“He heard the sound of the trumpet. and took not warning:
his blood shall be upon him.” Ezekiel 33:5
IN all worldly things men are always enough awake to understand their
own interests. There is scarce a merchant who reads the paper who does
not read it in some way or other with a view to his own personal concerns.
If he finds that by the rise or fall of the markets he will be either a gainer or
a loser, that part of the day’s news will be the most important to him. In
politics, in everything, in fact, that concerns temporal affairs, personal
interest usually leads the van. Men will always be looking out for
themselves, and personal and home interests will generally engross the
major part of their thoughts. But in religion it is otherwise. In religion men
love far rather to believe abstract doctrines, and to talk of general truths,
than the searching inquiries which examine their own personal interest in it.
You will hear many men admire the preacher who deals in generalities, but
when he comes to press home searching questions, by-and-by they are
offended. If we stand and declare general facts, such as the universal
sinnership of mankind; or the need of a Savior, they will give an assent to
our doctrine, and possibly they may retire greatly delighted with the
discourse, because it has not affected them; but how often will our
audience gnash their teeth, and go away in a rage, because like the
Pharisees with Jesus, they perceive, concerning a faithful minister, that he
spoke of them. And yet, my brethren, how foolish this is. If in all other
matters we like personalities — if in everything else we look to our own
concerns, how much more should we do so in religion ? for surely every
man must give an account for himself at the day of judgment. We must die
alone, we must rise at the day of resurrection one by one, and each one for
himself must appear before the bar of God; and each one must either have
said to him, as an individual, “Come ye blessed;” or else he must be
appalled with the thundering sentence “Depart ye cursed.” If there were
such a thing as national salvation, if it could be possible that we could be
saved in the gross and in the bulk, that so, like the sheaves of corn, the few
weeds that may grow with the stubble, would be gathered in for the sake of
the wheat, then, indeed, it might not be so foolish for us to neglect our
own personal interests; but if the sheep must, every one of them, pass
under the hand of him that telleth them, if every man must stand in his own
person before God, to be tried for his own acts — by everything that is
rational, by everything that conscience would dictate, and self-interest
would command, let us each of us look to our own selves, that we be not
deceived, and that we find not ourselves, at last, miserably cast away.
Now, this morning, by God’s help, I shall labor to be personal, and whilst I
pray for the rich assistance of the Divine Spirit, I will also ask one thing of
each person here present — I would ask of every Christian that he would
lift up a prayer to God, that the service may be blessed, and I ask of every
other person that he will please to understand that I am preaching to him,
and at him; and if there be anything that is personal and pertinent to his
own case, I beseech him, as for life and death, to let it have its full weight
with him, and not begin to think of his neighbor, to whom perhaps it may
be even more pertinent, but whose business certainly does not concern him.
The text is a solemn one — “ He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took
not warning: his blood shall be upon him.” The first head is this — the
warning was. all that could be desired — “he heard the sound of the
trumpet.” Secondly, the excuses for not attending to the startling warning
are all of them both frivolous and wicked: and therefore, in the third place,
the consequences of inattention must be terrible, because man’s blood
must then be on his own head.
I. First, then, THE WARNING WAS ALL THAT COULD BE DESIRED. When in
time of war an army is attacked in the night, and cut off and destroyed
whilst asleep, if it were impossible for them to be aware of the attack, and
if they had used all diligence in placing their sentinels, but nevertheless the
foe were so wary as to destroy them, we should weep; we should attach no
blame to anyone, but should deeply regret, and should give to that host our
fullest pity. But if, on the other hand, they had posted their sentinels and
the sentinels were wide awake, and gave to the sleepy soldiers every
warning that could be desired, but nevertheless the army were cut off,
although we might for common humanity regret the loss thereof, yet at the
same time we should be obliged to say, if they were foolish enough to sleep
when the sentinels had warned them; if they folded their arms in
presumptuous sloth, after they had had sufficient and timely notice of the
progress of their bloodthirsty enemy, then in their dying, we cannot pity
them: their blood must rest upon their own heads. So it is with you. If men
perish under an unfaithful ministry, and have not been sufficiently warned
to escape from the wrath to come, the Christian may pity them, yea, and
methinks, even when they stand before the bar of God, although the fact of
their not having been warned will not fully excuse them, yet it will go far to
diminish their eternal miseries, which otherwise might have fallen upon
their heads; for we know it is more tolerable for unwarned Tyre and Sidon
in the day of judgment, than it is for any city, or any nation that has had the
Gospel proclaimed in its ears. My brethren, if on the other hand, we have
been warned, if our ministers have been faithful, if they have aroused our
conscience, and have constantly and earnestly called our attention to the
fact of the wrath to come, if we have not attended to their message, if we
have despised the voice of God, if we have turned a deaf ear to their
earnest exhortations, if we perish, we shall die warned — die under the
sound of the Gospel, and our damnation must be an unpitied one, for our
blood must fall upon our own heads. Permit me then, to try, if I can, to
enlarge upon this thought, that the warning has been in the case of many of
you, all that could have been needed.
In the first place, the warnings of the ministry have been to most of you
warnings that have been heard — “ He heard the sound of the trumpet.” In
far off lands the trumpet sound of warning is not heard. Alas! there are
myriads of our fellow creatures who have never been warned by God’s
ambassadors, who know not that wrath abideth on them, and who do not
yet understand the only way and method of salvation. In your case it is
very different. You have heard the Word of God preached to you. You
cannot say, when you come before God, “Lord. I knew no better.” There is
not a man or a woman within this place who will dare then to plead
ignorance. And moreover, you have not only heard with your ears, but
some of you have been obliged to hear it in your consciences. I have before
me many of my hearers whom I have had the pleasure of seeing now for
some years. It has not been once or twice, but many a time, I have seen the
tear guttering your cheeks when I have spoken earnestly, faithfully, and
affectionately to you. I have seen your whole soul moved within you. and
yet, to my sorrow, you are now what you were: your goodness has been as
the early cloud and as the morning dew that passeth away. You have heard
the Gospel. You wept under it, and you loved the sound of it, and you
came again, and wept again, and many marvelled that you did weep, but
the greatest marvel was, that after having wept so well, you wiped away
your tears so easily. Oh, yes, God is my witness, there are some of you not
an inch nearer heaven, but ye have sealed your own damnation doubly sure,
unless ye repent: for ye have heard the Gospel, ye have despised
prophesyings, ye have rejected the counsel of God against yourselves; and,
therefore, when you shall die ye must die pitied by your friends, but at the
same time with your blood on your own heads.
The trumpet was not only heard, but more than that, its warning was
understood. When the man supposed in the text heard the trumpet, he
understood by it that the enemy was at hand, and yet he took not warning.
Now, my brethren, in your case, the sound of the Gospel warning has been
understood. A thousand faults your minister may have, but there is one
fault from which he is entirely free, and that is, he is free from all attempts
to use fine language in the expression of his thoughts; ye are all my
witnesses, that if there be a Saxon word or a homel phrase, a sentence that
is rough and market-like, that will tell you the truth,; always use that first. I
can say solemnly, as in the sight of God, that I never went out of my pulpit,
except with the firm belief, that whatever might have happened, I was
perfectly understood. I had sought at least so to gather wise words, that no
man might mistake my meaning; gnash his teeth he might, but he could not
say, “The preacher was misty and cloudy, talking to me of metaphysics,
beyond my comprehension;” he has been obliged to say, “Well, I know
what he meant, he spoke plainly enough to me.” Well, sirs, then if it be so,
and if ye have heard warnings that ye could understand, so much the more
guilty are ye, if ye are living this day in rejection of them. If I have
preached to you in a style above comprehension. then on my head must be
your blood, because I ought to have made you understand; but if I come
down to men of low estate, and pick even vulgar phrases to suit common
people, then if you understood the warning, and if ye then risked it, mark
you, my hands are clean of your blood. If ye be damned. I am innocent of
your damnation; for I have told you plainly, that except ye repent, ye must
perish, and that except ye put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, there is
for you no hope of salvation.
Again, this trumpet sound was startling. The trumpet’s sound is ever
considered to be the most startling in the world. ‘Tis that which shall be
used on the resurrection morning to startle the myriads of sleepers and
make them rise from their tombs. Ay, and ye have had a startling ministry.
Ye have sat, some of you, under ministers that might have made the devil
himself tremble, so earnest have they been. and they have made you
tremble sometimes, so much, that you could not sleep. The hair of your
head was well nigh moved to stand upright. They spake as though they
ne’er might speak again: as dying men to dying men. They spoke as if they
had been in hell, and knew the vengeance of the Almighty, and anon they
spoke as if they had entered into the heart of Jesus, and read his love to
sinners. They had brows of brass, they knew not how to flinch. They laid
your iniquity bare before your face, and with rough language that was
unmistakeable they made you feel that there was a man there who told you
all things that ever you did. They so declared it, that you could not help
feeling under it. You always retained a veneration for that minister,
because you felt that he at least was honest with you, and you have
sometimes thought that you would even go and hear him again, because
there at least your soul was moved, and you were made to hear the truth.
Yes, you have had a startling ministry, some of you. Then, sirs, if ye have
heard the cry of fire, if ye are burned in your beds, your charred ashes shall
not accuse me. If I have warned you that he that believeth not must be
damned, if you are damned, your miserable souls shall not accuse me. If I
have startle you sometimes from your slumbers, and made your balls and
your pleasure parties uneasy, because I have sometimes warned you of
these things, then, sirs, if after all you put away these warnings, and you
reject these counsels, you will be obliged to say, “My blood is on my own
head.”
In many of your cases the warning has been very frequent. If the man heard
the trumpet sound ONCE and did not regard it, possibly we might excuse
him; but how many of my audience have heard the trumpet sound of the
gospel very frequently. There you are, YOUNG man. You have had many
years of a pious mother’s teaching, many years of a pious minister’s
exhortations. Waggon loads of sermons have been exhausted upon you.
You have had many sharp PROVIDENCES, many terrible sicknesses. Often
when the death bell has tolled for your friend, your CONSCIENCE has been
aroused. To you warnings are not unusual things; they are very common.
Oh ! my hearers, if a man should hear the gospel but once, his blood would
be upon his own head for rejecting it, but of how much sorer punishment
shall you be thought worthy who have heard it many and many a time. AH!
I may well weep, when I think how many sermons you have listened to,
many of you, how many times you have been CUT to the heart. A hundred
times every year you have gone up to the house of God, and far oftener
than that, and you have just added a hundred billets to the eternal pile. A
hundred times the trumpet has sounded in your ears, and a hundred times
you have turned away to sin again, to despise Christ, to neglect your
eternal interests, and to pursue the pleasures and the CONCERNS of this
world. Oh! how mad this is, how mad! Oh, sirs, if a man had but once
poured out his heart before YOU concerning your eternal interests, and if
he had spoken to you earnestly, and you had rejected his message, then,
even then, ye had been guilty. But what shall we say to you upon whom
the shafts of the Almighty have been exhausted? Oh, what stall be done
unto this barren ground that hath been watered with shower after shower,
and that hath been quickened with sunshine after sunshine? What shall be
done unto him who being often rebuked, still hardeneth his neck? Shall he
not be suddenly destroyed, and that without remedy, and shall it not then
be said, “His blood lieth at his own door, his guilt is on his own head?”
And I would just have you recollect one thing more. This warning that you
have had so often, has come to you in time. “ Ah,” said an infidel once,
“God never regards man. If there be a God, he would never take notice of
men.” Said a Christian minister, who was sitting opposite to him in the
carriage, “The day may come, sir, when you will learn the truth of what
you have just said.” “I do not understand your allusion, sir,” said he. “Well,
sir, the day may come, when you may call, and he will refuse; when you
may stretch out your hands, and he will not regard you, but as he has said
in the book of Proverbs, so will he do, ‘Because I called and ye refused.
because I stretched out my hands, and no man regarded, I also will mock at
your calamity, I will laugh when your fear cometh.’ “ But oh, sirs, your
warning has not come too late. You are not warned on a sick bed, at the
eleventh hour, when there is but a bare possibility of salvation, but you are
warned in time, you are warned to-day, you have been warned for these
many years that are now past. If God should send a preacher to the
damned in hell, that were an unnecessary addition to their misery. Surely, if
one could go and preach the gospel through the fields of Gehenna, and tell
them of a Savior they had despised, and of a gospel that is now beyond
their reach, that were taunting poor souls with a vain attempt to increase
their unutterable woe; but Oh my brethren, to preach the gospel now is to
preach in a hopeful period; for “now is the accepted time: now is the day of
salvation.” Warn the boatman before he enters the current, and then, if he
is swept down the rapids, he destroys himself. Warn the man before he
drinks the cup of poison, tell him it is deadly; and then, if he drinks it, his
death lies at his own door. And so, let us warn you before you depart, this
life; let us preach to you while as yet your bones are full of marrow, and
the sinews of your joints are not loosed. We have then warned you in time,
and so much the more shall your guilt be increased, because the warning
was timely, it was frequent, it was earnest, it was appropriate, it was
arousing, it was continually given to you, and yet you sought not to escape
from the wrath to come.
And so even this morning would I say to you, if ye perish. my skirts are
free from your blood; if ye are damned, it is not for want of calling after,
nor for want of praying for, nor for want of weeping over. Your blood
must be on your own heads, for the warning is all that is needed.
II. And now we come to the second point. MEN; MAKE EXCUSES WHY
THEY DO NOT ATTEND TO THE GOSPEL WARNING, BUT THESE EXCUSES
ARE ALL FRIVOLOUS AND WICKED. I will just go over one or two of the
excuses that people make. Some of them say, “Well, I did not attend to the
warning, because I did not believe there was any necessity for it.” Ah! You
were told that after death there was a judgment, and you did not believe
there was any necessity that you should be prepared for that judgment.
You were told that by the works of the law there shall no flesh living be
justified, and that only through Christ CAN sinners be saved; and you did
not think there was any necessity for Christ. Well sir, you ought to have
thought there was a necessity. You know there was a necessity in your
inner consciousness. You talked very large things when you stood up as an
unbeliever, a professed unbeliever: but you know there was a still small
voice that while you spake belied your tongue. You are well aware that in
the silent watches of the night you have often trembled; in a storm at sea
you have been on your knees to pray to a God whom on the land you have
laughed at; and when you have been sick nigh unto death, you have said,
“Lord, have mercy upon me,” and so you have prayed, that you have
believed it after all. But if you did not believe it, you ought to have
believed it. There was enough in reason to have taught you that there was
an hereafter; the Book of God’s revelation was plain enough to have
taught it to you, and if you have rejected God’s Book, and rejected the
voice of reason and of conscience, your blood is on your own head. Your
excuse is idle. It is worse than that, it is profane and wicked, and still on
your own head be your everlasting torment.
“But,”cries another, “I did not like the trumpet. I did not like the Gospel
that was preached.” Says one, “I did not like certain doctrines in the Bible.
I thought the minister preached too harsh doctrines sometimes, I did not
agree with the Gospel, I thought the Gospel ought to have been altered,
and not to have been just what it was.” You did not like the trumpet, did
you? Well, but God made the trumpet, God made the Gospel. and
inasmuch as ye did not like what God made, it is an idle excuse. What was
that to you what the trumpet was, so long as it warned you? And surely, if
it had been time of war, and you had heard a trumpet sounded to warn you
of the coming of the enemy, you would not have sat still, and said, “Now I
believe that is a brass trumpet, I would like to have had it made of silver.”
No, but the sound would have been enough for you and up you would
have been to escape from the danger. And so it must be now with you. It is
an idle pretense that you did not like it. You ought to have liked it, for God
made the Gospel what it is.
But you say, “I did not like the man that blew it.” Well, if you did not like
one messenger of God, there are many in this city. Could you not find one
you did like? You did not like one man’s manner: it was too theatrical, you
did not like another’s: it was too doctrinal; you did not like another’s: it
was too practical — there are plenty of them, you may take which you do
like, but if God has sent the men, and told them how to blow, and if they
blow to the best of their ability, it is all in vain for you to reject their
warnings, because they do not blow the way you like. Ah, my brethren, we
do not find fault with the way a man speaks, if we are in a house that is on
fire. If the man calls, “Fire! Fire!” we are not particular what note he takes,
we do not think what a harsh voice he has got. You would think any one a
fool, a confounded fool, who should lie in his bed, to be burned, because
be said he did not like the way the man cried, “Fire” Why his business was
to have been out of bed and down the stairs at once, as soon as he heard it.
But another says, “I did not like the man himself; I did not like the minister;
I did not like the man that blew the trumpet; I could hear him preach very
well, but I had a personal dislike to him, and so I did not take any notice of
what the trumpet said.” Verily, God will say to thee at last, “Thou fool,
what hadst thou to do with that man; to his own master he stands or falls;
thy business was with thyself.” What would you think of a man? A man has
fallen overboard from a ship, and when he is drowning, some sailor throws
him a rope, and there it is. Well he says, in the first place, “I do not like
that rope, I don’t think that rope was made at the best manufactory, there
is some tar on it too, I do not like it; and in the next place, I do not like
that sailor that threw the rope over, I am sure he is not a kind-hearted man,
I do not like the look of him at all;” and then comes a gurgle and a groan,
and down he is at the bottom of the sea; and when he was drowned, they
said, that it served him right, if he would not lay hold of the rope, but
would be making such foolish and absurd objections, when it was a matter
of life and death. Then on his own head be his blood. And so shall it be
with you at last. You are so busy with criticising the minister, and his style,
and his doctrine, that your own soul perishes. Remember you may get into
hell by criticism, but you will never criticise your soul out of it. You may
there make the most you can of it. You may be there and say “I did not like
the minister I did not like his manner, I did not like his matter;” but all your
dislikings will not get one drop of water to cool your burning tongue. nor
serve to mitigate the unalleviated torments of that world of agony.
There are many other people who say, “Ah, well, I did none of those
things, but I had a notion that the trumpet sound ought to be blown to
everybody else, but not to me.” Ah! that is a very common notion. “All
men think all men mortal, but themselves,” said a good poet; and all men
think all men need the Gospel, but not themselves. Let each of us recollect
that the Gospel has a message to each one of us. What saith the Gospel to
thee my hearer? What saith the Word to thee? Forget thy neighbors, and
ask this question. Doth it condemn thee? or doth it assure thee of thy.
pardon? for recollect, all thou hast to do in the hearing of the Word, is to
hear with thine own ears for thine own soul, and it will be idle for any one
to say “ I did not think it applied to me,” when we know that it is to be
preached to every creature under heaven, and therefore there must be
something in it for every creature or else it would not be preached to every
creature.
Well, says another, “ But I was so busy, I had so much to do, that I could
not possibly attend to my soul’s concerns. What will you say of the man
who has so much to do that he could not get out of the burning house, but
was burnt to ashes? What will you say of the man that had so much to do,
that when he was dying, he had not time to send for a physician? Why, you
will say, then he ought not to have had so much to do. And if any man in
the world has a business which causes him to lose his own soul for want of
time, let him lay this question to his heart, “What shall it profit a man, if he
gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” But it is false — it is false
— men have got time. It is the want of will, not want of way. You have
time, sir, have you not, despite all your business, to spend in pleasure? You
have time to read your newspaper — have you no time to read your Bible?
You have time to sing a song — have you no time to pray a prayer? Why,
you know when farmer Brown met farmer Smith in the market one day, he
said to him, “Farmer Smith, I can’t think how it is you find time for
hunting. Why, man, what with sowing and mowing and reaping and
ploughing, and all that, my time is so fully occupied on my farm, that I
have no time for hunting.” “Ah,” said he “ Brown, if you liked hunting as
much as I do, if you could not find time, you’d make it.” And so it is with
religion, the reason why men cannot find time for it is, because they do not
like it well enough. If they liked it, they would find time. And besides, what
time does it want? What time does it require? Can I not pray to God over
my ledger? Can I not snatch a text at my very breakfast, and think over it
all day? May I not even when I am busy in the affairs of the world, be
thinking of my soul, and casting myself upon a Redeemer’s blood and
atonement? It wants no time. There may be some time required; some time
for my private devotions, and for communion with Christ, but when I grow
in grace, I shall think it right to have more and more time, the more I can
possibly get, the happier I shall be, and I shall never make the excuse that I
have no time.
“Well,” says another, “but I thought I had time enough; you do not want
me, sir, to be religious in my youth, do you? I am a lad, and may I not have
a little frolic and sow my wild oats as well as anybody else?” Well — yes,
yes; but at the same time the best place for frolic that I know of, is where a
Christian lives. the finest happiness in all the world is the happiness of a
child of God. You may have your pleasures — oh yes! you shall have them
doubled and trebled, if you are a Christian. You shall not have things that
worldlings call pleasures, but you shall have some that are a thousand times
better. But only look at that sorrowful picture. There, far away in the dark
gulf of woe, lies a young man, and he cries. “Ah! I meant to have repented
when I was out of my apprenticeship, and I died before my time was up.”
“Ah! “ says another by his side, “and I thought, whilst I was a journeyman,
that when I came to be a master, I would then think of the things of Christ,
but I died before I had got money enough to. start for myself.” And then a
merchant behind wails with bitter woe, and says, “Ah! I thought I would be
religious when I had got enough to retire on, and live in the country, then I
should have time to think of God, when I had got all my children married
out, and my concerns settled about me, but here I am shut up in hell, and
now what are all my delays worth, and what is all the time I gained for all
the paltry pleasures in the world ? Now I have lost my soul over them.”
We experience great vexation if we are unpunctual in many places; but we
cannot conceive what must be the horror and dismay of men who find
themselves too late in the next world! Ah! friends, if I knew there was one
here who said, “I shall repent next Wednesday.” I would have him feel in a
dreadful state till that Wednesday came, for what if he should die? Oh!
what if he should die! Would his promise of a Wednesday’s repentance
save him from a Thursday damnation ?
Ah, these are all idle excuses. Men make not such when their bodily life is
concerned. Would God that we were wise, that we would not make such
pitiful pretences to apology, when our soul, our own soul, is the matter at
stake. If they take not warning, whatever their excuse, their blood must be
upon their own head.
III. And now, I come most solemnly to conclude with all the power of
earnestness; the warning has been sufficient, the excuse for not attending to
it has been proved profane. Then the last thought is “HIS BLOOD SHALL BE
ON HIS OWN HEAD.” Briefly thus — he shall perish; he shall perish
certainly, he shall perish inexcusably. He shall perish. And what does that
mean? There is no human mind, however capacious, that can ever guess
the thought of a soul eternally cast away from God. The wrath to come is
as inexpressible as the glory that shall be revealed hereafter. Our Savior
labored for words with which to express the horrors of a future state to the
ungodly. You remember he talked of worms that die not, and fires that are
never quenched, of a pit without a bottom, of weeping and wailing and
gnashing of teeth in the outer darkness. No preacher was ever so loving as
Christ but no man ever spoke so horribly about hell; and yet even when the
Savior had said his best and said his worst, he had not told us what are the
horrors of a future state. Ye have seen sicknesses, ye have heard the
shrieks of men and women when their pangs have been upon them. We, at
least, have stood by the bed-sides even of some dear to us, and we have
seen to what an extent agony may be carried in the human body; but none
of us know how much the body is capable of suffering. Certainly the body
will have to suffer for ever — “He is able to cast both body and soul into
hell.” We have heard of exquisite torments, but we have never dreamt of
any like unto this. Again, we have seen something of the miseries of the
soul. Have we never marked the man that we used to know in our
childhood who was depressed in spirits. All that ever could be done for him
never could evoke a smile from him — never did the light of cheerfulness
light up his eye — he was mournfully depressed. Ay, and it was my
unhappy lot to live with one who was not only depressed in spirits, but
whose mind had gone so far amiss, that it did brood fancies so mournful
and dismal, that the very sight of him was enough to turn the sunlight of
summer into the very darkness of a dreary winter. He had nothing to say
but dark, groaning words. His thoughts always had a sombre appearance
about them. It was midnight in his soul — a darkness that might be felt.
Have you never seen yourselves what power the mind has over us to make
us full of misery? Ah, brethren and sisters, if ye could go to many of our
asylums, and to our sick wards — ay, and dying beds, too, you might
know what acute anguish the mind may feel. And remember that the mind,
as well as the mortal frame, is to endure damnation. Yes, we must not shirk
that word, the Scripture saith it, and we must use it. Oh! men and women,
except we repent, except we do each of US cry for mercy to him that is
able to save, we must perish. All that is meant by that word “hell,” must be
realized in me except I be a believer. and so all that is meant by “Depart, ye
cursed,” must be thine, unless thou dost turn unto God with full purpose of
heart.
But again, he that turneth not at the rebuke of the minister shall die, and he
shall die certainly. This is not a matter of perhaps or chance. The things we
preach, and that are taught in Scripture, are matters of solemn certainty. It
may be that death is that bourne from which no traveler returns, but it is
not true that we know nothing of it. It is as certain as that there are men,
and a world in which they live, that there is another world to come, and
that if they die impenitent, that world will be to them one of misery. And
mark you — there is no chance of escape, die without Christ, and there is
no gate out of which you can escape — for ever, oh, for ever lost, and not
one hope of mercy — cast away, and not one outlet for escape, not one
solitary chance of ransom. Oh, if there were hope that in the world to
come, men might escape, we need not be so earnest; but since once lost,
lost for aye — once cast away, cast away without hope, without any
prospect of a hope, we must be earnest. Oh, my God, when I remember
that I have to-day some here present who in all probability must be dead
before next Sabbath, I must be earnest. Out of so large an assembly, the
chances are that we shall not all of us be found pilgrims in this world within
another seven days. It is not only possible, but probable that some one out
of this vast audience will have been launched upon a world unknown. Shall
it be myself, and shall I sail to the port of bliss or must I sail over fiery
waves for ever, lost, shipwrecked, stranded, on the rocks of woe? Soul,
which shall it be with thee? It may be, thou shalt die, my greyheaded hearer
or thou young lad, thou boy, thou mayest die — I know not which nor can
we tell — God only knoweth. Then let each one ask himself. Am I
prepared, should I be called to die? Yes, you may die where you are, on
the benches where you are sitting — you may now die — and whither
would you go? for recollect that whither ye go, ye go for ever. Oh! eternity
— eternity — eternity must I climb thy topless steeps for ever, and never
reach the summit, and must my path be ever misery or joy? Oh! eternity,
thou depth without a bottom, thou sea without a shore, must I sail over thy
boundless waves for ever in one undeviating track — and must I either
plough through seas of bliss, or else be driven by the stormy wind of
vengeance, over gulfs of misery? “Then what am I?” “My soul awake and
an impartial survey take.” Am I prepared? Am I prepared? Am I
prepared?” For prepared or not, death admits of no delay, and if he is at my
door, he will take me where I must go for ever, prepared or not.
Now, the last thing is, the sinner will perish — he will perish certainly, but
last of all, he will perish without excuse — his blood shall be on his own
head. When a man is bankrupt ,if he can say, “It is not through reckless
trading — it has been entirely through the dishonesty of one I trusted that I
am what I am;” he takes some consolation, and he says, “I cannot help it.”
But oh, my hearers, if you make bankrupts of your own souls, after you
have been warned, then your own eternal bankruptcy shall lie at your own
door. Should never so great a misfortune come upon us, if we can trace it
to the providence of God, we bear it cheerfully; but if we have inflicted it
upon ourselves, then how fearful is it! And let every man remember that if
he perish after having heard the Gospel, he will be his own murderer.
Sinner, thou wilt drive the dagger into thine heart thyself. If thou depisest
the Gospel, thou art preparing fuel for thine own bed of flames, thou art
hammering out the chain for thine own everlasting binding; and when
damned, thy mournful reflection will be this: — I have damned myself, I
cast myself into this pit; for I rejected the Gospel, I despised the message; I
trod under foot the Son of Man; I would have none of his rebukes. I
despised his Sabbaths: I would not hearken to his exhortations, and now I
perish by mine own hand, the miserable suicide of my own soul.
And now a sweet reflection strikes me. A good writer says, “There are,
doubtless, spots in the world that would be barren for ever, if we
recollected what had happened there.” Says he, “I was once in St. Paul’s
cathedral, just under the dome, and a friend just touched me gently, and
said, ‘Do you see that little chisel mark?’ and I said ‘Yes.’ He said ‘That is
where a man threw himself down, and there he fell, and was dashed to
atoms.’ “ The writer says, “We all started aside from that little spot, where
a fellow creature’s blood had been shed. It seemed an awful place when we
remembered that.” Now, there is many a street, there is many a way-side,
there is many a house of God, where men have taken the last decision, and
damned their own souls. I doubt not, there are some here this morning,
standing or sitting, to whom the voice of conscience says, “Decide for
God,” and now Satan and the evil heart together are saying, “Reject the
message; laugh it off, forget it: take a ticket for the theater to-morrow: do
not let this man alarm us: it is his very profession to talk to us like this; let
us go away, and laugh if off; and let us spend the rest of this day in
merriment.” Yes, that is the last warning thou wilt ever have. It is so with
some of you. There are some of you that will this hour decide to damn
yourselves, and you will look for ever throughout eternity, to that place
under the gallery of the Surrey Music Hall, and you will say, “Alas! woe
was the day I heard that man. I was half impressed — almost he persuaded
me to be a Christian, but I decided for hell” And that will be a solemn spot
to angels where you are standing, or where you are sitting, for angels will
say to one another, “Stand aside, that is a spot where a man ruined his own
soul for ever and ever.” But the sweet thought is, that there are some
places just the reverseWhy, you are sitting, my friend, this morning, on a spot
where some threeweeks ago one sat who was converted to God; and that place where
youare sitting you ought to venerate, for in that place there sat one who was
one of the chiefest of sinners like yourself, and there the Gospel message
met him. And far back there behind the door, many a soul has been brought
to Christ. Many a piece of good news have I heard from some in yonder
upper gallery. “I could not see your face, sir, all the sermon through, but
the arrow of the Lord found its way round the corner, and reached my
heart notwithstanding that, and I was saved.” Ah, well, may God so bless
this place, that every seat of it this day may be solemnized by his own
grace, and a spot to be remembered in your future history by reason of the
beginning of your blessedness, the dawn of your salvation. “Believe on the
Lord Jesus, and be baptized, and thou shalt be saved.” This is the gospel
we are told to preach to every creature — “He that believeth, and is
immersed, shall be saved, he that believeth not shall be damned.”
