Sermon 584. A Hearer In Disguise
DELIVERED ON SUNDAY EVENING, JULY 31, 1864, BY THE REV. C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"Audit was so, when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet, as she came in at the door, thathe said, Come in, you wife of Jeroboam;why do you pretend to be another? For I am sent to you with heavy tidings."
1 Kings 14:6.
AHIJAH the Prophet was blind. Did I not tell you this morning that God's servants could be happy without the light of thesun? If God should be pleased to deprive their natural eyes of the pleasures of light their souls would not be without joy,for as in the New Jerusalem, so in the renewedheart-"the glory of God does lighten it and the Lamb is its Light. " Doubtless this was the case with that venerable Prophet.He was not like Moses, whose eyes did not wax dim and whose natural strength did not abate. But his eyes were set with age.The organs of vision had sodecayed through the multitude of his years that he could not see so much as a ray of light.
Yet doubtless when he could not look out of the windows, God looked in. And when there was no beam coming in from the sun,much light was darted in from Heaven. What man of modern times saw more than blind Milton? It were well for us to feel theinfluence of that "drop serene," and close our eyesforever if we could but see such visions of God as Milton has penned in his Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. Here isa fine picture for you. Behold the venerable Prophet sitting alone in his humble cottage. And yet not alone, because his Godis with him. Blind, but yet in thehighest sense a Seer, looking into the invisible and by faith beholding things which we blind men who have our sight cannever see!
Ahijah beheld what eye has not seen and heard what ear has never heard. This, then, may furnish a word of comfort at the outsetto any who are suffering under infirmity-Jesus can mend you. You are not the only persons who have been called to suffer.Full many of your humble guild-thecompany of the blind-have been gifted with spiritual sight. If you have lost hearing, or the use of any of the members ofyour body, remember that no strange thing has happened to you but such as is common to man. There is a way by which, in proportionas your tribulationsabound, so your consolations may abound through Jesus Christ!
No, these very privations which you feel so sadly, which so loudly demand our sympathy, may by God's love be transmuted intomercies by a holy alchemy which really turns iron into gold! He can turn your losses into gains and your curses into blessings.Mark well this venerable Prophet-a manso old as to have survived the senses which give life its charm-is it not time for him to die? Has he not outlived his usefulnesswhen he is made entirely dependent upon his fellow creatures and a burden to himself? Why does not the Prophet's Master senda convoy of angels totake the good man Home?
There he sits without any apparent perception of the scenes transpiring around him. Surely, surely it is time for the Masterto call him away! But no, He does not. Ahijah must not die! He has another message to deliver and he is immortal till hiswork is done. I have no doubt he sweetly slept afterhe had delivered his last message, but not till then. Brothers and Sisters, you and I have no right to want to go to Heaventill our work is done! There is a desire to be with Christ which is not only natural but spiritual. There is a sighing tobehold His face which if a man iswithout I shall question if he is a Christian at all! But to wish to be away from the battle before we win the victory andto desire to leave the field before the day is over is but lazy and listless! Therefore let us pray God to save us from it.
Whitfield and a company of ministers were talking together and expressing their desire to go to Heaven. Good Mr. Tennant wasthe only man who differed from them. He said he did not wish to die. And he thought that if his Brother Whitfield would butconsider for a time, he would not wish to be gone,either. He said, if you hire a man to do a day's work and he is saying all the day, "I wish it were evening, I wish it weretime to go home," you would think," what a lazy fellow he is," and you would wish you had never engaged him. "So," he said,"I am afraid it is nothing but ouridleness that often prompts us to desire to be away from our work."
If there is a soul to win, let me not stop until I have won it. Truly some of us might summon up courage enough to say, "Iwould gladly barter Heaven for the Glory of Christ and not only wait twenty years out of Heaven if I may have twenty yearsof glorifying Him the better, but wait out altogetherif I may outside Heaven sing to Him sweeter songs and honor Him more than I can inside its walls. For outside Heaven shallbe Heaven to me if it shall help me to glorify my Lord and Master the better."
You have heard, I dare say, that anecdote of good Mr. Whitfield? In his early ministry, lying down, as he thought, to diein a high fever, a poor Negro woman was sitting by his side and tending him. In his sad moments Whitfield thought of dying,but the black woman said, "No, master Whitfield, youare not to die yet. There are thousands of souls to bring to Christ! So keep up your spirits, for you must live and notdie-your Master has yet work for you to do."
All this comes to my mind as I think of that venerable old Prophet, sitting in his chair, waiting until he shall have spokento Jeroboam's wife. And then after that ascending to his Father and his God-but not until his work was done. We have introducedto you Ahijah, the venerable Prophet. Wemust now address you upon an incident connected with his closing ministry. In our text we have before us an occasional hearer.Secondly we observe a useless disguise. And thirdly we listen to heavy tidings.
I. We have before us, first of all, THE OCCASIONAL HEARER. Jeroboam and his wife did not often go to hear Ahijah. They werenot people who went to worship Jehovah. They neither feared God nor regarded His Prophet. There may be some such here tonight.You do not often come to a place of worship. Iam glad you are here now. It may be my Master has sent me with tidings for you. Give earnest heed, I pray, that the tidingsmay be received and blessed. I am sometimes tired of preaching to those who hear me every Sunday for I fear some of them neverwill be saved.
They get hardened by the Gospel. All the blows of the hammer have only tended to weld their hearts to their sins and makethem harder instead of melting them. May God grant, however, that my fears may be removed and that some who have long resistedthe wooings of the Gospel may yet yield. I havemore hope of you occasional hearers-I know that when my Master has helped me to cast the net on the right side of the shipI have taken some of you. There are among those numbered with us some of the best in the Church and the most useful men inour society who were brought inby dropping into the place just as stray hearers-passing by, perhaps, or coming out of curiosity. But God knew who theywere, knew how to adapt the sermon to the case and affect the heart with the Word!
Now, here was an occasional hearer. And we make the observation that this occasional hearer was totally destitute of all truepiety. Most occasional hearers are. Those who have true religion are not occasional hearers. You will find that truly graciouspersons are diligent in the use of the means.Instead of thinking it a toil to come up to the place of worship, I know there are some of you who wish there were two Sundaysin the week. And the happiest times you ever have are when you are sitting in these seats and joining in our sacred songs-
"Your earthly Sabbaths, Lord, we love." There is no verse which gives you a better idea of Heaven as a place than that-
"Where congregations never break up, And Sabbaths have no end."
Gracious souls love the place where God's honor dwells and the assembling of themselves together is always a blessed thingto them. But occasional hearers are generally graceless persons. I know how you spend your Sunday. There is the morning-youare not up very early. It takes a long time todress on a Sunday morning. Then follows the Sunday paper, with the news of the week that must be gone through. The wifehas been toiling hard all the morning with the dinner- what do you care? Then there is the afternoon, when there is a littlemore lolling about. Then in theevening there is the walk. But the day, after all, is not very happy and comfortable-and sometimes you have wished therewere no Sundays except that they give your body a little rest.
You do not fear God, nor do you care for His service. Nevertheless I am glad you have come here tonight for who can tell?-myLord, who found out Jeroboam's wife, can find you out. And though it is many a day since you darkened the walls of God's sanctuary,this shall be the beginning of manysuch days to you. And who can tell?-this may be your new-birth night when you shall turn over a new leaf! No, not turn overa new leaf, but get a new look altogether and find your name written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
The second remark about these occasional hearers is that when they do come, they very generally come because they are in trouble.When Jeroboam's wife came and spoke to the Prophet it was because the dear child was ill at home. I know some occasional hearerswho go to a place of worship as peoplego to a pharmacy-that is when they want something because they do not feel quite right. Yes, your child is very sick. Youhave been watching all day and you have thought, "I cannot stand it any longer. I will just walk out and go to a place ofworship tonight. I want somethingto cheer me."
You have had such trials lately that your wife said to you, "John, we must not keep on in this way any longer. It is clearall we do ends without any prosperity. We put our money into a bag which is full of holes. We spend it for that which is notbread. We labor for that which does not profit." Soyou have come here to see if the Lord may have a word of comfort through His servant who speaks to you. I can only say youare very welcome to come in, you wife of Jeroboam! We are as glad to see you as though you always came and we do hope thatthis sorrowful affliction may beoverruled by God for your lasting good.
There are persons who profess to be atheists, but their atheism is not very deep. Addison tells us of a man who, on boardship in a storm, knelt down to pray and expressed his firm belief in a God. When he got ashore someone laughed at him forit and he challenged the man to a duel. They foughttogether and the atheist fell wounded. When the blood was flowing he believed there was a God and he began to cry to Godwith all his might to save him. The physician bound up the wound. The man put the question to him-"Is it mortal?" "No," thedoctor said, "it is only a fleshwound." "Then," said the man, "there is no God. I am a thorough atheist."
He believed in God when he thought he was going to die-the moment he felt himself better he returned to his unbelief. A prettyreligion, that, to live in and a pretty religion to die with! Your absence from God's House will do very well when thingsgo well with you-you can go out with ayoung wife to dissipate in frivolity hours which should be sacred to worship. But when sickness comes and when afflictionfalls heavily upon you-when you have trial after trial and you, yourself, begin to get gray with many cares, and feeble andhelpless with many years. Andwhen death comes near and casts his pale shadow across your cheek. And strange thoughts, oblivious of all around, come overyou by day, and singular dreams which throw you into the company of the long since dead, surprise you by night.
When fears and frights and signs and calls and bodings of imagination prove the wanderings and weakness of your brain-then,but possibly not till then-you will think of going to the house of God. I am glad, therefore, if this trouble has visitedyou early, or ever "the grinders ceasebecause they are few and those that look out of the windows are darkened." And I am very glad that you have come to theHouse of God. Come in, you wife of Jeroboam, for I bear you tidings from the God of Heaven tonight!
There is a third point-this woman would not have come but that her husband sent her on the ground that he had heard Ahijahpreach before. It was this Prophet who took Jeroboam's mantle and rent it in pieces and told him he was to be king over theten tribes. That message provedtrue-therefore Jeroboam had confidence in Ahijah. There are some of you who at times used to hear the Gospel. You have notbeen of late. But there were seasons when you did come up to God's House-yes, and times when you used to tremble under God'sWord. If I am notmistaken, there are men and women here tonight who once were conscience-stricken. The Word of God used to come home to youwith exceeding great power and make you tremble.
Did you not even profess faith in Christ? Why, some of you were very busy at revival meetings trying to bring others to theSavior. But your religion was like smoke out of the chimney-it has all blown away. Like early mist it was soon scattered whenthe sun had risen. Yet the remembrance ofthese things sticks by you now. You cannot help it-you feel there must be something in religion. The old stings which werein your conscience have not been quite extracted. Therefore at the present moment you are quite willing to listen to the Word-perhapseven hopingthat it may come with true power now and that you may, after all, be saved!
I wish I could wake the echoes of the slumbering consciences of some of you! O that I could recall the days of your youth-thetimes of your boyhood and girlhood-when you went up to the assembly of the saints to keep holy day! Those things you cannotquite forget. I pray that suchremembrances may often turn your feet towards the place of wor- ship. We have brought out three points of character-theywere persons of no piety. In trouble they sought the Prophet. And they had confidence in him because they had heard him preachbefore.
But there is one more point-they had one godly member of their family and that brought them to see the Prophet. Their childwas sick and ill and it was that which led them to enquire at the hands of the Lord. I hope there is no family here whichhas the misfortune to be without a Believer init. You, Man, have no fear of God. But strange to say, the Lord has taken one out of your family to be a witness for Him.That daughter of yours, you sometimes jeer at her, but you know you value her! You used to send her to the Sunday school justto get rid of her, but the Lord metwith her. And what a comfort she has been to you! How glad she has made your heart, though you do not tell her so!
Perhaps the godly one in the family is like this young Ahijah in the text, he is sick and near death. You can remember, thoughyou do not fear God, how the darling boy was sick! How you sat by his little bed and took his hand in yours when it was scarcelyanything but skin and bone! How he prayedfor you at night, that God would save father and mother and take them to Heaven! And how, just as he died, he looked outon you with those bright eyes so soon to be filmed in death and said, "Father, will you not follow me?"
Since that time you have often felt that something is beckoning you up yonder. And though you have gone on forsaking God anddespising holy things, yet still there is a little link between you and Heaven which is not snapped yet and you sometimesfeel it tugging at your heart. I pray God it may tugso hard tonight that your heart may go up to God and lay hold of Jesus, the Savior of sinners! What joy it causes me tothink that God does call one out of a godless household because where there is one there is sure to be another before long!It is like putting a light into themidst of stubble- there will soon be a blaze.
I have hope of a family when one child is converted, for Grace is like precious ointment-it spreads a perfume all around.When a box of fragrant spice is put into a room the perfume soon fills the entire chamber, then creeps silently up the stairsinto the upper rooms and ceases not its workuntil it has filled the whole house. So when there is true Grace in a house, the Holy Spirit blesses its hallowed power,till even the lodgers and family acquaintances begin to feel the influence of it! Is it your one praying child that has broughtyou here tonight? May God grantthat he may be the means of bringing you to Heaven as well!
But there is one sad reflection which should alarm the occasional hearer. Through Jeroboam's wife did come to the Prophetthat once and heard tidings, yet she and her husband perished after all. Oh, if there were the register kept of the many thousandswho come inside the Tabernacle gates andlisten to our voice, I am afraid-I am sadly afraid it would be found that there were many who did hear the tidings and didtremble at them, too-who nevertheless despised the counsels of the Most High! They have turned not at His rebuke, went onin their sin and perishedwithout hope. Shall it be so with any of you?
Are you to be firewood in Hell? Will you make your bed among the flames? My Hearers, will you die without God and withouthope? Will you leap into the black unknown with no bright promise of the Savior to cheer you in the thick darkness? May Godprevent it! May He be pleased to bring you to Christ,the Rock of your salvation, that you may depend upon Him with your whole heart! While thus speaking about the occasionalhearer, an idea haunts my mind that I have been drawing somebody's portrait. I think there are some here who have had theircharacter and conduct sketched outquite accurately enough for them to know who is meant. Do remember that if the description fits you, it is meant for you.And if you, yourself, have been described, do not look about among your neighbors and say, "I think this is like somebodyelse." If it is like you, take it hometo yourself and God send it into the center of your conscience so that you cannot get rid of it.
II. Our second consideration is the USELESS DISGUISE. Jeroboam's wife thought to herself, "If I go to see Ahijah, as he knowsme to be the wife of Jeroboam, he is sure to speak angrily and give me very bad news." Strange to tell, though the poor oldgentleman was blind, she thought it necessary toput on a disguise! So she removed her best garment and put on a countrywoman's russet gown and away she went. She left thescepter and crown behind and took a basket, as though she had just come from market.
In this basket she did not put gold, jewels and silver, but a present such as a farmer's wife might bring. There were loavesand biscuits and a jar of honey. And as she went along, she thought, "The old gentleman will not know me." She traveled throughher own dominions and nobody knew her. Shewent into the neighboring dominions of Judah as far as
Shiloh. And she pleased her imagination with the thought, "How I shall deceive him! I will ask him a question, as if I werea farmer's wife and he will not know who I am. He will be pleased with my present and prophesy soft things concerning my child."
How great was her surprise! No sooner did the blind Prophet hear her footsteps, than he said, "Come in, you wife of Jeroboam.Why do you pretend to be another? For I am sent to you with heavy tidings." How she started back with astonishment! She haddeceived hundreds who were blessed with eyes, buthere was a man who not only could not be deceived, but found her out before she had opened her lips and recognized her beforeshe had time to test her sorry lies or tell her subtle tale! "Come in, you wife of Jeroboam." I do not suppose there is anybodycome here disguised as todress tonight, though such things may happen. The working man who is afraid he shall be laughed at if he is known may comehere in disguise.
Now and then a clergyman may come in who would not be very comfortable in his conscience if it were known he did such a thingand so he does not show himself exactly in his regular garb. Notwithstanding whoever you may be, disguised or not, it is ofno use where God's Gospel is preached! It is aquick discerner and will find out the thoughts and intents of the heart. It will search you out and unmask your true character,disguise yourself as you may. Many who come to God's House not disguised in dress, are still disguised in manner and appearance.How good you all look!When we sing and you take your books, how heavenly-minded! And when we pray, how reverent you are! How your heads are allbowed- your eyes covered with your hands!
I do not know what you all say in your hats when you come in and I should not like to know. I do not know how much prayingthere is when you sit in a devout posture, though you assume the attitude and compose your countenance as those who draw nearto supplicate the Lord. I am afraid there are manyof you who do not pray a word or present a petition, though you assume the posture of suppliants. When the singing is goingon there are many who never sing a word with spirit and understanding. In the house of God I am afraid there are many whowear a mask-they stand as God'speople stand, sit as they sit, pray as they pray, and sing as they sing-and all the while what are you doing?
Some of you have been attending to your children while we have been singing tonight. Some of you have been casting up yourledger, attending to your farms, scheming about your carpentering and bricklaying! Yet all the while if we had looked intoyour faces we might have thought you were reverentlyworshipping God. Oh, those solemn faces and those reverent looks! They do not deceive the Most High God! He knows who andwhat you are. As you are in His House, He sees you as clearly as men see through glass.
As for hiding from the Almighty, how can you hide yourself from Him? As well attempt to hide in a glass cage, for all theworld is a glass cage before God. When you look into a glass beehive, you can see the bees and everything they do-such isthis world-a sort of glass beehive in whichGod can see everything. The eyes of God are on you continually. No veil of hypocrisy can screen you from Him. There maybe some among you who occasionally sit here, some members of this Church who, after all, may pretend to be other than youare. It is a melancholy and a most solemnreflection that there are many who profess to be Christians who are not Christians.
There was a Judas among the twelve. There was a Demas among the early disciples. And we must always expect to find chaff onGod's floor mingled with the wheat. I have tried, the Lord knows, to preach as plainly and as much home to the mark as I couldto sift and try you. But for all that thehypocrite will come in. After the most searching ministry there are still some who will wrap themselves about with a mantleof deception. Though we cry aloud and spare not and bid you lay hold on eternal life, yet, alas, how many are content witha mere name to live but are dead?Many come here and even hold office in the Church, yes, the minister himself may even preach the Word and, after all, behollow and empty.
How many who dress and look fair outside are, as John Bunyan said, only fit to be tinder for the devil's tinder box- for theyare all dry and sere within! God save us from a profession if it is not real! I pray that we may know the worst of our case.If I must be damned, I would sooner go toHell unholy than as a hypocrite. That backdoor to the pit is the thing I dread most of all! Oh, to sit at the Lord's Tableand to drink of the cup of devils! To be recognized among God's own here and then to find one's own name left out when Hereads the muster roll of His servants!Oh, what a portion for eternity!
I bid you tear off this mask, and if the Grace of God is not in you, I pray you go into the world which will be your fittingplace! Abstain from joining the Church if you are not really a member of the body of Christ. You see why I urge this-becauseno dressing up, however neatly it may bedone-can conceal us from God. Oh, how some who have been fair on earth have been startled when they thought they were goinginto Heaven! They had their foot almost on the doorstep, but the angel came and said, "Get out of here, wife of Jeroboam.I know you! You could deceivethe minister! You could deceive the deacons! You could get baptized and join the Church. But you can not enter here! Getout! Your portion is with the filthy in the pit of Hell."
O, may Jesus never say this to you and me! But may we all be so real here that He may say, "Come, you blessed of My Father,inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." "O God, see me!" Write that on the palm of your handand look at it. Wake up in the morning with it.Sleep with it before you on your curtains. "O, God, see me!"-
"O may this thought possess my breast, WhereverIrove, whereverIrest Nor let my weaker passions dare Consent to sin, for God is there!"
III. Now we come to a close with a few words upon the HEAVY TIDINGS. The woman stood amazed as the Prophet proceeded to exposethe iniquity of her husband's house, the certain judgment which God would execute, and the terrible disgrace with which thename of Jeroboam should be execrated becausethey had revolted from God and set up for themselves the calves of Baal. As for the child, respecting whom she had cometo enquire, he should die. That death was the quenching of a bright spark in the heart of the parents but none the less amercy for the youth.
"All Israel shall mourn for him and bury him: for he only of Jeroboam shall come to the grave, because in him there is foundsome good thing toward the Lord God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam." Let me linger on this part of the narrative a moment.In that wicked house there was one bright gemupon which the Lord put a high value. The lad was taken from the evil to come. The kindness of the Lord appeared in hisdeath-while all the judgments were reserved for his father's family.
Do I not speak to some of you ungodly persons who have lost your little children and while you wept bitter tears as you carriedthem to the grave, you said, "Well, he is better off," or, "she sleeps in Jesus"? Did you ever think, that as for you, youare worse off? You have no hope and are livingwithout God in the world. Let us picture Jeroboam and his wife at the tent of their son. There was everything to cheer theheart as to him who had departed. But everything to fill the soul with gloom concerning those who remained. The like has beenthe case at the funerals of yourgracious little ones. We need shed no tears over the bier. Let us keep our lamentations for the mourners who attend thefuneral.
Ah, but you may make the reflections all your own. You, too, have been outside the gates of the city to carry your offspringto the spot in God's acre where they now slumber. Did you think in that mournful hour that the first fruits of your householdwas holy unto the Lord? We never cease to wonderthat the young should die. Yet it has ever been so. And well, indeed, can I believe that mercy of a sweet-smelling savoris to be found in those dispensations of God's Providence which so often darken the windows of our heart and wither the fairestbuds in our garden.
Where of old did Death strike its first dart? Did it pierce the heart of Adam, the sinner, or strike down the relentless Cain?No, but righteous Abel was the first of men who departed from earth to be absent from the body and present with the Lord!Even so have you, full many of you, committed yourchildren to the dust in an assured hope for them, according to the Word of the Lord. A hope which you cannot cherish foryourselves! O Sinners, be cautious of your tears, your sighs and your groans-pour them not out with such profuseness as anoffering at the graves of thosewho sleep in Jesus and are blest. You will need them all for your own souls presently! Take up a lamentation for your owndoom! Unless you repent, your funerals, O ungodly ones, will call for shrill notes of endless despair!
Let me pause. I have glad tidings to preach to some of you before I yet again deliver these heavy tidings to those who despisethe Word. Is there one soul here that desires to be saved? Sinner, I have glad tidings for you! Here are the words, "Whoeverwill, let him come and take of the Water ofLife freely." Though you have been a drunkard or a swearer- though you have been a whoremonger or a thief-yet there is salvationfor any man who comes to Jesus Christ for it. And if the Spirit of God moves you to come now-
"Let not conscience make you linger. Nor of fitness fondly dream. All the fitness He requires, Is to feel your need of Him. This He gives you! It is His Spirit's rising beam."
You say, "How can I go to Christ?" It is no great effort. It is, in fact, the absence of all effort. You have not to climbto Heaven to reach Him, nor to travel to the ends of the earth to find Him. Never doubt, if the Holy Spirit is with you, youmay find Him tonight. The way to be saved is simplyto trust Christ. Jesus Christ took the guilt of His people and carried it Himself. If you trust Him, you shall have peace,for Jesus took your sin. An old woman servant was once carrying a large bough of a tree to have it cut into pieces to makea fire. A little boy, one of thefamily, seeing the end of it dragging along the ground and making it very heavy, came and took hold of the end, and theburden grew light. Then said the servant, "Ah, master Frank, I wish you could take hold of one end of the greater burden thatI have to carry-I have a burdenof sin. The more I drag it about, the heavier it becomes. I wish Jesus Christ would take hold of one end of it."
The little boy said, "My mother told me yesterday that Jesus Christ carries all our sins, therefore, you do not need JesusChrist to carry one end of it, He will take the whole of it." The poor woman, who had been long seeking rest, found it bythat remark of the child. Yes, Jesus does take yoursins! If you trust Christ, this is the evidence that all your sins are laid on Him-
"Sinner, do nothing, Either great or small. Jesus did it, did it all, Long, long ago."
Your salvation is finished by Christ if you believe. Not only the first strokes, but the finishing touch Christ has given.The bath you shall wash in, He has filled it. The robe you shall wear, He has woven it. The crown you shall wear, He has boughtit. The Heaven you shall inhabit, He hasprepared it. "It is finished!" All you have to do is to wear it. Take it and wear it! Accept it as a gift of His Free Grace.
May God bring you into such a mind that you may be willing to receive it. And if you are willing to receive it, take it, takeit and go your way rejoicing. Thus you see, I bring good tidings to seekers. But I have a heavy message for some of you. Letme deliver it as in the sight of God, with deepsolemnity of purpose. Sinner, unrepentant Sinner, I have heavy tidings for you. You are now under God's wrath. The wrathof God abides on you. It is not as though a tempest hovered in the sky-it has gathered round your devoted head! "God is angrywith the wicked every day."Sinner, God has bent His bow and made it ready and fitted His arrow to the string and He has pointed it at you.
He has furbished His sword and made it sharp and it is sharp for you! O barren fig tree, the axe is laid at your root! Godeven now looks upon you with anger as you do offend Him and sin against Him with a high hand. Turn! Turn! For it is eitherturn or burn! And God give you to turn lest you burnforever! I have worse tidings still, worse than you think. There is speedy death for you. I know not how long you may live.But out of this vast assembly there is every probability that one or two of us will be in eternity before next Sunday. Youcan calculate that as well as I can.There is a certain number of deaths in the population every week.
Here are several of you gathered here-some six or seven thousand immortal souls. And we may die-but there are some of us whomust die. It is rarely a week passes without a death of someone in this Church, much more in the congregation. I suppose Inever did address the same assemblytwice and never shall. And though you were all willing to come next Sunday, yet there would be some of you who could notcome because you will have appeared at the bar of God. Prepare to meet your God! There is no cholera abroad, but death hasother weapons. The fever sleeps, butthe gates to the grave are many and you may pass through one of them before ever you are aware of it. Prepare! Prepare!Because He says, "Prepare to meet your God, O Israel!"
I have heavy tidings for some of you. I give you warning to set your house in order, for you must die and not live. I speaknow prophetically of some here present! Let them take heed unto their ways lest the day of Grace pass and they die are theyhave thought of Christ. I have heavier tidingsstill. After death the judgment. First comes the skeleton king. And then Hell follows him. Oh, is it true that some of usmay be in Hell before another week? True! Alas! Too true! I do evoke you, then-since there is this possibility, no, sincethere is an absolute certaintythat before long, except we repent, we shall all likewise perish-I do plead with you to think upon your eternal state!
By the wrath of God and by the love of God-by your own soul and by the value of it-by Heaven and its joys, which you willlose! By Hell and its torments, which you must endure! By the blood of Jesus! By the groans and sweat of that Redeemer whodelights to receive sinners and whodeclares that any who come to Him He will in nowise cast out, I beseech you, as your Brother and your friend, fly, fly,fly to Jesus!
May the Lord help you to trust Him now. There, just as you are, flat before the Cross, Sinner-no stopping, no waiting, nopreparing-come to Jesus in all your sin-all black and filthy, just as you are! "Mercy's gate is never shut, Jesus' heart isnever hard." His blood shall neverlose its power. Do you trust Him? Trust Him! Trust Him and we will meet in Heaven to praise His name, world without end.Amen.