, if men were idiots, then were they exempt from blame! If
they were physically blind they would be excused from seeing, but when
men have eyes they are to be blamed if they will not see! If a man has
an understanding and can exercise it well upon minor matters, how shall
we apologize for his neglect of his God?

I can invent no excuse for them, though I would gladly be their
advocate. I can only beseech them to repent of this, their wickedness,
and no longer have it said of them that they will not know, that they
will not consider.

III. We shall now investigate some of THE SECRET CAUSES of human
indifference to topics so important. In the case of many thoughtless
persons we must lay the blame to the sheer frivolity of their nature.
Some individuals appear to have a brain case which was never properly
filled. Like butterflies, they flit from flower to flower but gather no
honey.

Look at the life of many in the West End who pass all their existence
in dressing and undressing, distributing bits of cardboard, riding in
carriages, bowing and scraping and eating and drinking. These notable
do-nothings remind me of a set of butterflies flitting about a field of
poppies. Nor are the poorer districts clear of such beings. Note the
many fellows

who go loafing from public-house to public-house, lolling and dawdling
about from morning till night as if they had nothing whatever to live
for but to talk and booze.

I hope that is not the case with any ofyou. If so, let me remind you
that you may live in jest but you will have to die in earnest. You may
waste this life in frivolity, but you will have to spend the next in
eternal damnation! The moth may play, but the candle burns it and then
it suffers in earnest. You will come to be earnest enough when you wake
up and find yourself condemned of God. Oh, if you are a fool, or have
been a fool up to this moment, may God sober you and make you wise to
number your days!

I have no doubt that in every case, however, the bottom reason is
opposition to God Himself. You do not think of God because you do not
like Him. Nothing will persuade you to consider because you do not love
the subject to be considered. If you are called to consider a topic
which is pleasurable to you, you very readily turn to it–but in this
case, for 50 or 60 years or more you have shunned this subject–though
it has been forced upon you in all sorts of ways. You have either
huffed it off in bad temper, or smiled it off in pleasantry! And when
it has come upon the cool of the evening when you have been alone, you
have called it "having the blues," and have gone off into company to
get rid of it. The real reason is that you have no love to your God.

Now this argues a base mind. It is disgraceful that you should not love
one so infinitely good, noble, generous and just. His Character
engrosses the admiration of all honorable spirits and would commend
itself to you if you were not bad at heart. Consider how depraved you
must be not to love the Perfect One. Upon some minds the tendency to
delay operates fearfully. Probably if I went round this place I should
not find a single person who intends always to remain indifferent
towards God and the world to come. Nobody here intends to be lost! I do
not suppose that any one of you has chosen to make his bed in Hell! You
have all good intentions and you mean one of these days to carry them
out.

Ah, and out of those who are now shut up in Hell, there are very few,
if any, who resolved to be there! The most of them meant one day to
seek the Lord, but Death came and found them still sleeping, as I fear
he will find many of you! Do you know that you are in the presence of
Death now? He spreads his wing, even now, over your head–out of this
vast company some of us must soon feel his dart! One of our city
missionaries was witness to a dreadful scene, when in a poor house he
found persons playing cards, using for a table a coffin covered with a
white cloth–the coffin containing the father of the family!

This was a mournful instance of hardness of heart, but in some aspects
all triflers with religion are in much the same condition, for their
souls are in jeopardy of eternal wrath and yet they persevere in their
merriment! They enjoy their frivolities while God's sword is furbished
and bathed in Heaven and must before long strike them to destruction!
If they could see where they are, and what they are, they would no more
be able to enjoy themselves than a man would sit down and feast beneath
a gallows tree, or laugh with his neck bared and fixed beneath the
knife of the guillotine! O that men were wise and that they would
consider this! Put not off reflection, for death is near, and it is
this putting off and putting off which is Satan's most potent engine of
destruction.

Some make an excuse for themselves for not considering eternity because
they are such eminently practical men. They are living for the
realities of the nature of hard cash and they will not be induced to
indulge in fancies and notions. For my part I feel great sympathy with
them in their downright practicality. I, too, am a matter-of-fact man
without speculation or fancy in me. "What I need is facts." I only wish
that those who profess to be practical were more truly so, for a
practical man always takes more care of his body than of his coat,
certainly–then should he not take more care of his soul than of the
body which is but the garment of it?

If he were truly practical he would do that. A practical man will be
sure to consider matters in due proportion. He will not give all his
mind to a cricket match and neglect his business. And yet how often
your practical man still more greatly errs–he devotes all his time to
money making–and not a minute to the salvation of his soul and its
preparation for eternity! Is this practical? Why, Sir, Bedlam itself is
guilty of no worse madness than that! There is not in all yon wards a
single maniac who commits a more manifest act of insanity than a man
who spends all his force upon this fleeting life and lets the eternal
future go by the board!

I have no doubt with a great many their reason for not thinking about
soul matters is prejudice. They are prejudiced because some Christian
professor has not lived up to his profession, or they have heard
something which is said to be the doctrine of the Gospel which they
cannot approve of. Now, if this morning I stood here and said, "Attend
to me! Give

your souls up to my guidance! Be led by me," I should admire you for
saying, "We shall do no such thing!" But I disclaim all idea of wishing
to be a priest to any one of you. My teaching is always, "There is
God's Bible, read it and judge for yourselves." You have brains, use
your brains!

My judgment was never meant to excuse you from using your own. If any
man asks you to let him put a ring in your nose that he may lead you as
a farmer does a bull, away with him! What can he be but an impostor? We
say search for yourselves! Come to God's Book, to God's own revealed
Truth! Come to Jesus Christ and find salvation in Him. Surely you ought
not to be prejudiced against a faith which speaks after this fashion!

In most cases men do not like to trouble themselves and they have an
uncomfortable suspicion that if they were to look too narrowly into
their affairs they would find things far from healthy. They are like
the bankrupt before the court the other day who did not keep books. Not
he! He did not know how his affairs stood, and, moreover, he did not
need to know! He did not like his books, for his books did not like
him! He was going to the bad and he therefore tried to forget it.

They say of the silly ostrich, that when she hides her head in the sand
and does not see her pursuers, she thinks she is safe–that is the
policy of many men. They spread their sails and get up the steam and go
with double speed straight ahead. What? Not look at the chart? No, they
do not need to know whether there are rocks or breakers ahead. Arrest
that captain! Put him in irons and find a sane man to take charge of
the vessel! O for Grace to arrest that folly which is the captain of
your boat and put sound sense in command, or else a spiritual shipwreck
is certain.

IV. I am going to conclude with a few words of EXPOSTULATION. Few, I
say, for if the few words I have spoken do not reach men's hearts by
God's Spirit, I know that a great many words cannot. My dear Hearers,
is not your inconsiderateness very unjustifiable? Can you excuse it in
any way? Perhaps you think you will never die. Well, go to the cemetery
and you will soon change your mind. Our sires and grandsires died–how,
then, should we expect to live?

Do you hope to live to an extreme old age? I have heard of one who
often boasted that he expected to be quoted at par in the life market,
but he fell thirty per cent short of the hundred. Have you imbibed the
idea that God will make a difference in dealing with you from what He
does with other people? If so, get that out of your head, too, for He
has not one rule for one, and another for another! If you die without
Christ, you will die without hope! And if you have never repented of
sin, God is no respecter of persons–there will be the same punishment
for you as for other impenitents.

Are you so mad as to hope that, after all, there will be no future?
Then I can understand your thoughtlessness! Are you like a certain poor
rambler who calls himself a philosopher, and lately said, "the only
immortality is that when the body is disintegrated its ammonia,
carbonic acid and lime serve to enrich the soil and to nourish plants
which feed other generations of men"? Here the ox and the donkey of my
text are outdone in stupidity! The man confesses that he is no better
than a beast and has no soul! As it would be useless to argue with a
compound of ammonia and lime, he must not wonder if we hold no further
debate with him.

Now, my Hearer, if you are such an ox or donkey as that, your
thoughtlessness is accounted for! But if you are not so far gone I am
at a loss to make your conduct consistent. Do you think you will be
able to brawl it out with God in the end? You are as wax and He is the
fire! You are stubble and He is the flame! How can you hope to fight it
out with Him? There are stranger things in this world than my
philosophy has dreamed of, but I cannot invent an excuse for you, nor
do I think you can, yourself, devise a justification! Let me ask you,
again, if you do not think that many a man's good opinion of himself
would collapse if he were to consider–his opinion of himself would
fall to zero if he would but think?

Yon spendthrift who squanders his gold so freely, scattering with a
fork what his miserly father gathered with a rake–could he go on as he
did if he did not stupefy himself into thoughtlessness? Do you think
money-grubbers who toil and slave, and starve to amass wealth–would
think it worth their while to do so if they really thought about it?
For is the result worth the trouble? Merely to have people say, "he
died worth a plum"? Perhaps you have not chick nor child to leave it to
and the stranger who will inherit it, every time he drinks his wine,
will jest about the old fellow who fretted and steered to provide for a
stranger's son.

When men think they are so good that they will go to Heaven by their
works, would not that bladder burst if they pricked it with a little
thought? It looks very fine. Look at it, "I have always been a stanch
Dissenter, or an orthodox Churchman, and I have done my duty." Is not
that boast like a beautiful bubble which a boy blows from his pipe with
a little soap? What charming colors! It is beautiful as a rainbow! But
if we touch it with a little meditation it is dissolved!

The same may be said of nominal religion–if a man thinks God will take
him to Heaven because he calls himself a Christian, and has taken the
sacrament, and paid his pew rent, and sat with God's people–he must
surely have but a scanty brain! If he would exercise what little mind
he has, he would see that his hopes do not hold water. Do you want to
be deceived? Do any of you really want to mislead yourselves? If so,
shut your eyes and dream yourselves into destruction! But if in earnest
and you would be right now, and right at last, then awake at once! How
is it that you will not know and that you will not consider? May the
Holy Spirit save you from this desperate state!

Let us just consider for half a minute one or two things. If a man will
resolvedly and prayerfully turn these things over in his mind, God may
help him to come right. If I consider awhile, I see that I have not
lived as I ought to have lived. I have often done wrong. That is quite
clear to me and it is equally clear that the Ruler of the world ought
to punish sin. The letting off of certain atrocious murderers of late,
and the easy way in which certain criminals have escaped makes us all
demand a little more vigorous dispensation of justice, or else we shall
have our land made a pandemonium.

Even thus, if God did not punish sin, He would not be a wise and
efficient moral Governor for the world. Then if God must punish sin, He
must punish me and I must expect to suffer. But when I turn to this
Book I find He has devised a way by which to save me. He has laid sin
upon Christ that so I may escape! If I am puzzled to see how the sin of
one could be laid upon another, I find in the Word of Truth that Christ
Jesus is One with His people and it is right enough that He should take
their sin and suffer in their place. I find that Christ actually did
take the sins of all those who trust Him and really suffered in their
place. That seems to me to be a glorious Truth of God!

It meets the case of justice and leaves a door for mercy. How can I
avail myself of what Christ has done? I find in the Word that I am
commanded to trust Him. Trust Him! That does not seem to be a harsh
demand! He is true, He is great, He is God. I will trust Him! God help
me to trust Him. I learn that whoever trusts Him is saved. That is a
glorious Truth! I am now saved and pardoned for I believe in Jesus.
Will not some of you turn these things over in your minds? I pray God
the Holy Spirit to lead you to do so!

I believe it is often the way of salvation to men to be made to hearken
diligently to the Gospel and to consider and meditate upon it. And with
that view I have preached to you this morning, hoping that the Word may
incline you towards Him and bring you to consider Him, that you may now
enter into His salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Behold The Lamb!