SPURGEON THOUGHTS ON THE LAST BATTLE
“The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But
thanks to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” 1 Corinthians 15:56, 57
WHILE the Bible is one of the most poetical of books, though its language
is unutterably sublime, yet we must remark how constantly it is true to
nature. There is no straining of a fact, no glossing over a truth. However
dark may be the subject, while it lights it up with brilliance, yet it does not
deny the gloom connected with it. If you will read this chapter of Paul’s
epistle, so justly celebrated as a master-piece of language you will find him
speaking of that which is to come after death with such exaltation and
glory, that you feel, “If this be to die, then it were well to depart at once.”
Who has not rejoiced, and whose heart has not been lifted up, or filled with
a holy fire, while he has read such sentences as these: “In a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the
dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this
corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on
immortality.
So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and
this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the
saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is
thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” Yet with all that majestic
language, with all that bold flight of eloquence, he does not deny that death
is a gloomy thing. Even his very figures imply it. He does not laugh at it, he
does not say, “Oh, it is nothing todie;” he describes death as a monster, he
speaks of it as having a sting, he tells us wherein the strength of that sting
lies and even in the exclamation of triumph he imputes that victory not to
unaided flesh, but he says, “Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
When I select such a text as this, I feel that I cannot preach from it. The
thought overmasters me, my words do stagger: there are no utterances that
are great enough to convey the mighty meaning of this wondrous text. If I
had the eloquence of all men united in one, if I could speak as never man
spake, (with the exception of that one godlike man of Nazareth) I could
not compass so vast a subject as this. I will not therefore pretend to do so,
but offer you such thoughts as my mind is capable of producing.
To night we shall speak of three things: first, the sting of death; secondly,
the strength of sin; and thirdly, the victory of faith.
I. First, THE STING OF DEATH. The apostle pictures death as a terrible
dragon or monster, which, coming upon all men, must be fought with by
each one for himself. He gives us no hopes whatever that any of us can
avoid it. He tells us of no bridge across the river Death; he does not give us
the faintest hope that it is possible to emerge from this state of existence
into another without dying: he describes the monster as being exactly in
our path, and with it we must fight, each man personally, separately, and
alone; each man must die; we all must cross the black stream; each one of
us must go through the iron gate. There is no passage from this world into
another without death. Having told us, then, that there is no hope of our
escape, he braces up our nerves for the combat; but he gives us no hope
that we shall be able to slay the monster; he does not tell us that we can
strike our sword into his heart, and so overturn and overwhelm death; but
pointing to the dragon, he seemed to say. “Thou canst not slay it, man,
there is no hope that thou shouldst ever put thy foot upon its neck and
crush its head; but one thing can be done – it has a sting which thou mayest
extract; thou canst not crush death under foot, but thou mayest pull out the
sting which is deadly, and then thou needst not fear the monster, for
monster it shall be no longer, but rather it shall be a swift winged angel to
waft thee aloft to heaven.”
Where, then, is the sting of this dragon? Where
must I strike? What is the sting? The apostle tells us that “The sting of
death is sin.” Once let me cut off that, and then, though death may be
dreary and solemn, I shall not dread it; but holding up the monster’s sting, I
shall exclaim, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”
Let us now dwell upon the fact, that “the sting of death is sin.”
I. First, sin puts a sting into death from the fact that sin brought death into
the world. Men could be more content to die if they did not know it was a
punishment. I suppose if we had never sinned there would have been some
means for us to go from this world to another. It cannot be supposed that
so huge a population would have existed that all the myriads who have
lived from Adam down till now could ever have inhabited so small a globe
as this, there would not have been space enough for them. But there might
have been provided some means for taking us off when the proper time
should come, and bearing us safely to heaven. God might have furnished
horses and chariots of fire for each of his Elijahs; or as it was said of
Enoch, so it might have been declared of each of us, “He is not, for God
hath taken him.” Thus to die, if we may call it death, to depart from this
body and to be with God, would have been no disgrace; in fact it would
have been the highest honor: fitting the loftiest aspiration of the soul, to
live quickly its little time in this world, then to mount and be with its God;
and in the prayers of the most pious and devout man, one of his sublimest
petitions would be, “O God, hasten the time of my departure, when I shall
be with thee.” When such sinless beings thought of their departure they
would not tremble, for the gate would be of ivory and pearl – not as now, of
iron – the stream would be as nectar, far different from the present
“bitterness of death.”
But alas! how different! Death is now the punishment
of sin. “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” “In Adam all
die.” By his sin every one of us become subject to the penalty of death, and
thus, being a punishment, death has its sting. To the best man, the holiest
Christian, the most sanctified intellect, the soul that has the nearest and
dearest intercourse with God, death must appear to have a sting, because
sin was its mother. O fatal offspring of sin, I only dread thee because of thy
parentage! If thou didst come to me AS an honor, I could wade through
Jordan even now, and when its chilling billows were around me I would
smile amidst its surges; and in the swellings of Jordan my song should swell
to, and the liquid music of my voice should join with the liquid swellings of
the floods, “Hallelujah! It is blessed to cross to the land of the glorified.”
This is one reason why the sting of death is sin.
2. But I must take it in another sense. “The sting of death is sin:” – that is to
say, that which shall make death most terrible to man will be sin, if it is
not forgiven. If that be not the exact meaning of the apostle, still it is a
great truth, and I may find it here. If sin lay heavy on me and were not
forgiven -if my transgressions were unpardoned – if such were the fact
(though I rejoice to know it is not so) it would be the very sting of death to
me. Let us consider a man dying and looking back on his past life: he will
find in death a sting, and that sting will be his past sin. Imagine a
conqueror’s death-bed. He has been a man of blood from his youth up.
Bred in the camp, his lips were early set to the bugle, and his hand, even in
infancy, struck the drum. He had a martial spirit; he delighted in the fame
and applause of men, he loved the dust of battle and the garment rolled in
blood. He has lived a life of what men call glory. He has stormed cities,
conquered countries, ravaged continents, overrun the world. See his
burners hanging in the hall, and the marks of glory on his escutcheon. He is
one of earth’s proudest warriors. But now he comes to die; and when he
lies down to expire what shall invest his death with horror? It shall be his
sin.
Methinks I see the monarch dying; he lies in state; around him are his
nobles and his counsellors; but there is someone else there. Hard by his
side there stands a spirit from Hades; it is the soul of a departed woman.
She looks on him and says, “Monster! my husband was slain in battle
through thy ambition: I was made a widow, and my helpless orphan and
myself were starved.” And she passes by. Her husband comes, and opening
wide his bloody wounds, he cries, “Once I called thee monarch; but by thy
vile covetousness, thou didst provoke an unjust war. See here these
wounds – I gained them in the siege. For thy sake I mounted first the sealing
ladder; this foot stood upon the top of the wall, and I waved my sword in
triumph, but in hell I lifted up my eyes in torment. Base wretch, thine
ambition hurried me thither!” Turning his horrid eyes upon him, he passes
by. Then up comes another, and another, and another yet: waking from
their tombs, they stalk around his bed and haunt him; the dreary procession
still marches on, looking at the dying tyrant. He shuts his eyes, but he feels
the cold and bony hand upon his forehead; he quivers for the sting of death
is in his heart. “O Death!” says he, “to leave this large estate, this mighty
realm, this pomp and power – this were somewhat, but to meet those men,
those women, and shoes orphan children, face to face, to hear them saying,
‘Art thou become like one of us?’ while kings whom I have dethroned, and
monarchs whom I have cast down shall rattle their chains in my ears, and
say, “Thou wast our destroyer, but how art thou fallen from heaven, O
Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou brought down as in a moment
from thy glory and thy pride!’” There you see the sting of death would be
the man’s sin. It would not sting him that he had to die but that he had
sinned, that he had been a bloody man, that his hands were red with
wholesale murder – this would plague him indeed, for “the sting of death is
sin.”
Or suppose another character -a minister. He has stood before the world,
proclaiming something which he called the gospel. He has been a noted
preacher: the multitude have been hanging on his lips, they have listened to
his words, before his eloquence a nation stood amazed, and thousands
trembled at his voice. But his preaching is over; the time when he can
mount the pulpit is gone; another standing place awaits him, another
congregation, and he must hear another and a better preacher than himself.
There he lies. He has been unfaithful to his charge. He preached philosophy
to charm his people, instead of preaching truth and aiming at their hearts.
And as he pants upon his bed, that worst and most accursed of men – for
sure none can be worse than he – there comes up one, a soul from the pit,
and looking him in the face, says, “I came to thee once trembling on
account of sin, I asked thee the road to heaven, and thou didst say, ‘Do
such-and-such good works,’ and I did them, and am damned. Thou didst
tell me an untruth; thou didst not declare plainly the word of God.” He
vanishes only to be followed by another, he has been an irreligious
character, and as he sees the minister upon his death-bed, he says, “Ah! and
art thou here? Once I strolled into thy house of prayer, but thou hadst such
a sermon that I could not understand. I listened; I wanted to hear
something from thy lips, some truth that might burn my soul and make me
repent; but I knew not what thou saidst, and here I am.” The ghost stamps
his foot, and the man quivers like an aspen leaf, because he knows it is all
true. Then the whole congregation arise before him as he lies upon his bed,
he looks upon the motley group; he beholds the snowy heads of the old,
and the glittering eyes of the young; and lying there upon his pillow, he
pictures all the sins of his past life, and he hears it said, “Go thou!
unfaithful to thy charge: thou didst not divest thyself of thy love of pomp
and dignity; thou didst not speak
“As though thou ne’er might’st speak again,
A dying man to dying men.”
Oh! it may be something for that minister to leave his charge, somewhat
for him to die; but worst of all, the sting of death will be his sin, to hear his
parish come howling after him to hell, to see his congregation following
behind him in one mingled herd, he having led them astray, having been a
false prophet instead of a true one, speaking peace, peace, where there was
no peace, deluding them with lies, charming them with music, when he
ought rather to have told them in rough and rugged accents the word of
God. Verily it is true, it is true, the sting of death to such a man shall be his
great, his enormous, his heinous sin of having deluded others.
Thus, then, having painted two full-length pictures, I might give each one
of you miniatures of yourselves. I might picture, O drunkard, when thy
cups are drained, and when thy liquor shall no longer be sweet to thy taste,
when worse than gall shall be the danties that thou drinkest, when within
an hour the worms shall make a carnival upon thy flesh; I might picture
thee as thou lookest back upon thy misspent life. And thou, O swearer,
methinks I see thee there with thine oaths echoed back by memory to thine
own dismay. And thou man of lust and wickedness thou who hast
debauched and seduced others, I see thee there and the sting of death to
thee, how horrible, how dreadful! It shall not be that thou art groaning with
pain, it shall not be that thou art racked with agony, it shall not be that thy
heart and flesh faileth; but the sting, the sting shall be thy sin. How many in
this place can spell that word “remorse?” I pray you may never know its
awful meaning. Remorse, remorse! You know its derivation: it signifies to
bite. Ah! now we dance with our sins – it is a merry life with us – we take
their hands, and sporting in the noontide sun, we dance, we dance, and live
in joy. But then those sins shall bite us. The young lions we have stroked
and played with shall bite; the young adder, the serpent whose azure hues
have well delighted us, shall bite, shall sting when remorse shall occupy our
souls. I might, but I will not tell you, a few stories of the awful power of
remorse: it is the first pang of hell, it is the ante-chamber of the pit. To
have remorse is to feel the sparks that blaze upwards from the fire of the
bottomless Gehenna; to feel remorse is to have eternal torment commenced
within the soul. The sting of death shall be, unforgiven, unrepented sin.
3. But if sin in the retrospect be the sting of death, what must sin in the
prospect be? My friends, we do not often enough look at what sin is to be.
We see what it is: first the seed, then the blade, then the ear, and then the
full corn in the ear. It is the wish, the imagination, the desire, the sight, the
taste, the deed; but what is sin in its next development? We have observed
sin as it grows, we have seen it at first a very little thing but expanding
itself until it has swelled into a mountain. We have seen it like; “a little
cloud, the size of a man’s hand,” but we have beheld it gather until it
covered the skies with blackness and sent down drops of bitter rain. But
what is sin to be in the next state? We have gone so far, but sin is a thing
that cannot stop. We have seen whereunto it has grown, but whereunto
will it grow? for it is not ripe when we die; it has to go on still; it is set
going, but it has to unfold itself for ever. The moment we die the voice of
justice cries “Seal up the fountain of blood, stop the stream of forgiveness;
he that is holy let him be holy still” he that is filthy let him be filthy still.”
And after that the man goes on growing filthier and filthier still; his lust
develops itself; his vice increases; all those evil passions blaze with ten-fold
more fury, and, amidst the companionship of others like himself, without
the restraints of grace, without the preached word the man becomes worse
and worse; and who can tell whereunto his sin may grow?
I have
sometimes likened the hour of our death to that celebrated picture which I
think you have seen in the National Gallery, of Perseus holding up the head
of Medusa. That head turned all persons into stone who looked upon it.
There is a warrior there with a dart in his hand: he stands stiffened, turned
into stone, with the javelin even in his fist. There is another with a poignard
beneath his robe about to stab he is now the statue of an assassin,
motionless and cold. Another is creeping along stealthily, like a man in
ambuscade, and there he stands a consolidated rock, he has looked only
upon that head, and he is frozen into stone. Well, such is death. What I am
when death is held before me, that I must be for ever. When my spirit goes,
if God finds me hymning his praise, I shall hymn it in heaven; doth he find
me breathing out oaths, I shall follow up those oaths in hell. Where death
leaves me, judgment finds me. As I die, so shall I live eternally.
“There are no acts of pardon passed
In the cold grave to which we haste.”
It is for ever for ever, for ever! Ah! there are a set of heretics in these days
who talk of short punishment, and preach about God’s transporting souls
for a term of years and then letting them die. Where did such men learn
their doctrine, I wonder? I read in God’s word that the angel shall plant
one foot upon the earth, and the other upon the sea, and shall swear by him
that liveth and was dead, that time shall be no longer; But if a soul could
die in a thousand years it would die in time; if a million of years could
elapse, and then the soul could be extinguished, there would be such a
thing as time, for talk to me of years, and there is time. But, sirs, when that
angel has spoken the word, “Time shall be no longer,” things will then be
eternal; the spirit shall proceed in its ceaseless revolution of weal or woe,
never to be stayed, for there is no time to stop it; the fact of its stopping
would imply time, but everything shall be eternal, for time shall cease to be.
It well becomes you then to consider where ye are and what ye are. Oh!
stand and tremble on the narrow neck of land ‘twixt the two unbounded
seas, for God in heaven alone can tell how soon thou mayest be launched
upon the eternal future. May God grant that when that last hour may come,
we may be prepared for it! Like the thief, unheard, unseen, it steals through
night’s dark shade. Perhaps, as here I stand, and rudely speak of these dark
hidden things, soon may the hand be stretched, and dumb the mouth that
lisps the faltering strain. Oh! thou that dwellest in heaven, thou power
supreme, thou everlasting King, let not that hour intrude upon me in an
illspent season, but may it find me wrapt in meditation high, hymning my
great Creator. So in the last moment of my life I will hasten beyond the
azure, to bathe the wings of this my spirit in their native element, and then
to dwell with thee for ever -
“Far from a world of grief and sin,
With God eternally shut in.”
II. “THE STRENGTH OF SIN is the law.”
I have attempted to show how to fight this monster – it is by extracting and
destroying its sting. I prepare myself for the battle. It is true I have sin led,
and therefore I have put a sting into death but I will endeavor to take it
away. I attempt it, but the monster laughs me in the face, and cries, “The
strength of sin is the law. Before thou canst destroy sin thou must in some
way satisfy the law. Sin cannot be removed by thy tears or by thy deeds,
for the law is its strength, and until thou hast satisfied the vengeance of the
law, until thou hast paid the uttermost farthing of its demands, my sting
cannot be taken away for the very strength of sin is the law.” Now, I must
try and explain this doctrine, that the strength of sin is the law. Most men
think that sin has no strength at all “Oh!” say many, “we may have sinned very much, but we will repent, and we will be better for the rest of our lives, no doubt God is merciful, and he will forgive us.” And we hear many divines often speak of sin as if it were a very venial thing. Inquire of them what is a man to do? There is no deep repentance required, no real inward workings of divine grace, no casting himself upon the blood of Christ. They never tell us about a complete atonement having been made. They have, indeed, some shadowy idea of atonement, that Christ died just as a matter of form to satisfy justice, but as to any liberal taking away of our sins, and suffering the actual penalty for us, they do not consider that God’s law requires any such thing. I suppose they do not, for I never hear them assert the positive satisfaction and substitution of our Lord Jesus Christ. But, without that, how can we take away the strength of sin?
I. The strength of sin is in the law, first, in this respect, that the law being
spiritual it is quite impossible for us to live without sin. If the law were
merely carnal and referred to the flesh, if it simply related to open and
overt actions, I question even then, whether we could live without sin but
when I turn over the ten commandments and read, “Thou shalt not covet,”
I know it refers even to the wish of my heart. It is said, “Thou shalt not
commit adultery;” but it is said, also, that whosoever looketh on a woman
to lust after her hath already committed that sin. So that it is not merely the
act, it is the thought; it is not the deed simply, it is the very imagination,
that is a sin. Oh, now, sinner, how canst thou get rid of sin? Thy very
thoughts; the inward workings of thy mind, these are crimes – this is guilt
and desperate wickedness. Is there not, now, strength in sin? Hath not the
law put a potency in it? Has it not nerved sin with such a power that all thy
strength cannot hope to wipe away the black enormity of thy
transgression?
2. Then, again, the law puts strength into sin in this respect – that it will not
abate one tittle of its stern demands. It says to every man who breaks it, “I
will not forgive you.” You hear persons talk about God’s mercy. Now, if
they do not believe in the Gospel they must be under the law, but where in
the law do we read of mercy? If you will read the commandments through,
there is a curse after them, but there is no provision made for pardon. The
law itself speaks not of that; it thunders out, without the slightest
mitigation “the soul that sinneth it shall die.” If any of you desire to be
saved by works remember, one sin will spoil your righteousness; one speck
of this earth’s dross will spoil the beauty of that perfect righteousness
which God requires at your hands. If ye would be saved by works, men and
brethren, ye must be as holy as the angels, ye must be as pure and as
immaculate as Jesus; for the law requires perfection, and nothing short of
it; and God with unflinching vengeance, will smite every man low who
cannot bring him a perfect obedience. If I cannot, when I come before his
throne, plead a perfect righteousness as being mine, God will say, “You
have not fulfilled the demands of my law; depart, accursed one! You have
sinned, and you must die.” “Ah,” says one, “can we ever have a perfect
righteousness, then?” Yes, I will tell you of that in the third point; thanks
be unto Christ, who giveth us the victory through his blood and through his
righteousness, who adorns us as a bride in her jewels, as a husband arrays
his with ornaments.
3. Yet again, the law gives strength to sin from the fact that for every
transgression it will exact a punishment. The law never remits a farthing of
debt: it says, “Sin-punishment.” They are linked together with adamantine
chains; they are tied, and cannot be severed. The law speaks not of sin and
mercy; mercy comes in the gospel. The law says, “Sin-die; transgress-be
chastised; sin-hell.” Thus are they linked together. Once let me sin, and I
may go to the foot of stern justice, and, as with blind eyes, she holds the
scales, I may say, “Oh, Justice, remember, I was holy once, remember that
on such and such an occasion I did keep the law.” “Yes,” saith Justice, “all
I owe thee thou shalt have; I will not punish thee for what thou hast not
done; but remember you this crime, O sinner?” and she puts in the heavy
weight. The sinner trembles, and he cries, “But canst thou not forget that?
Wilt thou not cast it away?”; Nay,” saith Justice, and she puts in another
weighs. “Sinner, dost thou recollect this crime?” “Oh,” says the sinner,
“wilt thou not for mercy’s sake?” “I will not have mercy,” says Justice;
“Mercy has its own palace, but I have nought to do with forgiveness here;
mercy belongs to Christ. If you will be saved by justice you shall have your
full of it. If you come to me for salvation, I will not have mercy brought in
to help me, she is not my vicegerent, I stand here alone without her.” And
again, as she holds the scales, she puts in another iniquity, another crime,
another enormous transgression; and each time the man begs and prays that
he may have that passed by. Says Justice, “Nay, I must exact the penalty; I
have sworn I will, and I will. Canst thou find a substitute for thyself? If
thou canst, there is the only room I have for mercy. I will exact it of that
substitute, but even at his hands I will have the utmost jot and little; I will
abate nothing, I am God’s justice stern and unflinching, I will not alter I
will not mitigate the penalty.” She still holds the scales. The plea is in vain.
“Neverwill I change!’’ She cries; “bring me the blood, bring me the price to
its utmost; count it down, or else, sinner, thou shalt die.”
Now, my friends, I ask you, if ye consider the spirituality of the law, the
perfection it requires, and its unflinching severity, are you prepared to take
away the sting of death in your own persons? Can you hope to overcome
sin yourselves? Can you trust that by some righteous works you may yet
cancel your guilt? If you think so, go, foolish one, go! O madman, go!
work out thine own salvation with fear and trembling, without the God that
worketh in thee, go, twist thy rope of sand, go, build a pyramid of air, go,
prepare a house with bubbles, and think it is to last for ever, but know, it
will be a dream with an awful awakening, for as a dream when one
awaketh will he despise alike your image and your righteousness. “The
strength of sin is the law.”
III. But now, in the last place, we have before us THE VICTORY OF FAITH.
The Christian is the only champion who can smite the dragon of death, and
even he cannot do it of himself, but when he has done it, he shall cry,
“Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus
Christ.” One moment, and I will show you how the Christian can look
upon death with complacency through the merits of Jesus Christ.
First, Christ has taken away the strength of sin in this respect, that he has
removed the law. We are not under bondage, but under grace. Law is not
our directing principle, grace is. Do not misunderstand me. The principle
that I must do a thing – that is to say, the principle of law, “do, or be
punished; do, or be rewarded,” is not the motive of the Christian’s life; his
principle is grace. “God has done so much for me, what ought I to do for
him?” We are not under the law in that sense but under grace.
Then Christ has removed the law in this sense, that he has completely
satisfied it.
The law demands a perfect righteousness; “Christ says, “Law, thou hast it;
find fault with me. I am the sinner’s substitute, have I not kept thy
commandments? Wherein have I violated thy statutes?” “Come here, my
beloved,” he says, and then he cries to Justice, “Find a fault in this man I
have put my robe upon him; I have washed him in my blood. I have
cleansed him; from his sin. All the past is gone; as for the future, I have
secured it by sanctification; as for the penalty, I have borne it myself; at
one tremendous draught of love, I have drunk that man’s destruction dry. I
have borne what he should have suffered. I have endured the agonies he
ought to have endured. Justice, have I not satisfied thee? Did I not say
upon the tree, and didst thou not coincide with it, ‘It is finished! it is
finished!’ Have I not made so complete an atonement that there is now no
need for that man to die and expiate his guilt? Did I not complete the
perfect righteousness of this poor once condemned but now, justified
spirit?” “Yes,” saith Justice, “I am well satisfied, and even more content, if
possible, than if the sinner had brought a spotless righteousness of his own.
And now what saith the Christian after this? Boldly he comes to the realms
of death, and entering the gates there, he cries, “Who shall lay anything to
the charge of God’s elect!” And when he has said it, the dragon drops his
sting, he descends into the grave; he passes by the place where fiends lie
down in fetters of iron; he sees their chains, and looks into the dungeon
where they dwell, and as he passes by the prison door, he shouts, “Who
shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect!” They growl, and bite their
iron bonds, and hiss in secret, but they cannot lay aught to his charge. Now
see him mount aloft. He approaches God’s heaven, he comes against the
gates, and faith still triumphantly shouts, “Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God’s elect?” And a voice comes from within: “Not Christ, for
he hath died; not God, for he hath justified.” Received by Jesus, faith enters
heaven, and again she cries, “Who,” even here among the spotless and
ransomed, “shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” Now the law
is satisfied; sin is gone; and now surely we need not fear the sting of the
dragon, but we may say as Paul did, when he rose into the majesty of
poetry – such beautiful poetry, that Pope himself borrowed his words, only
transposing the sentences – ”O grave, where is thy victory? O death, where
is thy sting?”
If it were necessary tonight, I might speak to you concerning the
resurrection, and I might tell you how much that takes away the sting of
death, but I will confine myself to the simple fact, that “the sting of death is
sin,” that “the strength of sin is the law,” and that Christ gives us the
victory, by taking the sting away, and removing the strength of sin by his
perfect obedience.
And now, sirs, how many are there here who have any hope that for them
Christ Jesus died; Am I coming too close home, when most solemnly I put
the question to each one of you, as I stand in God’s presence this night, to
free my head of your blood; as I stand and appeal with all the earnestness
this heart is capable of. Are you prepared to die? Is sin pardoned? Is the
law satisfied? Can you view the flowing
“Of Christ’s soul-redeeming blood
With divine assurance knowing
That he made your peace with God?”
Oh, can ye now put one hand upon your heart, and the other upon the
Bible, and say, “God’s word and I agree; the witness of the Spirit here and
the witness there are one. I have renounced my sins, I have given up my
evil practices; I have abhorred my own righteousness; I trust in nought but
Jesu’s doings; simply do I depend on him.
‘Nothing in my hands I bring
Simply to thy cross I cling.’”
If so, should you die where you are -s udden death were sudden glory.
But, my hearers, shall I be faithful with you? or shall I belie my soul?
Which shall it be? Are there not many here who, each time the bell tolls the
departure of a soul might well ask the question, “Am I prepared?” and they
must say, “No.” I shall not turn prophet tonight, but were it right for me to
say so, I fear not one half of you are prepared to die. Is that true? Yea, let
the speaker ask himself the question, “Am I prepared to meet my Maker
face to face?’ Oh, sit in your seats and catechise your souls with that
solemn question. Let each one ask himself, “Am I prepared, should I be
call to die?” Methinks I hear one say with confidence, “I know that my
Redeemer liveth.” “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.”
I hear another say with trembling accents
A guilty, weak, and helpless worm,
On Christ’s kind arms I fall;
He is my strength and righteousness,
My Jesus and my all
Yes, sweet words! I would rather have written that one verse than Milton’s
“Paradise Lost.” It is such a matchless picture of the true condition of the
believing soul. But I hear another say, “I shall not answer such a question
as that. I am not going to be dull today. It may be gloomy weather outside
today, but I do not want to be made melancholy.” Young man, young
man, go thy way. Let thine heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth; but
for all this the Lord shall bring thee to judgment. What wilt thou do,
careless spirit, when thy friends have forsaken thee, when thou art alone
with God? Thou dost not like to be alone young man, now, dost thou? A
falling leaf will startle thee. To be alone an hour will bring on an
insufferable feeling of melancholy. But thou wilt be alone – and a dreary
alone it will be – with God an enemy! How wilt thou do in the swellings of
Jordan? What wilt thou do when he taketh thee by the hand at eventide,
and asketh thee for an account; when he says, “What didst thou do in the
beginning of thy days? How didst thou spend thy life?” When he asks thee,
“Where are are the years of thy manhood?” When he questions thee about
thy wasted Sabbaths, and inquires how thy latter years were spent? What
wilt thou say then? Speechless, without an answer thou wilt stand. Oh, I
beseech you, as ye love yourselves, take care! Even now begin to weigh
the solemn matters of eternal life. Oh! say not, “Why so earnest? why in
such haste?” Sirs, if I saw you lying in your bed and your house was on
fire, the fire might be at the bottom of the house and you might slumber
safely for the next five minutes, but with all my might I would pull you
from your bed, or I would shout, “Awake! awake! the flame is under thee.”
So with some of you who are sleeping over hell’s mouth, slumbering over
the pit of perdition, may I not awake you? May I not depart a little from
clerical rules, and speak to you as one speaketh to his fellow whom he
loves? Ah! if I loved you not I need not be here. It is because I wish to win
your souls, and if it be possible, to win for my Master some honor, that I
would thus pour out my heart before you. As the Lord liveth, sinner, thou
standest on a single plank over the mouth of hell and that plank is rotten.
Thou hangest over the pit by a solitary rope, and the strands of that rope
are breaking. Thou art like that man of old, whom Dionysius placed at the
head of the table: before him was a dainty feast, but the man ate not, for
directly over his head was a sword suspended by a hair. So art thou, sinner.
Let thy cup be full, let thy pleasures be high, let thy soul be elevated. Seest
thou that sword? The next time thou sittest in the theater, look up and see
that sword the next time thou art in a tavern, look at that sword; when next
in thy business thou scornest the rules of God’s gospel, look at that sword.
Though thou seest it not, it is there. Even now ye may hear God saying to
Gabriel,-”Gabriel, that man is sitting in his seat in the hall, he is hearing,
but as though he heard not, unsheath thy blade. Let the glittering sword cut
through that hair, let the weapon fall upon him and divide his soul and
body.” Stop! thou Gabriel, stop! Save the man a little while. Give him yet
an hour, that he may repent. Oh, let him not die. True, he has been here
these ten or a dozen nights, and he has listened without a tear; but stop,
peradventure he may repent yet. Jesus backs up my entreaty, and he cries,
“Spare him yet another year, till I dig about him, and dung him, and though
he now cumbers the ground, he may yet bring forth fruit, that he may not
be hewn down and cast into the fire.” I thank thee, O God, thou wilt not
Cut him down tonight; but tomorrow may be his last day, Ye may never
see the sun rise, though you have seen it set.
Take heed. Hear the word of
God’s gospel, and depart with God’s blessing. “Whosoever believeth on
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved.” “He that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved.” “He is able to save to the uttermost all that come
unto him.” Whosoever cometh unto him he will in no wise cast out.” Let
every one that heareth, say come; whosoever is athirst, let him come, and
take of.
