Part 26
Testament is a great Book of texts and the New Testament contains
the sermons upon them. Lot's wife was in the Old Testament as a
text and in the New Testament we have the sermon upon it,
"Remember Lot's wife." And wherever, my Brothers and Sisters, I
find our Lord Jesus Christ, or any of His Apostles referring to an
incident in the Old Testament, I always think it is our business to
look at that event to which they refer. In the writings of the old
Puritans, which I delight to read, I often find in the margin a hand
pointing to some special words which it is requisite that the reader
should particularly note and read with care. And when I see the
hand put opposite the passage, by some old lover of the Truth of
God, who, in days of yore, read the book, I generally turn to it with
eagerness, to see what is the gem pointed at by the finger.
Now, I think, when our Savior said, "Remember Lot's wife," He
did, as it were, put a hand on the margin of the Bible, pointing to
the whole incident describing the destruction of Sodom. He did, in
effect, say, "Mark that event. Look at it closely, for there is more in
it than there seems to be." And as there is something instructive in
Lot's wife becoming a pillar of salt, there is something to be
learned from every step of Lot's journey–and from every incident
connected with it. If it is so, I shall not be regarded as being
whimsical and fanciful if I assert that, in this text, I believe there is
much instruction in the simple incident recorded here–"The sun
was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar."
I will soon map out my sermon. Lot was nearly in the dark till he
reached Zoar–thesun was risen upon the earth as soon as Lot was in
Zoar. the same moment which saw the sun rise on Lot saw the fiery
hail fall on Sodom. We have here three facts which I think are three
pictures illustrating three great Truths of God with regard to the
sinner's experience.
First, then, LOT WAS NEARLY IN THE DARK ON THE
ROAD HE RAN TILL HE REACHED ZOAR.
Mark, when he first started, the Scripture tells us, in the 15 th
verse, that the morning rose–there was the first graydawn when the
angels hurried him out of Sodom! it was just the breaking of the
day and it is said that as soon as Lot entered into Zoar, the sun was
thoroughly risen, but not till then. He had to find his way through
shadows and run, to a great degree, in the dark.
Ah, my Friends, that was a solemn moment when those notable
guests turned their host out of doors and did it all out of love and
kindness, too! When the two angels took Lot, his wife and his
daughters by the hand and dragged them forth, and bade them run,
it was a solemn moment. The heavens were heavy with God's
wrath and only waited until Lot was safely housed to burst in
impetuous torrents upon the devoted cities. Do you not see them,
or, rather, do you not fancy you can see their black figures in the
gloom of the twilight? You scarcely understand what it can be–
there are two men pushing forth a family into the street. You see
them next grasping their hands and with loving haste driving them
forward. You now hear a voice, something more than earthly,
speaking in the celestial language, crying, "Escape for your life!"
And now mark the man, his wife and his daughters fleeing–fleeing
from their own house–fleeing from their own kinsmen and
acquaintances! A woman leaving her own sons-in-law and wives
leaving their own husbands to perish in the city! Watch their flight!
See them as they flee across the plain–they often stumble, for the
way is not clear before them–and they little know where they are
going. They only see the dark shadow of the mountain looming in
the distance and they run there, in the darkness, with all their
might.
Now, Lot running in the dark is the picture of a poor sinner when
he comes out of Sodom. You who have just beenawakened and
convinced of sin, must not expect that you will have the sunlight of
God's favor all at once. There must first come into your house the
angel of conviction to thrust you out of your abode of ruin. After
you have run a while, you will then have sunlight, joy and peace.
But in your running, while you are seeking the Savior, you must
expect to run in the darkness–and if you do expect it, you will not
be disappointed. Oh how dark it is to a poor sinner when he is first
brought to know his state by nature, before the blessed remedy of
Grace has been applied to him by the Holy Spirit! Look at him–
tears follow each other down his cheeks in one perpetual race! He
weeps almost all day and all night. And if he rests for a while for
very sorrow, his dreams disturb him–he is always miserable–men
call him mad, for he is as one demented. He talks to himself in
doleful language and, as he goes about his business, he moans and
sighs, "Oh, that!" And, "Ah!" And, "Would that!" Monosyllables
that no man understands, but which are well known in their inward
meaning both to God and to his own heart! He has no ray of hope.
He believes he is shut out from God forever and he thinks that God
is just in having hidden the light of His Countenance from him.
He does not murmur against the Most High, but never was man
so near to complaining as he is. He is ready to layviolent hands on
himself, for he says he cannot bear his existence. He cries with
David, "I am weary with my groaning! All night I make my bed
swim; I water my couch with my tears!" "Day and night Your hand
is heavy upon me." He turns to the Book of Job and he reads the
Patriarch's doleful cries and declares that he could say the same.
And all the mournful words of David or Jeremiah, he applies to
himself. "I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the housetop,"
he says. "I am like a pelican of the wilderness. I am like an owl of
the desert. I have no comfort, no peace, no joy. God's mercy is
clean gone from me forever! He will no longer be mindful of me!"
Now, dear Friends, please remember that, to a greater or lesser
degree, this always is and always must be the condition of a sinner
when he is seeking the Savior. O you who are in the dark,
remember that you are only where thousands of others have been!
Think it not a strange thing that you are subject to this eclipse–
others have been eclipsed, too–and all those who have found the
Sun of Righteousness have had to run through the dark to get to
Him! There must be a dark tunnel before we can get at Christ and
we must grope through worse than an Egyptian night before we
behold the face of God with joy!
Perhaps I may be asked what it is that makes it so dark to a poor
sinner while he is seeking Christ. I think I may tell you, very
briefly, it is partly his own ignorance. Poor Soul, he does not know
enough about the Savior, nor enoughabout the plan of salvation to
cheer him. Very likely he has never heard the way of salvation
preached in all his life. That may be true and yet he may have
attended a chapel–as chapels go in these times–for many a year! He
does not understand the simple A B C of the Gospel, the sinner's
sinnership the only argument to prove that he has an interest in
Christ's salvation. He does not understand the Atonement–he
cannot make it out how God can be just and yet pardon such a
wretch as he is. "All this ignorance necessarily causes darkness."
And, mark you, that mistakes concerning the Gospel are never little
things–they are always dangerous, they are always painful. Sinners
have more griefs than they need have because they have less
knowledge than they should have.
Sometimes, too, this darkness arises from mistakes concerning
the Gospel. There is not so much ignorance as there iserror with
regard to it–by which word, I mean, not a mistake willfully
committed, but a mistake ignorantly committed. I know some
people who understand the theory of salvation quite well, but they
have a mistaken idea as to its application, or else, perhaps, they
read it the wrong way upwards. I know many who do not neglect
the Scriptures, but they begin reading about election and
predestination before they know anything of conviction. So, often,
the darkness of the sinner arises from misapprehension concerning
the Gospel.
Many a time, too, the poor soul is running after Christ in the dark
because he has got legal ideas in his head. ThatMr. Legality is the
ruin of many and, after all we do and say to him, he still lives on!
You know how Martin Luther said that he preached Justification by
Faith every day because he found that the people forgot it every
day. In one of his quaint sermons, he says, "I feel as if I could take
my book and beat this doctrine into your heads because you will
never remember that you are not saved by your own good works,
but by the righteousness of Christ." A sinner may be told, as plainly
as possible, that all he can do is less than nothing–that salvation is
all of Grace from first to last–but that crafty old devil will not let
him believe it. He will always lead him to think that he must do
something,or
feel something before he can take Jesus Christ to be his All-in-
All! And so legality, like a black dragon, spreads its wings between
the soul and God's Light and shuts out every ray of comfort from
the poor desponding spirit.
Moreover, this darkness is caused principally by conscience and
by Satan. It is a strange thing, but, sometimes, a sinner's
conscience and the devil will strike hands. When Mr. Conscience is
blowing his dreadful trumpet and startling the sleepy sinner, he is
doing good service. But, sometimes, after the sinner is thoroughly
awakened, the devil comes and whispers to Mr. Conscience–and in
such a voice that it seems as if an angel said it–"Blow on, Mr.
Conscience! Blow a still more dreadful blast and I will help you."
And the devil comes in and, with his awful yells, he makes a
thousand times worse noise than even conscience does–and the
poor soul is bewildered, terror-stricken and well-nigh driven mad!
"Oh," cries Satan, "you have been a sinner beyond the reach of
Christ's mercy!" "Yes," says conscience, "that you have!" "Oh,"
says the devil, "you have committed every crime that flesh can
commit." "Yes," says conscience, "that's true!" And he echoes
every word that Satan says.
In comes the devil, and says, "You have committed the
unpardonable sin." "No doubt," says conscience, "I always told
you so." "And now," says Satan, "there is no hope for you–you
must be cast away forever." "Yes," says conscience, "you must be
cast away forever! There is no way of escape for such a wretch as
you are." And when conscience and the devil get to blowing the
same trumpet, it is a dreadful noise, indeed! And there is not a soul
in the world that can endure its life when both Satan and
conscience are making such a furious noise! No wonder, my dear
Friends, it should be dark with the sinner when he is running on the
road to Heaven! No wonder that before he finds the Savior, there
should be a doleful cry in his ears, if Satan and conscience are both
assailing him! I know that I do not like my conscience to be against
me, even without the devil. Conscience, when he is noisy, is not a
very comfortable housemate–certainly, we would rather have him
still and quiet than always thundering in our ears. But when Hell
and conscience go together, I say again, there is no soul that can
long bear its existence, except God, in sovereign mercy, shall either
support the soul or put a speedy stop to the noise!
Perhaps you ask me, "Why does not the poor sinner look to
Jesus?" Ah, that is the very point of his difficulty! He does not look
to Jesus because he does not think that Jesus Christ died for such a
wretch as he! You know, it is one thing for you to talk about a
sinner looking to Jesus when he is in the dark, and quite another
thing to do it when you are in the dark, yourself. It is a blessed
thing when the Lord enables a poor sinner to turn his eyes to
Calvary and see the brightness of Jesus. But there are, often, long
days and dreary nights before the sinner learns his own sinfulness
and is enabled to look to the Savior. "But," says one, "why does he
not go hear a good minister preach? Surely that would help him out
of his trouble." My dear Friends, we try to preach the Gospel as
plainly as we can, but it seems that we only rivet the chains on
some people.
There is a poor soul in this place now–I have talked with her
many times. I know her sad condition and I have often shaped my
discourse so as to meet her case. Many times I have thought that
the Lord has given me some sweet word that would break the gates
of brass and set the imprisoned one at liberty. It has taken a little of
the pride out of me and shown me how impossible it is for man,
when he labors the hardest, to bring a soul out of bondage before
the Lord's promised hour of redemption comes. "But," says one,
"why do they not turn to the Bible and lay hold on some precious
Truth of God! I do so and find comfort from it." Yes, my dear
Friends, and they do turn to the Bible just as you do, yet they find
no comfort, for they cannot lay hold on the promises. I know when
I was, for many a month, in bondage, I used to read the Bible
through–and the threats were all printed in capitals, but the
promises were in such small type that, for a long time, I could not
make them out! And when I did make them out, I did not believe
they were mine. But the threats were all my own–I was sure of it!
"There," I said, "when it says, 'He that believes not shall be
damned,' that means me." When I read, concerning Christ, "He is
able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by
Him," then I thought I was shut out. When I read, "He found no
place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears,"
"Ah," I thought, "that is myself again." And when I read, "That
which bears thorns and briers is rejected and is near to cursing,"
"Ah," I said, "that describes me to the last iota!" And when I heard
the Master say, "Cut it down; why cumbers it the ground?" "Ah," I
thought, "that is my text–He will have me down before very long
and not let me cumber the ground any more." Butwhen I read, "Ho,
every one that thirsts, come you to the waters," I said, "That does
not belong to me, I am sure." And when I read, "Come unto Me all
you that labor and are heavy laden," "No," I said, "that belongs to
my brother, to my sister," or those I knew round about me, for they
were laboring and heavy laden, I thought, but I was not. And
though, God knows, I would weep and cry and lament till my heart
was breaking within me, if any man had asked me whether I
sorrowed for sin, I would have told him "No, I never had any true
sorrow for sin" "Well, do you not feel the burden of sin?" "No."
"But you really are a convinced sinner?" "No," I would have said,
"I am not."
Is it not strange that poor sinners, when they are coming to Christ,
are so much in the dark that they cannot see their own hands? They
are so much in the dark that they cannot see themselves! And
though God has been pleased to work the good work in them and
give them godly fear and a tender conscience, they will stand up
and declare that they have neither of those blessings, that in them
there is not any good thing and that God has not looked on them
nor loved them! But, strange as this is, that is how souls go to
Christ. They are like Lot going to Zoar–they are all in the dark and
can see nothing until they come to the Savior.
II. Now think of the second fact. NO SOONER WAS LOT IN
ZOAR THAN THE SUN WAS UP.
Once he was inside the gate of that little city, the sun shone forth
in all its brightness! I daresay Lot thought, "Well, I wish it had
risen a little earlier. Oh, how pleased I would have been if I had had
a little of that light while running across the plain!" So, when we
are brought to the Lord Jesus, we often say, "I wish I had had a
little of this peace when I was in bondage. Oh, if I could have had
one cupful of this river of joy I am now drinking! When I was so
thirsty, what a blessing it would have been!" But God knows best.
Depend upon it, my Brothers and Sisters–if one ray of sunlight
more had been good for Lot, he would have had it! And if, poor
tried Sinner, one gleam of comfort more than you now have, would
be good for you, God would not deny it to you. But He keeps you
in the dark for your good, as He shall ultimately bring you into the
light for your good!
Lot, when he reached Zoar, had the sunlight. And when the sinner
gets to Christ, then he gets sunlight, too. Whenthe poor soul is
widowed of all its hopes and bereaved of all its trust. When it is
reduced to beggary and in a penniless condition. When it has its
feet cut from under it and its hands shot away. When it has nothing
left to call its own, but is reduced to death's door. In the hour of its
extremity, then is God's gracious opportunity! Then, when the
spirit casts itself wholly, without reserve, upon the blood and
righteousness of Jesus and puts implicit trust in Him who lived and
died to work, and weave, and spin, and dye a righteousness for
poor sinners–I say, then, for the first moment, the sinner gets joy in
his heart! Do not expect, my dear Hearers, that you will ever get
any comfort while you are running anywhere except to Christ.
Expect the comfort only when you get to Him. You may have just a
gleam or two of light beforehand, as Lot did, but you will not have
much more.
And remember, it is no use your running anywhere except to
Christ, for, though you run ever so fast, you will onlyrun into
deeper darkness unless you run to Him–
"The moment a sinner believes,
And trusts in his crucified God,
His pardon at once he receives,
Redemption in full through His blood."
That very moment his burden rolls off his shoulders, his chains
fall to the earth and he is free! That moment his sores are all
healed, his wounds are all bound up and his flowing blood is
stanched forever. Have you, dear Friend, ever felt that
instantaneous change which works such joy as this? If you have,
then I am not uttering a strange thing when I say that the sun has
risen upon you! Oh, that moment, when the sinner first starts up,
clean rid of guilt on his conscience! I thought I could have leaped
from earth to Heaven, at one spring, when I first saw my sins
drowned in the Redeemer's blood! You know what John Bunyan
says–to repeat an often-quoted tale–"I wanted," said he, "to even
tell the crows on the plowed land what God had done for my soul!"
Did you ever follow a poor simple convert as soon as he knows
the Lord? He runs home and calls his neighbors together and says,
"I have found the Lord Jesus." Probably they will begin laughing at
him, but he cannot understand what there is to laugh at, for he says,
"My Master is a precious and blessed Master–He has taken all my
sins away!" And he will go on telling the simple story till, perhaps,
some of them are melted by it, though the rest may scoff. The joy,
the to Paradise that the earth ever saw! On the day that our sins are
pardoned, God sets all the bells of Heaven ringing–and then the
bells of our heart chime in melody! On the day when God is
pleased to blot out our sins, He hangs every lane and every alley of
Mansoul with splendid flags and colors, gilded lamps and bright
jewels! Then He bids sweet music play in every part of the city and
He makes the fountains run with wine–and He gives hogsheads of
the precious liquid for poor souls to drink–souls that have been
faint and dying and thirsty! Oh, that marriage day, when the soul is
advanced to Christ! That day, when, for the first time, it rides in the
chariot of Mercy and sits in the same seat with its Well-Beloved!
Oh, that first hour, when Jesus puts the ring of His eternal love on
the finger of our experience and whispers, "You are Mine," and our
heart says to Jesus, "I am Yours."
Oh, that moment! Surely, Heaven itself is not happier! All the
difference between that moment and Heaven is that Heaven is a
great piece of tapestry and this is one of the threads. "The sun was
risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar," so the Light of
God's Countenance rises upon poor sinners when they come to
Jesus!
III. Now, thirdly, we have to consider a sadder fact. GOD CAN
DO TWO THINGS AT A TIME.
With His right hand, He wheeled the sun up the steeps of Heaven
and bade it shine upon Lot. And with the other He opened the
batteries of Heaven that they might rain their fire and brimstone
upon Sodom. Let us remember that God'stwo hands are always at
work in that way–from the very beginning, that is always what He
has done. With one hand, He shut Noah in the ark and with the
other He sent forth the floods of the everlasting cisterns and let the
fountains of the great deep burst upon the earth. With one hand he
smote the Red Sea and bade Israel walk through it dry-shod and
with the other He cast the waters down into their place and
drowned Pharaoh and all his hosts. And now look at Him–with one
hand He lights the sun–and with the other hand He darkens Sodom
with the smoke of the devouring flames! Ah, Friends, remember
that this is what shall be done all the story through!
A day is coming when we who, like poor Lot, have been running
to Heaven in the dark, with many clouds of fear and much gloom
and sorrow, will reach the river of death! And when the Christian
comes to die, God the mighty Savior is pleased to take the film
from his eyes and enables him to see the angels! He opens wide his
eye and bids him behold the glorious City that is built on high and
those shining ones that perpetually traverse its streets! He opens his
ears and bids him listen to the hallelujahs of the blessed and then,
sometimes, He catches away his spirit and seems to waft it almost
over Jordan, till, before the man dies, he says, "Whether in the
body or out of the body, I cannot tell, only God knows, but I have
been caught up to the third Heaven and have seen and heard things
which mortals cannot utter." Oh, who can describe the raptures of
the dying saint, the glories of that moment when God is pleased to
cut the fetters that bind us to our clay and give us leave to soar into
His Presence?!
But while God is doing that with His right hand, what is He doing
with His left? He is smoothing the path of His children to the
grave, but what is He doing to the wicked? He is not smoothing
their path. "Upon the wicked He shall rain snares, fire and
brimstone and a horrible tempest." When they are dying, He draws
no curtains around them, except the black curtains of doom! When
they are expiring, no angels attend their deathbed–but grim fiends
are waiting there. The left hand of God falls heavily upon the
wicked man and as he is entering the world of spirits, God
sometimes gives him a foretaste and prelude of the horrors of Hell.
His right hand wheels the sun to give light to the Christian and bids
him look to Heaven–but His left hand rains down a tempest on the
wicked and bids him dread to die!
And now follow the two spirits out of this world. The vital spark
of the Christian has fled–
"In vain my fancy tries to paint
The moment after death,
The glories that surround the saint,
When yielding up his breath."
The right hand of God is under the saint and in love He embraces
him! God upholds His child in the floods. He whispers, "I am with
you, Israel, passing through the stream; be not afraid, underneath
you are the everlasting arms." Listen to the shouts of victory! Mark
the calm composure of the countenance and see the joy flashing in
the eyes! This is what God's right hand is doing to the righteous.
But what is His left hand doing to the wicked! My dear Brothers
and Sisters, I dare not attempt to describe the sinner as he dies! And
when he is dead, it were too awful for me to suppose how he feels
the moment his spirit is out of his body. Oh, what an awful
sensation that must be when the first pang of Hell shoots through
the soul! My imagination can just mount to it, but I cannot go
further. That man was a blasphemer–how must he feel imagine that
solitary moment–for I should suppose there is but one such–
although eternity is horrible, there can scarcely be more than one
moment so new with horror, so dolefully novel with torment as
when the soul is launched upon that everlasting sea, the waves of
which are fire, and the depths of which are Hell! I cannot tell all
that it means. I only know that these are the Lord's own words,
"Consider this, you that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and
there is none to deliver."
And now comes the Last Great Day! The world is standing before
God's bar. Look what He is doing with His righthand! He is
beckoning the righteous to Glory! He is adorning their heads with
crowns that excel the sun in brightness! He is girding their loins
with snow-white robes of immaculate purity! He is touching their
lips and making them sing like cherubim! He is setting their hearts
on fire with the bliss of Heaven and kindling their spirits with
everlasting Glory! He is lifting them up and making them sit
together with Christ, far above all principalities and powers and
every name that is named! See how the sun is risen upon them!
Describe if you can, or imagine if you dare, the brightness of the
sunlight of Glory when it shall dawn upon redeemed man in the
day of the final account! Look, it is a sunshine without a cloud! It is
a sun without an eclipse! Look, see, their happy faces! Listen to
their joyous songs!–
"No groans do mingle with the songs
That warble from immortal tongues."
Words fail me to depict the bright sunlight of the Savior's love as
it shines on every happy saint! Thought cannot let me tell the
brightness of the Glory that shall stream from the brow of the
eternal Father when He shall smile upon His wellbeloved children!
And who can describe the Glory of the Sacred Spirit when, in all
the riches of His fullness, He shall beam in the eye and heart of
every blood-bought soul? This is what God is doing with His right
hand–leading all His saints to Heaven and setting them upon
thrones forever and ever!
And what is He doing with His left hand? No, pardon me, excuse
me from the task of picturing that dread work of Judgment! I
might, perhaps, say things that would be horrible, terrible and
doleful–yet, even then, my speech would fall infinitely short of the
terrible reality! What is God doing to the wicked? He is unloosing
the loins of the mighty and breaking the iron sinews of their necks!
What is God doing to the wicked? He is alighting them with terror
and driving them mad with despair! See them as they fly from His
Presence! Listen to them as they shriek in their agony! There they
go–down, down, down–to the gulf of everlasting woe! What is God
doing with His left hand? He is hurling fire upon them! He is
launching thunderbolts! What is He doing? O earth, I see you
shaking! O stars, I behold you vanishing from the vault of night!
Sun, you are quenched! Moon, you are a clot of blood! I see the
heavens stripped of their light and the glorious Son of God seated
on His snow-white Throne! And I see sinners trembling at their
everlasting doom! I see them bite their tongues, that, like
firebrands, scorch their mouths. I see them dying, but not dead!
Damned, but not annihilated–not ceasing to be–forever bruised
beneath the foot of vengeance and yet never crushed out of
existence! O my God, no mortal tongue can tell this dreary tale!
Had I been dead and passed the burning lake, and smelt the
sulfurous flame, then, perhaps, I might have spoken of all these
terrible realities, but tonight I cannot speak! Take your Bibles and
read of the fire that cannot be quenched, of the worm that dies not,
of the Pit that is bottomless–and remember that this is what God is
doing with His left hand!
The sun had risen upon Zoar and the fire was falling upon
Sodom. Ah, Sinner, will it not be an awful thing to see the contrast
between you and the righteous? If you perish in your ungodly state,
it will make your Hell more awful when you behold, afar off, the
righteous exalted in Heaven! Nothing makes the famished man
more hungry than to see others feasting when he has nothing! O
young man, what will it be to see your mother there in Heaven and
you cast out? O young woman, will you see your companion
glorified with Jesus and you cast away with devils? O husband,
will you find yourself crying, with Dives, for a drop of water, while
your wife is in the Presence of Jesus? Ah, son, will you see your
parents glorified and you, yourself, cast out? Set the two in
contrast–look on this picture and on that! God give you Grace to
bow the knee and "kiss the Son." And if He has taught you your
need of a Savior, may He give you Grace to accept the hearty
invitation I would tender you in His name, "Come, and welcome,
Sinner, come!"
Ge 19:27 • The Smoke of Their Torments
ERMON 0602
The Smoke Of Their Torments
"And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he
had stood before the Lord. Then he looked toward Sodom and
Gomorrah and toward all the land of the plain; and he saw, and
behold, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a
furnace. "
Genesis 19:27, 28
EARLY in the morning Abraham sought that favored spot where
but yesterday God had been pleased to manifest Himself and where
he had been favored with a season of extraordinary communion.
Where should the Believer go, but to that choice place, dear to his
heart, where he has communed with the Lord?–
"Who that knows the worth of prayer,
But wishes to be often there?"
It is a high privilege, the highest which mortals can enjoy, to talk
with God, to plead with Him, to use arguments and to prevail. Such
Divine Grace had Abraham found. No marvel that he goes back to
the place where God had thus drawn near to him. Doubtless one
reason why he rose early and went to the place and looked towards
Sodom was an anxious desire to know how his prayers had
speeded.
You remember he put a last "perhaps" to the Lord–"Perhaps ten
shall be found there, And He said, I will not destroy it for ten's
sake." He hopes, perhaps, that he need not go any further. He stops,
for he feels sure in his heart that there must be ten righteous there!
He turns his eyes to the quarter of the horizon where Sodom and
Gomorrah should stand. So, when you have prayed, look out for
answers. Elijah said to his servant, "Go and look towards the sea"–
so say to your hopes–"Go and look towards the sea." If you have
asked for rain, expect a cloud. If you have sought mercy, expect
that God will stretch out His hand and bestow it upon you.
But God does not always answer His children's prayers just as
they would desire. Besides, His children are sometimes slack in
asking and therefore they do not get what they desire. So Abraham,
as he looked towards Sodom–instead of seeing the verdant well-
watered plain and the roofs and spires of the city, saw nothing but
black smoke and a lurid glare going up to Heaven like the smoke of
a furnace.
It is remarkable that he does not appear to have observed the
storm as it came down from Heaven! From this fact we may infer
how rapid the destruction of the cities must have been! God rained
fire out of Heaven upon Sodom–it seems to have been done in a
moment. The whole plain was destroyed. And all that Abraham saw
after he rose up, which was probably just at sunrise, was merely the
smoke that followed the conflagration.
So does God drive His enemies away. As wax is melted before
the fire, as the smoke is driven before the wind, so does the enemy
perish before the breath of God when He comes forth out of His
hiding place to punish sin. Can you now picture to yourselves the
reverent Patriarch, as he leans upon his staff and looks with
wondering gaze towards the smoking furnace? What must have
been his thoughts? What a spectacle for him to gaze upon–from the
very spot where he had held communion with God!
Perhaps he could not have looked upon it from any other spot. He
would have been too much afraid, too full of trembling. But there
he felt safe. Standing where the Lord had talked with him he felt
secure. And he could look even into that gruesome glare and that
terrible blackness without dismay.
And now I want to summon you, my dear Christian Friends, to
the scene of your own most hallowed privileges–to the spot, as it
were, on which Divine Grace has been shown most clearly to your
souls and intercessions have been poured out most freely from your
hearts. From there I would have you lift up your eyes. To what, do
you ask, would I draw your attention? Ah, then I want you to look
upon the smoke of the torments of lost spirits. I want believing eyes
to gaze upon that place, "where their worm dies not, and the fire is
not quenched."
Only mind that you stand in the place where God has communed
with you, beneath the Cross, where the blood shall drop upon you
and you shall feel the sense of pardoned sin! From no other place
can we view the wrath of God with proper and profitable emotions.
But standing there our spirits shall be chastened, our souls
comforted and with tears standing in our eyes–tears of gratitude
and contrition–we shall venture to look upon that dark and terrible
gulf where the wicked lie and shall derive some profit from the
sight, even as Abraham doubtless did.
First, then, tonight, let me suggest the emotions which should be
awakened in the Christian's spirit when he takes a view of the
wrath to come. Secondly, let me gather up some lessons which God
teaches to His people and to the world from the doom of the
wicked. And then, in closing, let me turn your eyes another way to
a yet more awful display of Divine vengeance–even more awful, I
say–than that which is to be perceived in Tophet, where lost souls
are shut up.
WITH WHAT EMOTIONS OUGHT WE TO GAZE UPON THE
TORMENTS OF UNGODLY AND IMPENITENT SOULS?
Certainly it should always be with an humble submission to the
Divine will. The assurance that God is just, even in the midst of His
hot displeasure, must ever be cherished. The Judge of all the earth
cannot but do right. Though He is terrible and dreadful in His
anger, as a consuming fire, yet is He still our God forever and ever,
full of goodness and full of Truth.
There is a deep-seated unbelief among Christians just now, about
the eternity of future punishment. It is not outspoken–in many
cases it is whispered–and it frequently assumes the shape of a spirit
of benevolent desire that the doctrine may be disproved. I fear that
at the bottom of all this there is a rebellion against the dread
Sovereignty of God. There is a suspicion that sin is not, after all, so
bad a thing as we have dreamed. There is an apology, or a lurking
wish to apologize for sinners who are looked upon rather as objects
of pity than as objects of indignation and really deserving the
punishment which they have willfully brought upon themselves.
I am afraid it is the old nature in us putting on the specious garb
of charity which thus leads us to discredit a fact which is as certain
as the happiness of Believers. Shake the foundations upon which
the eternity of Hell rests and you have shaken Heaven's eternity,
too. "These shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the
righteous into life eternal." There is precisely the same word in the
original. We have it translated a little more strongly in our version,
but the word stands the same. And if the one is not eternal, the
other is not!
Brethren, this is a fearful thing. Who can meditate upon the place
appointed for the wicked without a shudder? Ungodly men seem to
think we like to preach upon these topics. Far, far is it from being
the case. I have had to censure myself of late for scarcely having
preached at all upon them. They fancy that Christian men can look
with complacency upon the torment of the lost, imagining
themselves to be safe! They know not what they say. The very
reverse of such a spirit is common among us.
We shudder so much at the thought of men being cast away
forever and horror takes so strong a hold upon us that if we could
doubt it, we would. And if we could disprove it altogether, we feel
we should be glad. But we dare not attempt the task because we
know that it were to impugn the sentence of the Almighty and
provoke a quarrel against the Most High. Great Judge of all! You
shall trample upon Your enemies in the day of Your wrath! Yet shall
You be as glorious in that act as when You pardon sin and pass by
transgression. Christian, look there and, as you look, rebel not, but
say, "True and righteous are You, O God. Let Your name be
honored evermore!"
Surely, too, another emotion, which a glance towards the dreary
doom of the ungodly can never fail to prompt, is that of gratitude.
"And why am I not there? They gnaw their fire-tormented tongues
in vain–and why am I not there? Did they sin? I have sinned. Did
they curse God and die? I, too, have cursed God. And it was a
marvel that I did not die."–
"Oh, were it not for Grace Divine,
That late so dreadful had been mine."
Some of you who were accustomed to frequent the ale house,
whose voices were loud in the lascivious song, who polluted
eventide with sin and spoiled the day with your ungodliness–thank
God that you have been washed in the precious blood of Jesus–for
as you read the list of the lascivious and so on, you are compelled
to say, "Such were some of us. But we are washed, but we are
sanctified, but we are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by
the Spirit of our God."
Let the depths of Hell constrain you to heights of gratitude. And
let the wailing and the gnashing of teeth which come up from there
appeal to your lips, your heart, your very bowels and all that is
within you–for the music of thankfulness that you have escaped.
Should there not also here be deep feelings of humility? Look to
the hole of the pit where you were lifted and the rock where God
has hewn you! What those sinners were, such were you!
There was nothing in you that would carry you to Heaven, but
everything that would have carried you down to Hell. You are a
brand plucked from the burning–you would have burned in that fire
as well as others! And can you lift up your head, man, and boast of
yourself and say, "O God, I thank You that I am not as other men"?
No, not if you are in your senses. But humbled and yet thankful,
you will go your way with a subdued heart, looking upon others
with pity and with love and anxiously desiring to pluck them, also,
from the flames and guide their feet into the way of peace.
And there is another sensation which must go through every
nerve–and the thought will sometimes blanch our cheeks with
terror–lest we also should go there. I think a glance of the eye
towards the smoke of Gehenna would always prompt a holy
jealousy over one's own heart and a diligent watchfulness of one's
own walk. What do you say to this, professor? You see the smoke
going up forever–what if you should go there after all? Remember,
it is one thing to profess to be a Christian and quite another thing to
be truly converted. You may go to the gates of Heaven by
profession–but there is a back door to Hell.
High professor, take care. If your wings are made of wax they
will melt. And the higher they soar, the greater your fall will be. It
will be a dreary day for any of us if we have to go from the pulpit
to perdition, from the Lord's Table to communion with devils and
from drinking the cup in which we commemorate the sacrifice of
Christ to the drinking of the cup of trembling–in which the dregs of
God's wrath are to be found. If I must perish, I would rather perish
as an openly-avowed sinner than as a hypocrite–for the doom of a
man who has made a fair show in the flesh and a fine pretense of
godliness must be increased by the loss which he suffers–the hopes
which are disappointed–the professions which have turned out to
be lies.
Members of this Church, I speak to you hoping that you will put
the question among yourselves, "Is it I, Lord? Is it I?" My fellow
laborers in this Church, deacons and elders, let us search ourselves!
Let not your gray heads exempt you from the duty of self-
examination. Let not your office screen you from the suspicion
that, after all, you may be deceived. Come, let us go together as if
we never went before to the Cross of Jesus! Let us look up to Him
as He hangs bleeding there and if up to this moment we never have
been saved, let us say, "Jesus, accept us now."–
"A guilty, weak and helpless worm,
On Your kind arm I fall–
Be You my strength and righteousness,
My Jesus and my All."
These at least are some of the feelings with which we, like
Abraham, standing in the place where God has communed with us,
may look towards Sodom and see the smoke going up as the smoke
of a furnace. We shall pause awhile and then notice the teaching
which seems to come from the dreadful doctrine of the wrath to
come.
II. Look, Christian, if you can look and see there THE EVIL OF
SIN. Are you startled? That is the true harvest of the sowing of
iniquity. Come, Sinner, I charge you look at it. This is what sin
brings forth–this is the full-grown child. You have dandled it on
your knee. You have kissed and fondled it–see what it comes to.
Hell is but sin full-grown, that is all. You played with that young
lion–see how it ravishes and how it tears in pieces now that it has
come to its strength. Did you not smile at the azure scales of the
serpent? See its poison! See to what its stings have brought those
who have never looked to the brazen serpent for healing!
Next time the enemy says to you, "Is it not a little one?" answer
him, "Behold how great a matter a little fire kindles." Remind him
that the mustard is the smallest among seeds but yet it grows to a
great tree. Is it so? Do you account for sin as a peccadillo, a flaw
scarcely to be noticed, a mere joke, a piece of fun? But see the tree
which springs from it! There is no joke there–no fun in Hell. Fools
make a mockery of sin, which is but an egg. But when the egg is
hatched and the bird full-fledged, they will find that they must
laugh on the other side of their mouths, if they laugh at all.
My God, from this day forward help me to see through the thin
curtain which covers up sin and whenever Satan tells me that such-
and-such a thing is for my pleasure, let me remember the pain of
that penalty wrapped up in it! When he tells me that such a thing is
for my profit, let me know that it can never profit me to gain the
whole world and lose my own soul! Let me feel it is no sport to sin,
for only a madman would scatter firebrands and death and say it is
sport.
You did not know that sin was so evil. Some of you will never
know how evil it is till the sweetness of honey has lessly stricken
with its sting. What? Is there no way to teach you the evil of sin but
to cast you into Hell to learn the lesson? There you cannot profit
but only perish by the knowledge acquired too late! O that you
were wise, you thoughtless ones, and looking at the smoke of the
ruin of others would learn how dreadful is that sin which will
before long ruin you, as it has already ruined them!
Do you think that God struck Sodom and that He will not strike
you? Drunkard, swearer, shall Gomorrah perish and shall you
escape? No! He is the same God today to punish sin as He was
then. I say see the blackness of your sin by the light of Hell's fire
and as the smoke goes up forever, ask yourself will you sin when
such is the inevitable result? Will you dwell with sin if this
involves dwelling with tormenting fire? This doctrine I would to
God we could learn in our hearts! It is hard for me to preach it! It is
harder, still, for you to learn it! But none ever know the love of
Christ till they know something of the evil of sin.
As the Christian, with downcast and blushing face looks to the
place where their worm dies not and their fire is not quenched, he
is awe-struck with the justice of God. What? Is God so just as this?
He swears, "As I live, says the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death
of him that dies, but had rather that he should turn unto Me and
live." He is a God so good that He delights in mercy and never is
His soul more glad than when He passes by transgression, iniquity
and sin and receives His Ephraims to His bosom.
But is this God so severely just? Shall men, made in His own
image, be broken by Him as with a rod of iron? Will He consign
them to that Tophet, the pile where there is fire and much wood?
Shall the ire of the Almighty be the flame that kindles it? Can He
be a God of love and yet treat sinners thus? Then how awfully just
must God be! How stern this attribute of unimpeachable justice!
Some talk of God as though mercy were the sole quality of the
Divine Character and He had no other attribute. But the God of
Scripture is to be adored in every attribute by which He is revealed.
"God is Love." But know, too, that His justice shall beam forth
with ineffable splendor when He whets His glittering sword and
says, "Ah, I will ease Me of My adversaries and avenge Me of My
enemies." My God, when He came on Sinai, touched the mountains
and they smoked! Coals of fire went before Him. He did ride upon
the wings of the wind! Thick darkness was round about Him. His
voice was thunder and He spoke in lightning. Even Moses did
exceedingly fear and quake. What will He be when He comes to
punish for offenses if He is thus dreadful when He comes merely to
give the Law?
May you never know the weight of the eternal arm when it shall
come down upon a guilty conscience. May we never feel in body
and in soul how strict, how severe, how unflinching is that mighty
God who has unsheathed His sword forever and bathed it in
Heaven and made this as His solemn oath that He will by no means
spare the guilty, but will cut them off root and branch and destroy
them forever! Admire the justice of God. Muse upon it much.
Think with what solemn pomp it shall be vindicated.
Oh, what a holocaust of victims shall burn forever in attestation
of His majesty! Let your soul be humbled! Boast no more! Bow at
His feet! Submit yourself to Him! "Kiss the Son, lest He be angry,
and you perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a
little."
Another lesson now comes to us and one which I hope will be
more pleasing and affect some minds that may not be moved by
what we have, up to now, said. Looking at the destruction of the
wicked, this reflection crosses our minds. We, His people, have
been redeemed from destruction! What a price must that have been
which redeemed us from such woe and rescued us from such a
place of torment! You have learned from this pulpit the doctrine of
Substitution, how the Lord Jesus Christ took the sins of His people
and stood to suffer in their place. We do not say that Christ endured
the Hell of His people–the precise torment which His people ought
to have suffered–but we do say upon Scriptural warrant that Christ
endured a pain and agony which was tantamount and accepted by
God as the proper substitution for all the griefs which were due to
the sins of His people.
Who can form an idea of what the torment of one soul must be
that is cast away forever? Not, remember, the torment of an hour, a
day, a month, a year, a century, a thousand years, but forever–
FOREVER! You cannot measure that. But you will have to
multiply that by ten thousand times ten thousand when you
remember that Jesus laid down His life for many and gave Himself
a ransom for His sheep. Nor are these a few, but a great multitude
which no man can number. Well did the Psalmist say, as he typified
the Messiah, "All Your waves and Your billows are gone over Me."
One soul that is lost cannot feel all the waves and billows, but
Jehovah Jesus did!
None but a God could bear what He endured. Beneath that ocean
of tremendous fire the mighty Substitute bowed His majestic head–
that very head which Heaven worshipped and which is crowned
with everlasting splendor–bowed himself in the great Baptism of
almighty wrath that the waves of swelling grief might roll over it.
Yes, every wave and every drop of every wave of Divine wrath that
was due to His people! Think, think, Christian, as you hear that
solemn trampling, as you hear the wailing of the lost, as your eyes
seek to penetrate that land of death, as your whole soul is alarmed
with gloomy forebodings of that wrath–think what must have been
in the tremendous cup–the Hells of all His people, not actually, but
virtually condensed into the pangs of an hour!
He did but drink it and all His veins were flushed with hot blood.
Every nerve became a high road for the hot chariots of pain to drive
along. He cried, "If it is possible, let this cup pass from Me." It was
not possible! He set it to His lips. He drank, He drank right on. His
back was scourged, but still He drank. His head was pierced with
the crown of thorns, but He took not away His lips.
The spittle flowed down His cheeks. They were black with the
bruising of mailed fists. Reproach had broken His heart and shame
had covered His face–but on, still on He drank. They pierced His
hands and His feet. They offered Him vinegar. They tore away His
clothes. They stripped Him naked! They left Him without a
comforter. Devils surrounded Him with mockery and men with
scorn. But on, still on, He drank! O blessed Savior! Till at last He
had swallowed every bitter drop–and turning the chalice upside
down, not so much as one black drop trembled on its brim, for–
"At one tremendous draught of love,
He drained destruction dry."
For every one of His people He exhausted the cup and there was
not a pang, nor a grief, nor a penal groan left for any one of His
elect. He suffered, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring them
to God!
Here is a plummet to fathom the depths of the Savior's griefs. But
who can throw the lead and who can tell when it strikes the bottom!
God only knows the griefs of His dear Son. Even lost spirits can
scarcely guess it. And oh, as you look into that smoke, ascending
forever and ever, say, "Hallelujah, Jesus! For You have redeemed
us unto God by Your blood and we shall reign with You forever and
ever."
That fearful vision which beclouds my eyes and makes them feel
heavy at the same time presses upon me with a tremendous weight
while I mention another Truth of God. Behold here the solemnity
of the Gospel ministry, the responsibility of those who listen to it
and the need there is for earnestness in handling Divine things!
Have I to deal with immortal souls? Then let me not trifle. Have I
to talk with men who must spend eternity in Heaven or in Hell?
Then wake up, sluggish flesh and bear not down my spirit! And
you, my Soul, be stirred up to the highest degree of intensity of
love, and of earnest devotedness that men may be, by some means,
or by any means, brought to escape from the wrath to come!
I would to God I could preach as Baxter did! That man, the victim
of many diseases, but sane and healthy in his mind, said he never
came to his pulpit without tears and his knees knocking together,
for he had to speak for God with men who must soon appear before
His bar and he, himself, must appear there, too, to give an account
of his preaching to them. O Sirs, it is perhaps but a matter of
amusement for some of you to come on a Sunday evening into this
place, or any other. But believe us, it is no matter of amusement for
us who have to preach to you!
We would not have accepted our office if it had not been thrust
upon us! Woe is unto us if we preach not the Gospel! But if we do
preach the Gospel, still terrors seize hold upon us, for our heart is
ready to break when we think how the multitude reject that Gospel
and go their way to their farms and their merchandise and will not
come to the Gospelsupper to be fed. Preaching will seem dreadful
work to the preacher when he comes to die if he has not been
faithful. And it will not seem slight work to you when you come to
die, if you have heard in vain! What would you give for another
Sunday, for another invitation to hear those faithful sermons once
more–to be moved by Divine love once more?
What would you give when inexorable death shall tell you that
your hour-glass is empty, that your candle is burnt out and that your
soul must speed its way to stand before God? My Brothers in the
faith, with what earnestness should this alarm you! You are dealing,
remember again, with souls that must sink to Hell unless they find
mercy in Christ Jesus. It is said that when Michelangelo painted his
celebrated picture of the resurrection, he went by permission to the
graveyard and took out the newly-buried dead and piled up the
corpses by his bedside. He then slept in the midst of them that he
might get his mind into something like a proper frame for picturing
the horrors of that tremendous day.
I would not have you do such a thing as that. But living as you do
in the midst of lost souls, I pray and beseech you to realize the
prospect of their speedy perdition as a vivid fact. As you go to your
bed, remember the despair and the dismay of those who dared to
live in sin and have already died without hope. I think you will,
then, be in a proper frame to paint that life-picture which I hope
each and all of us have set our hearts upon–of the conversion of the
souls of many by our means. Oh, we are not alive, we are half
dead!
Whitfield could say, "When I think of these things, I wish I could
stand upon the top of every hackney coach in London and preach to
the passersby." We do not preach as if we meant it! I am afraid that
we make Infidels by our lethargy and that you Christian people
help to prevent the usefulness of the Word of God by the apparent
indifference with which you treat eternal things. If Hell is a fiction,
say so, and honestly play the Infidel. But if it is real and you
believe it, wake up, you that so believe, and leave no stone
unturned, no means untried by which through the power of the
Holy Spirit sinners may be saved!
Pledge yourselves this night, as with your hands upon the horns
of the altar! Pledge yourselves as you sit in the place where God
has often met with you that from this hour you will seek, God
helping you, to love your neighbor as yourself and prove your love
by pitying earnestness in seeking his salvation. That Truth seems to
be written clearly enough in letters of fire in the midst of the smoke
that comes up from the desolation of lost souls. And yet it is not
merely preaching, important as that is. It is not merely warning our
friends and our neighbors, though we should never lose an
opportunity of telling them of their danger with more feeling than
mere fidelity can inspire–yes, with that repeated earnestness which
deep convictions from the very Word of the Lord and strong
affection for the souls of men alone can prompt.
Let me entreat you–consider the use that Abraham made of that
extraordinary Revelation, "Shall I hide from Abraham," said the
Lord, "the things which I do?" "And shall I cease to use the
precious opportunity of pleading for my neighbors?" appears to
have been the old Patriarch's spontaneous thought. My poor
brother! Ah, poor Lot! His wife! His daughters! The city with its
inhabitants! A thousand thoughts of melting pity come rushing up
at once. He does not stand mute with astonishment. He
immediately opens his heart with intercessions and fills his mouth
with arguments!
Oh Brothers and Sisters! That is just such a response to the secret
of the Lord which He shows to His servants, as you should have
always ready at hand. You need not wait for an opportunity! You
have it now! Pray, pray, pray–pray without ceasing! Let the breath
of prayer be fervent with heat. Let the prayer be so eager that it
repeats itself, as Abraham's did, each time waxing hotter, drawing
nearer, growing more bold–till you verily tremble at the venture!
"Who can tell?" This we know, we are in no danger of offending
God by crying for mercy, even when we see the two-edged sword
flaming from His mouth! You have no cause to lay limits upon your
importunity or to check the rising passion of your vehement desire.
Prayer is a fire that needs stirring. And intercession is a holy
wrestling in which practice alone can make you adept.
Christians! Some of you may look at a doomed Sodom with other
eyes than Abraham did. Lot is called a righteous man. And he was
vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked. He frowned at the
men of Sodom and expostulated with them and wished that sinners
would restrain their follies and not go to quite such lengths in sin.
That is the sort of man Lot was. Have I not many a Lot before me
now? The father of the faithful went a great deal beyond this. He
lived far away from the scenes of vice and the haunts of impiety. I
suppose he did not think it necessary to sleep a night in that cage of
uncleanness, that he might familiarize himself with the profane
customs of the people.
He stood on hallowed ground, and prayed with a tender heart. He
interceded with God! He multiplied his intercessions. Every time
he prayed and with each fresh note of prayer his spirit grew more
ardent. Impressed with God's severity, he takes courage from His
goodness. Here is a fitting example for us! It is an example which I
know will not be lost on some of you. The courage that can rebuke
man must come from the strength that takes hold upon God. When
your face shines like an angel with the radiance that the Mercy Seat
reflects upon it, then it shall come to pass that the scorner will not
be able to resist the wisdom or the spirit by which you speak!
Oh how dreadful the jeopardy of the souls of unconverted men
and women! Jonathan Edwards was once called upon to preach a
sermon quite unexpectedly. I believe he had the habit of holding his
manuscript close to his eyes, a most ungainly and apparently most
inappropriate mode of uttering a discourse. He read it word for
word. But as he read it, terror took hold upon his congregation!
Weeping and sobbing were heard on every side, for the Holy Spirit
was with him and each word came with power upon their souls.
I cannot speak such language as he used. But if I could, I might
be the means of making some feel in what a state of jeopardy they
now are. You stand over the mouth of Hell upon a single plank and
that plank is rotten! You hang over the jaws of perdition by a
solitary rope and the strands of that rope are snapping, one by one.
Frailer than the spider's web is your life and yet that is the only
thing which divides you from a world of despair! The slightest
insect commissioned by God's Providence may end your unhappy
life. You know not where, or when, or how disease may overtake
you. Death often floats in the atmosphere of the House of God. He
may be looking through those stony eye sockets now!
The skeleton monarch may be looking at and marking you as his
prey. Could Xerxes stand here tonight, could he have a little
Christianity mingled with his philosophy, then doubtless the tears
he wept as he saw his army and remembered that in fifty years all
would be dead, were nothing to those he would weep as he
remembered that thousands this day found within the walls of
Churches and Chapels and tens of thousands who are not found in
any sanctuary, within less time than that will not only be dead but
damned!
Here is, indeed, subject for mourning, lamentation and woe. You
stand upon the brink of that precipice and yet you play! You have
heard the story of the monarch tyrant who invited one to a feast.
When he came, the table was loaded with dainties and there was his
chair on which he must sit, but just above him hung a sword
suspended by a single hair. "Why do you not eat, Man? Is not the
wine rich and rare? Fill your bowl and quaff it merrily." But he
looks up. "Why do you not help yourself to all those dainty cakes
which make the table groan. Why, Man, what ails you?" He looks
up. And right wise is he in looking up, for on that hair his life
depends.
Would that you were as wise as he, for you will go your way and
eat the fat and drink the sweet, but you forget that hair, that sword.
The sword of Damocles could only kill the body, but this sword
will kill both soul and body and kill them both forever–and but a
hair keeps it from you now.
III. I am weary with my picture. I am weary with looking into that
thick darkness. Let me turn your eyes another way. Would you be
saved? See yonder little hill outside Jerusalem's streets? God has
become Man. He is bearing sin upon His shoulders. Here He comes
all faint and weary with a ponderous beam upon His back. He
struggles on. They remove the load a moment. But they force Him
on with spears and goads and He, all willingly, leads the van. They
come outside the city and while the sobbing daughters of Jerusalem
stand looking on, they fling Him back upon the transverse piece of
wood.
I see the rough executioners, each man taking hold of a hand or of
a foot, holding the nail in his mouth a moment till he gets that
blessed palm all ready and then with his hammer driving in the
nails through the hands and feet of the Son of God! He is fastened
to the wood. They roughly lift up the Cross. A place has been dug
for it. They dash it down. That jar has dislocated all His bones.
What pain He endures in that moment when He is lifted up
between earth and Heaven! And now He has a long season of
suffering before Him. They sit down. They mock Him. They point
to His wounds, scoff at His prayers, gloat their eyes upon His
miseries.
It is the Son of God suffering there. He shrieks "I thirst!" and they
give Him vinegar to drink. He cries, "My God, My God, why have
You forsaken Me?" Heaven is black above His head. Fever comes
on–His tongue cleaves to the roof of His mouth–that mouth
becomes hot as an oven. Blood comes streaming down from all His
pores. Why do I picture this? Why, here is your salvation! You
must have an interest in the sufferings of that Man, or you must
suffer for yourself forever. Would you not desire to have Him as
your Substitute? Then remember, whoever believes in Him is not
condemned!
Can you believe in Him now? To believe on Him is to trust Him.
Will you trust yourself with Jesus? Now, if you do trust, your sins
are forgiven! Your soul is accepted! Your eternal state is blessed
and you are delivered from the wrath to come! Go your way at
peace with God and at rest in your conscience and rejoice
forevermore! May the Master bless even my feebleness tonight to
your profit and may we meet in Heaven to His praise. Amen.
Ge 21:16 • Compassion for Souls
ERMON 0974
Compassion For Souls
"She went, and sat her down over against him a good way off, as
it were a bowshot. For she said, Let me not see the death of the
child. And she sat over against him, and lift up her voice, and
wept."
Genesis 21:16
BRIEFLY let us rehearse the circumstances. The child Isaac was,
according to God's Word, to be the heir of Abraham. Ishmael, the
elder son of Abraham, by the bondwoman Hagar, resided at home
with his father till he was about eighteen years of age. But when he
began to mock and scoff at the younger child whom God had
ordained to be the heir, it became necessary that he and his mother
should be sent away from Abraham's encampment. It might have
seemed unkind and heartless to have sent them forth, but God,
having arranged to provide for them, sent a Divine command which
at once rendered their expulsion necessary, and certified its success.