CHARLES SPURGEON THE LOVED ONES CHASTENED
“As man, as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.”
Revelation 3:19
THE dealings of God towards the sons of men have always puzzled the
wise men of the earth who have tried to understand them. Apart from the
revelation of God the dealings of Jehovah towards his creatures in this
world seem to be utterly inexplicable. Who can understand how it is that
the wicked flourish and are in great power? The ungodly man flourishes
like a green bay tree; behold, he stretcheth out his roots by the river; he
knoweth not the year of drought; his leaf withereth not; and his fruit doth
not fall in an untimely season. Lo, these are the ungodly that flourish in the
world; they are filled with riches; they heap up gold like dust, they leave
the rest of their substance to their babes; they add field to field and acre to
acre, and they become the princes of the earth. On the other hand, see how
the righteous are cast down. How often is virtue dressed in the rags of
poverty! How frequently is the most pious spirit made to suffer from
hunger, and thirst, and nakedness! We have sometimes heard the Christian
say, when he has contemplated these things, “Surely, I have served God in
vain, it is for nothing that I have chastened myself every morning and
vexed my soul with fasting; for lo, God hath cast me down, and he lifteth
up the sinner. How can this be?” The sages of the heathen could not
answer this question, and they therefore adopted the expedient of cutting
the gordian knot. “We cannot tell how it is,” they might have said;
therefore they flew at the fact itself, and denied it. “The man that prospers
is favored of the gods; the man who is unsuccessful is obnoxious to the
Most High.” So said the heathen, and they knew no better. Those more
enlightened easterns, who talked with Job in the days of his affliction, got
but little further; for they believed that all who served God would have a
hedge about them, God would multiply their wealth and increase their
happiness; while they saw in Job’s affliction, as they conceived, a certain
sign that he was a hypocrite, and therefore God had quenched his candle
and put out his light in darkness. And alas! even Christians have fallen into
the same error. They have been apt to think, that if God lifts a man up
there must be some excellence in him; and if he chastens and afflicts, they
are generally led to think that it must be an exhibition of wrath. Now hear
ye the text, and the riddle is all unriddled; listen ye to the words of Jesus,
speaking to his servant John, and the mystery is all unmysteried. “As many
as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.”
The fact is, that this world is not the place of punishment. There may now
and then be eminent judgments; but as a rule God does not in the present
state fully punish any man for sin. He allows the wicked to go on in their
wickedness; he throws the reins upon their necks; he lets them go on
unbridled in their lusts; some checks of conscience there may be; but these
are rather as monitions than as punishments. And, on the other hand, he
casts the Christian down; he gives the most afflictions to the most pious;
perhaps he makes more waves of trouble roll over the breast of the most
sanctified Christian than over the heart of any other man living. So, then,
we must remember that as this world is not the place of punishment, we are
to expect punishment and reward in the world to come; and we must
believe that the only reason, then, why God afflicts his people must be this:
“In love I correct thee, thy gold to refine
To make thee at length in my likeness to thine.”
I shall try this morning to notice, first, what it is in his children that God
corrects: secondly, why God corrects them, and thirdly, what is our
comfort, when we are laboring under the rebukes and correctings of our
God. Our comfort must be the fact that he loves us even then. “As many as
I love, I rebuke and chasten.”
I. First, then, beloved, WHAT IS IT IN THE CHRISTIAN THAT GOD
REBUKES? One of the Articles of the Church of England saith right truly,
that, naturally, “man is very far gone from original righteousness and is of
his own nature inclined to evil so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to
the spirit; and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth
God’s wrath and damnation. And this infection of nature doth remain, yea
in them that are regenerated; whereby the lust of the flesh, called by the
Greek, fponema sarkos which some do expound the wisdom some
sensuality, some the affection, some the desire, of the flesh, is not subject
to the Law of God. And although there is no condemnation for them that
believe and are baptized, yet the Apostle doth confess, that concupiscence
and lust hath of itself the nature of sin,” and because evil remains in the
regenerate there is therefore a necessity that that evil should be upbraided.
Ay, and a necessity that when that upbraiding is not sufficient, God should
go to severer measures and after having failed in his rebukes, adopt the
expedient of chastening. “I rebuke and chasten.” Hence God has provided
means for the chastisement and the rebuking of his people. Sometimes God
rebukes his children under the ministry. The minister of the gospel is not
always to be a minister of consolation. The same Spirit that is the
Comforter is he who convinces the world of sin, of righteousness, and of
judgment, and the same minister who is to be as the angel of God unto our
souls, uttering sweet words that are full of honey, is to be at times the rod
of God, the staff in the hand of the Almighty, with which to smite us on
account of our transgessions. And ah! beloved, how often under the
ministry ought we to have been checked when we were not? Perhaps the
minister’s words were very forcible, and they were uttered with true
earnestness, and they applied to our case, but alas! we shut our ear to
them, and applied them to our brother instead of to ourselves. I have often
marvelled when I have been preaching. I have thought that I have
described the cases of some of my most prominent members. I have
marked in them divers sins, and as Christ’s faithful pastor, I have not
shunned to picture their case in the pulpit that they might receive a welldeserved
rebuke, but I have marvelled when I have spoken to them
afterwards, that they have thanked me for what I have said because they
thought it so applicable to such another brother in the church, whilst I had
intended it wholly for them, and had, as I thought, so made the description
accurate, and so brought it out in all its little points, that it must have been
received by them. But alas! you know, my friends, that we sit under the
sound of the Word, and we seldom think how much it belongs to us,
especially if we hold an office in the Church. It is hard for a minister when
he is hearing a brother minister preach, to think, it may be, he has a word
of rebuke to me. If exalted to the office of elder or deacon, there groweth
sometimes with that office a callousness to the Word when spoken to
himself, and the man in office is apt to think of the hundreds of inquirers
unto whom that may be found applicable, and of the multitudes of the
babes in grace to whom such a word comes in season. Ay, friends, if we
did but listen more to the rebukes of God in the ministry, if we hearkened
more to his Word as he speaks to us every Sabbath day, we might be
spared many corrections, for we are not corrected until we have despised
rebukes, and after we have rejected those, then out comes the rod.
Sometimes, again, God rebukes his children in their consciences, without
any visible means whatever. Ye that are the people of God will
acknowledge that there are certain times, when, apparently without any
instrumentality, your sine are brought to remembrance; your soul is cast
down within you, and your spirit is sore vexed. God the Holy Spirit is
himself making inquisition for sin; he is searching Jerusalem with candles;
he is so punishing you because you are settled on your lees. If you look
around you there is nothing that could cause your spirits to sink. The
family are not sick; your business prospers, your body is in good health;
why then this sinking of spirit? You are not conscious at the time, perhaps,
that you have committed any gross act of sin, still this dark depression
continues, and at last you discover that you had been living in a sin which
you did not know — some sin of ignorance, hidden and unperceived, and
therefore God did withdraw from you the joy of his salvation, till you had
searched your heart, and discovered wherein the evil lay. We have much
reason to bless God that he does adopt this way sometimes of rebuking us
before he chastens.
At other seasons the rebuke is quite indirect. How often have I met rebuke
where it never was intended to be given! But God overruled the
circumstance for good. Have you never been rebuked by a child? The
innocent little prattler uttered something quite unwittingly which cut you to
your heart and manifested your sin. You walked the street mayhap, and
you heard some man swear; and the thought perhaps struck your mind,
“How little am I doing for the reclaiming of those who are abandoned!”
And so the very sight of sin accused you of negligence and the very hearing
of evil was made use of by God to convince you of another evil. Oh! if we
kept our eyes open there is not an ox in the meadow, nor a sparrow in the
tree, which might not sometimes suggest a rebuke. There is not a star in
midnight there is not a ray in the noon-day, but what might suggest to us
some evil that is hidden in our hearts, and lead us to investigate our inner
man, if we were but awake to the soft whispers of Jehovah’s rebukes. You
know our Savior made use of little things to rebuke his disciples. He said
“Consider the lilies of the field how they grow. Behold the fowls of the air
how they are fed!” So he made lilies and ravens speak to his disciples, to
upbraid their discontent. Earth is full of monitors: all that we need are, ears
to hear. However, when these rebukes all fail, God proceeds from rebuke
to correction. He will not always chide; but if his rebukes are unheeded,
then he grasps the rod, and he uses it. I need not tell you how it is that God
uses the rod. My brethren, you have all been made to tingle with it. He has
sometimes smitten you in your persons, sometimes in your families
frequently in your estates, oftentimes in your prospects. He has smitten you
in your nearest and dearest friend; or, worse still, it may be he has give you
“a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet you.” But you all
understand if you know anything of the life of a Christian, what the rod and
the staff of the covenant are, and what it is to be corrected by God. Let me
just particularize for a few minutes, and show what it is that God corrects
in us.
Very frequently God corrects inordinate affection. It is right of us to love
our relatives — it is wrong of us to love them more than God. You
perhaps are yourselves to-day guilty of this sin, At any rate, beloved, we
may most of us look at home when we come to dwell on this point. Have
we not some favored one — perhaps the partner of our heart, or the
offspring of our bosom, more dear to us than life itself? Have I not here
some man whose life is bound up in the life of the lad, his child? — some
mother whose whole soul is knit unto the soul of her babe — some wife,
some husband, to whom the loss of the partner would be the loss of life?
Oh there are many of us who are guilty of inordinate affection towards
relations. Mark you, God will rebuke us for that. He will rebuke us in this
way. Sometimes he will rebuke us by the minister; if that is not enough he
will rebuke us by sending sickness or disease to those very persons upon
whom we have set our hearts, and if that rebuke us not, and if we are not
zealous to repent, he will chasten us: the sickness shall yet be unto death.
The disease shall break forth with more fearful violence, and the thing
which we have made our idol shall be smitten, and shall become the food
of worms. There never was an idol that God either did not or will not pull
out of its place. “I am the Lord thy God; I am a jealous God;” and if we
put any, however good and excellent their characters may be, and however
deserving of our affection, upon God’s throne, God will cry, “Down with
it,” and we shall have to weep many tears; but if we had not done so we
might have preserved the treasure and have enjoyed it far better, without
having lost it.
But other men are baser than this. One can easily overlook the fault of
making too much of children, and wife, and friends, although very grievous
in the sight of God; but alas! there are some that are too sordid to love
flesh and blood, they love dirt, mere dirty earth, yellow gold. It is that on
which they set their hearts. Their purse they tell us is dross; but when we
come to take aught from it, we find they do not think it is so. “Oh,” said a
man once, “if you want a subscription from me Sir, you must get at my
heart, and then you will get at my purse.” “Yes,” said I, “I have no doubt I
shall, for I believe that is where your purse lies, and I shall not be very far
off from it.” And how many there are who call themselves Christians, who
make a god out of their wealth! Their park, their mansion their estate, their
warehouses, their large ledgers, their many clerks their expanding business,
or if not these, their opportunity to retire, their money in the Three per
Cents. All these things are their idols and their gods, and we take them into
our churches, and the world finds no fault with them. They are prudent
men. You know many of them; they are very respectable people, they hold
many respectable positions, and they are so prudent, only that the love of
money, which is the root of all evil, is in their hearts too plainly to be
denied. Every one may see it, though perhaps they see it not themselves.
“Covetousness, which is idolatry,” reigns very much in the church of the
living God. Well, mark you, God will chasten for that. Whosoever loveth
mammon among God’s people shall first be rebuked for it, as he is rebuked
by me this day, and if that rebuke be not taken, there shall be a
chastisement given. It may be that the gold shall melt like the snow-flake
before the sun or if it be preserved it shall be said, “Your gold and silver
are cankered; the moth shall eat up your garments and destroy your glory.”
Or else the Lord will bring leanness into their souls, and cause them to go
down to their graves with few honors on their heads, and with little
comfort in their hearts, because they loved their gold more than their God,
and valued earthly riches more than the riches that are eternal. The Lord
save us from that, or else he will surely correct us.
But this is not the only sin: we are all subject to another crime which God
abhors exceedingly. It is the sin of pride. If the Lord gives us a little
comfort, we grow so big that we hardly know what to do with ourselves.
Like Jeshurun of old, of whom it is said, “Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked.”
Let us for a little time enjoy the full assurance of faith; self-conceit
whispers, “You will retain the savor of that all your days;” and there is not
quite a whisper, but something even fainter than that — “You have no
need to depend upon the influence of the Holy Spirit now. See what a great
man you have grown. You have become one of the Lord’s most valued
people; you are a Samson; you may pull down the very gates of hell and
fear not. You have no need to cry, ‘Lord, have mercy upon me.’” Or at
other times it takes a different turn. He gives us temporal mercies, and then
we presumptuously say, “My mountain standeth firm; I shall never be
moved.” We meet with the poor saints, and we begin to hector over them,
as if we were something and they were nothing. We find some in trouble,
we have no sympathy with them, we are bluff and blunt with them, as we
talk with them about their troubles, yea, we are even savage and creel with
them. We meet with some who are in deep distress and faint-hearted; we
begin to forget when we were faint-hearted too, and because they cannot
run as fast as we can, we run far ahead and turn back and look at them, call
them sluggards, and say they are idle and lazy. And perhaps even in the
pulpit, if we are preachers, we have got hard words to say against those
who are not quite so advanced as we are. Well, mark, there never was a
saint yet that grew proud of his fine feathers but what the Lord plucked
them out by-and-bye. There never yet was an angel that had pride in his
heart but he lost his wings and fell into Gehenna, as Satan and those fallen
angels did; and there shall never be a saint who indulges self-conceit, and
pride, and self-confidence, but the Lord will spoil his glories and trample
his honors in the mire, and make him cry out yet again “Lord have mercy
upon me, less than the least of all saints, and the very chief of sinners.”
Another sin that God rebukes is sloth. Now I need not stop to picture that.
How many of you are the finest specimens of sloth that can be discovered!
I mean not in a business sense, for you are “not slothful in business,” but
with regard to the things of God and the cause of truth, why, nine out of
ten of all the professors of religion, I do hazard the assertion, are as full of
sloth as they can be. Take our churches all around, and there is not a
corporation in the world, however corrupt, that is less attentive to its
professed interest than the church of Christ. There certainly are many
societies and establishments in the world that deserve much blame for not
attending to those interests which they ought to promote; but I do think the
Church of God is the hugest culprit of all. She says that she is the preacher
of the gospel to the poor: does she preach it to them? Yes, here and there:
now and then there is a spasmodic effort: but how many are there that have
got tongues to speak and ability to utter God’s Word that are content to be
still! She professes to be the educator of the ignorant, and so she is in a me
sure: there are many of you who have no business to be here this morning
— you ought to have been teaching in the Sabbath-school, or instructing
the young and teaching others. Ye have no need of teachers just now; ye
have learned the truth and should have been teaching it to other people.
The church professes that she is yet to cast the light of the gospel
throughout the world. She does a little in missionary enterprise; but ah!
how little! how little! how little compared with what her Master did for her
and the claims of Jesus upon her! We are a lazy set. Take the church all
round, we are as idle as we can be; and we have need to have some
whipping times of persecution, to whip a little more earnestness and zeal
into us. We thank God this is not so much the case now as it was even
twelve months ago. We hope the church may progress in her zeal; for if not
she as a whole, and each of us as members will be first rebuked, and if we
take not the rebuke we shall afterwards be chastened for this our great sin.
I have no time to enter into all the other reasons for which God will rebuke
and chasten. Suffice it to say that every sin has one twig in God’s rod
appropriated to itself. Suffice it to say, that in God’s hand there are
punishments for each particular transgression; and it is very singular to
notice how in Bible history almost every saint has been chastened for the
sin he has committed, by the sin itself falling upon his own head.
Transgression has been first a pleasure, and afterwards it has been a
scourge. “The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways,” and
that is the severest punishment in all the world.
Thus I have tried to open the first head — it is that God rebukes and
chastens.
II. Now, secondly, WHY DOES GOD REBUKE AND CHASTEN? “Why,” says
one, “God rebukes his children because they are his children; and he
chastens them because they are his children.” Well, I will not go the length
of saving that is false, but I will go the length of saying it is not true. If any
one should say to a father, after he had chastened his child, “Why is it you
have chastened the child?” he would not say, it is because I am his father.
It is true in one sense, but he would say, “I have chastened the child
because he had done wrong.” Because the proximate reason why he had
chastened his child would not be that he was his father, though that would
have something to do with it as a primary reason, but the absolute and
primary cause would be, “I have chastened him because he has done
wrong, because I wish to correct him for it, that he might not do so again.”
Now, God, when he chastens his children, never does it absolutely, because
he is their Father; but he does it for a wise reason. He has some other
reason besides his fatherhood. At the same time, one reason why God
afflicts his children, and not others, is because he is their Father. If you
were to go home to-day and see a dozen boys in the streets throwing
stones and breaking windows it is very likely you would start the whole lot
of them; but if there is one boy that would get a sweet knock on the head it
would be your own, for you would say, “What are you at, John? What
business have you here?” You might not be justified, perhaps in meddling
with the others — you would let their own fathers attend to them; but
because you were his father you would try to make him remember it.
Certain special chastisements are inflicted on God’s children, because they
are his children but it is not because they are his children that he chastens
them at any one time but because they have been doing something wrong.
Now, if you are under chastisement, let this truth be certain to you. Are the
consolations of God small with thee? Is there any secret thin” with thee?
Art thou chastened in thy business? Then what sin hast thou committed?
Art thou cast down in thy spirit? Then what transgression has brought this
on thee? Remember, it is not fair to say, “I am chastened because I am his
child;” the right way to say it is, “I am his child, and therefore when he
chastens me he has a reason for it.” Now, what is it? I will help you to
judge.
Sometimes God chastens and afflicts us, to prevent sin. He sees that the
embryo of lust is in our hearts, he sees that that little egg of mischief is
beginning to hatch and to produce sin, and he comes and crushes it at once
— nips the sin in the bud. Ah! we cannot tell how much guilt Christians
have been saved from by their afflictions. We are running on madly to- our
destruction, and then some dark apparition of trouble comes, and stretches
itself across the way, and in greet fright we fly back astonished. We ask,
why this trouble? Oh! if we knew the deluge into which we were rushing
we should only say, “Lord, I thank thee that by that direful trouble thou
didst save me from a sin, that would have been far more troublous and
infinitely more dangerous.”
At other times God chastens us for sins already committed. We perhaps
have forgotten them; but God has not. I think that sometimes years elapse
between a sin and the chastisement for it. The sins of our youth may be
punished in our grey old age: the transgressions you did twenty years ago,
those of you who have grown old, may this very day be found in your
bones. God chastens his children, but he sometimes lays the rod by. The
time would not be seasonable perhaps; they are not yet strong enough to
hear it: so he lays his rod by, and he says, as surely as he is my child,
though I lay the rod by, I will make him smart for it, that I may at last
deliver him from his sin, and make him like unto myself. But mark, ye
people of God, in all these chastisements for sin there is no punishment.
When God chastises you he does not punish as a judge does; but he
chastens as a father. When he lays the rod on, with many blows and smart
ones, there is not one thought of anger in his heart — there is not one look
of displeasure in his eye; he means it all for your good; his heaviest blows
are as much tokens of his affection as his sweetest caresses. He has no
motive but your profit and his own glory. Be of good cheer, then, if these
be the reasons. But take care that thou dost fulfill the command — “Be
zealous, therefore, and repent.”
I read in an old Puritan author the other day a very pretty figure. He says,
“A full wind is not so favorable to a ship when it is fully fair as a side wind.
It is strange,” says he, “that when the wind blows in an exact direction to
blow a ship into port, she will not go near so well as if she had a cross
wind sideways upon her.” And he explains it thus: “The mariners say that
when the wind blows exactly fair it only fills a part of the sails, and it
cannot reach the sails that are ahead, because the sail, bellying out with the
wind, prevents the wind from reaching that which is further ahead. But
when the wind sweeps sideways, then every sail is full, and she is driven on
swiftly in her course with the full force of the wind. Ah!” says the old
Puritan, “there is nothing like a side wind to drive God’s people to heaven.
A fair wind only fills a part of their sails; that is, fills their joy, fills their
delight; but,” says he, “the side wind fills them all; it fills their caution, fills
their prayerfulness, fills every part of the spiritual man, and so the ship
speeds onwards towards its haven.” It is with this design that God sends
affliction, to chasten us on account of our transgressions.
III. And now I am to conclude by noting WHAT IS OUR COMFORT WHEN
GOD REBUKES AND CHASTENS US?
Our great comfort is, that he loves us still. Oh! what a precious thing faith
is when we are enabled to believe our God, and how easy then it is to
endure and to surmount all trouble! Hear the old man in the garret, with a
crust of bread and a cup of cold water. Sickness has confined him these
years within that narrow room. He is too poor to maintain an attendant.
Some woman comes in to look to him in the morning and in the evening,
and there he sits, in the depths of poverty. And you will suppose he sits and
groans. No, brethren; he may sometimes groan when the body is weak, but
usually he sits and sings; and when the visitor climbs the creaking staircase
of that old house, where human beings scarcely ought to be allowed to live,
and when he goes into that poor cramped-up room that is more fit to
accommodate swine than men, he sits down upon that bottomless chair,
and when he has squatted himself as well as he can upon the four cross
pieces of it he begins to talk to him, and he finds him full of heaven. “Oh!
sir,” he says, “my God is very kind to me.” Propped up he is with pillows,
and full of pain in every member of his body? but he says, “Blessed be his
name, he has not left me.” “Oh! sir, have enjoyed more peace and
happiness in this room, out of which I have not gone for years,” — (the
case is real that I am now describing) “I have enjoyed more happiness here
than I ever did in all my life. My pains are great, sir, but they will not be for
long; I am going home soon.” Ay, where he more troubled still, had he
such rich consolation poured into his heart, he might endure all with a
smile and sing in the furnace. Now, child of God, thou art to do the same.
Remember, all thou hast to suffer is sent in love. It is hard work for a child,
when his father has been chastening it, to look at the rod as a picture of
love. You cannot make your children do that: but when they grow up to be
man and women how thankful are they are to you then? “O father,” says
the son, “I know now why it was I was so often chastened; I had a proud
hot spirit; it would have been the ruin of me if thou hadst not whipped it
out of me. Now, I thank thee, my father, for it.”
So, while we are here below we are nothing but little children; we cannot
prize the rod: when we come of age, and we go into our estates in
Paradise, we shall look back upon the rod of the Covenant as being better
than Aaron’s rod, for it blossoms with mercy. We shall say to it. “Thou art
the most wondrous thing in all the list of my treasures. Lord, I thank thee
that thou didst not leave me unafflicted, or else I had not been where I am,
and what I am, a child of God in Paradise.” “I have this week,” says one,
sustained so serious a loss in my business that I am afraid I shall be utterly
broken up.” There is love in that. “I came here this morning,” says one,
“and I left a dead child in the house — dear to my heart.” There is love in
that. That coffin and that shroud will both be full of love; and when your
child is taken away, it shall not be in anger. “Ah!” cries another, but I have
been exceedingly sick, and even now I feel I ought not to have ventured
out: I must return to my bed.” Ah! he makes your bed in your affliction.
There is love in every pain, in every twitch of the nerve; in every pang that
shoots through the members, there is love. “Ah!” says one, “it is not
myself, but I have got a dear one that is sick.” There is love there, too. Do
what God may, he cannot do an unloving act towards his people. O Lord!
thou art Omnipotent; thou canst do all things, but thou canst not lie, and
thou canst not be unkind to the elect. No, Omnipotence may build a
thousand worlds, and fill them with bounties; Omnipotence may powder
mountains into dust, and burn the sea, and consume the sky; but
Omnipotence cannot do an unloving thing towards a believer. Oh! rest
quite sure, Christian, a hard thing, an unloving thing from God towards one
of his own people is quite impossible. He is kind to you when he casts you
into prison as when he takes you into a palace, He is as good when he
sends famine into your house as when he fills your barns with plenty. The
only question is, Art thou his child? If so, he hath rebuked thee in affection,
and there is love in his chastisement.
I have now done, but not until I have made my last appeal. I have now to
turn from God’s people to the rest of you. Ah I my hearers, there are some
of you that have no God; you have no Christ on whom to cast your
troubles. I se! some of you to-day dressed in the habiliments of mourning; I
suppose you have lost some one dear unto you. Oh! ye that are robed in
black, is God your God? Or are you mourning now, without God to wipe
every tear from your eye? I know that many of you are struggling now in
your business with very sharp and hard times. Can you tell your troubles to
Jesus, or have you to bear them all yourself, — friendless and helpless?
Many men have been driven mad, because they had no one to whom to
communicate their sorrow; and how many others have been driven worse
than mad, because when they told their sorrows their confidence was
betrayed. O poor mourning spirit, if thou hadst, as thou mightest have
done, gone and told him all thy woes, he would not have laughed at thee,
and he would never have told it out again. Oh! remember when once my
young heart ached in boyhood, when I first loved the Savior. I was far
away from father and mother, and all I loved, and I thought my soul would
burst; for I was an usher in a school, in a place where I could meet with no
sympathy or help. Well, I went to my chamber, and told my little griefs into
the ears of Jesus. They were great griefs to me then, though they are
nothing now. When I just whispered them on my knees into the ear of him
who had loved me with an everlasting love, oh I it was so sweet, none can
tell. If I had told them to somebody else, they would have told them again;
but he, my blessed confidante, he knows my secrets, and he never tells
again. Oh! what can you do that have got no Jesus to tell your troubles to?
And the worst of it is, you have got more troubles to come. Times may be
hard now, but they will be harder one day — they will be harder when they
come to an end. They say it is hard to live, but it is very hard to die. When
one comes to die and has Jesus with him, even then dying is hard work; but
to die without a Savior! Oh! my friends, are you inclined to risk it? Will
you face the grim monarch, and no Savior with you? Remember, you must
do it, you must die soon. The chamber shall soon be hushed in silence; no
sound shall be heard except the babbling watch that ever tells the flight of
time. The physician shall “Hush!” and hold up his finger, and whisper in a
suppressed voice, “He cannot last many minutes longer.- And the wife and
the children, or the father and the mother, will stand around your bed and
look at you, as I have looked at some, with a sad, sad heart. They will look
at you a little while, till at last the death-change will pass o’er your face.
“He is gone!” it shall be said; and the hand uplifted shall be dropped down
again, and the eye shall be glazed in darkness, and then the mother will turn
away and say, “O my child, I could have borne all this if there had been
hope in thine end!” And when the minister comes in to comfort the family,
he will ask the question of the father, “Do you think your son had an
interest in the blood of Christ?” The reply will be, “O sir, we must not
judge, but I never saw anything like it; I never had any reason to hope: that
is my greatest sorrow.” There, there! I could bury every friend without a
tear, compared with the burial of an ungodly friend. Oh! it seems such an
awful thing, to have one allied to you by ties of blood, dead and in hell.
We generally speak very softy about the dead. We say, “Well, we hope.”
Sometimes we tell great lies, for we know we do not hope at all. We wish
it may be so, but we cannot hope it; we never saw any grounds that should
lead us to hope. But would it not be an awful thing if we were honest
enough to look the dread reality in its face — if the husband were simply to
look at it, and say, “There was my wife; she was an ungodly, careless
woman. I know at least, she never said anything concerning repentance and
faith; and if she died so, and I have every reason to fear she did, then she is
cast away from God.” It would be unkind to say it; but it is only honest for
us to know it — to look dread truth in the face. Oh! my fellowmen and
brethren, oh I ye that are partners with me of an immortal life! We shall
one day meet again before the throne of God; but ere that time comes, we
shall each of us be separated, and go our divers ways down the shelving
banks of the river of death. My fellowman, art thou prepared to die alone?
I ask thee this question again — Art thou prepared to arise in the day of
judgment without a Savior? Art thou willing to run all risks and face thy
Maker, when he comes to judge thee without an advocate to plead thy
cause? Art thou prepared to hear him say, “Depart ye cursed!” Are ye
ready now to endure the everlasting ire of him who smites, and smiting
once, doth smite for ever? Oh! if you will make your bed in hell, if you are
prepared to be damned, if you are willing to be so, then live in sin and
indulge in pleasures; — you will get your wish. But if ye would not; if ye
would enter heaven and ye would be saved, “Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye
die, O house of Israel?” May God the Holy Spirit, enable you to repent of
sin and to believe on Jesus; and then you shall have a portion among them
that are sanctified: but unrepenting and unbelieving, if ye die so, ye must be
driven from his presence, never to have life, and joy, and liberty, as long as
eternity shall last.
The Lord prevent this, for Jesus’ sake.