“What have I done?” Jeremiah 8:6
PERHAPS no figure represents God in a more gracious light than those
figures of speech, which represent him as stooping from his throne, and as
coming down from heaven to attend to the wants and to behold the woes
of mankind. We must have love for that God, who, when Sodom and
Gomorrah were reeking with iniquity, would not destroy those cities,
although he knew their guilt and their wickedness, until he had made an
actual visitation to them and had sojourned for awhile in their streets.
Methinks we cannot help pouring out our heart in affection to that God, of
whom we are told that he inclines his ear from the highest glory, and puts it
to the lip of the faintest that breathes out the true desire. How can we resist
feeling that he is a God whom we must love, when we know that he
regards everything that concerns us, numbers the very hairs of our heads,
bids his angels protect our footsteps lest we dash our feet against stones,
marks our path and ordereth our ways. But especially is this great truth
brought near to man’s heart, when we recollect how attentive God is, not
merely to the temporal interests of his creatures, but to their spiritual
concerns. God is represented in Scripture as waiting to be gracious, or, in
the language of the parable, when his prodigals are yet a great way off he
sees them; he runs and falls upon their neck and kisses them. He is so
attentive to everything that is good, even In the poor sinner’s heart, that to
him there is music in a sigh, and beauty in a tear; and in this verse that I
have just read, he represents himself as looking upon man’s heart and
listening — listening, if possibly he may hear something that is good. “I
hearkened and heard; I listened; I stood still, and I attended to them.” And
how amiable does God appear, when he is represented as turning aside,
and as it were with grief in his heart, exclaiming “I did listen, I did hearken,
but they spake not aright; no man repented of his wickedness, saying,
‘What shall I do?’ “ Ah! my hearer, thou never hast a desire towards God
which does not excite God’s hope; thou dost never breathe a prayer
towards heaven which he does not notice; and though thou hast very often
uttered prayers which have been as the morning cloud and as the early dew
that soon passeth away, yet all these things have moved Jehovah’s bowels;
for he has been hearkening to thy cry and noticing the breathing of thy
soul, and though it all hath passed away, yet it did not pass away
unnoticed, for he remembers it even now. And oh! thou that art this day
seeking a Savior, remember, that Savior’s eyes are on thy seeking soul to
day. Thou art not looking after one who cannot see thee; thou art coming
to thy Father, but thy Father sees thee even in the distance. It was but one
tear that trickled down thy cheek, but thy Father noticed that as a hopeful
sign; it was but one throb that went through thy heart just now during the
singing of the hymn, but God, the Loving, noticed even that, and thought
upon it as at least some omen that thou wast not yet quite hardened by sin
nor yet given up by love and mercy.
The text is “What have I done?” I shall just introduce that by a few words
of affectionate persuasion, urging all now present to ask that question:
secondly, I shall give them a few words of assistance in trying to answer it;
and when I have so done, I shall finish by a few sentences of solemn
admonition to those who have had to answer the question against
themselves.
I. First, then, a few words of EARNEST PERSUASION, requesting everyone
now present, and more especially every unconverted person, to ask this
question of himself, and answer it solemnly: “What have I done?”
Few men like to take the trouble to review their own lives; most men are
so near bankruptcy that they are ashamed to look at their own books. The
great mass of mankind are like the silly ostrich, which, when hard pressed
by the hunters, buries its head in the sand and shuts its eyes and then
thinks, because it does not see its pursuers, that therefore it is safe. The
great mass of mankind, I repeat, are ashamed to review their own
biographies. and if conscience and memory together could turn joint
authors of a history of their lives throughout, they would buy a huge iron
clasp and a padlock to it, and look the volume up, for they dare not read it.
They know it to be a book full of lamentation and woe, which they dare
not read, and still go on in their iniquities. I have therefore a hard task in
endeavoring to persuade you one and all to take down that book, and be its
pages few or many, be they white or be they black, I have some difficulty
in getting you to read them through. But may the Holy Spirit persuade you
now, so that you may answer this question, “What have I done?” For
remember, my dear friend, that searching yourself can do you no hurt. No
tradesman ever gets the poorer by looking to his books. he may find
himself to be poorer than he thought he was, but it is not the looking to the
books that hath hurt him; he hath hurt himself by some ill trading before.
Better, my friend, for you to know the past whilst there is yet time for
repairing it, than that you should go blindfolded, hoping to enter the gates
of Paradise and find out your mistake when alas! it is too late, because the
door is shut. There is nothing to be lost by taking stock; you cannot be any
the worse for a little self examination. This of itself shall be one strong
argument to induce you to do it; but remember you may be a great deal the
better; for suppose your affairs are all right with God, why then you may
make good cheer and comfort yourself, for he that is right with his God has
no cause to be sad. But ah! remember there are many probabilities that you
are wrong. There are so many in this world that are deceived, that there are
many chances that you are deceived too. You may have a name to live and
yet be dead; you may be like John Bunyan’s tree, of which he said “ ‘twas
fair to look upon and green outside, but the inside of it was rotten enough
to be tinder for the devil’s tinder box.” You may this day thus stand before
yourself and fellow creatures well whitewashed, and exceeding fair, but
you may be like that Pharisee of whom Christ said, “Thou art a whited
sepulcher, for inwardly thou art full of rottenness and dead men’s bones.”
Now, man, however thou mayest wish to be self-deceived, for my own part
I feel that I would a thousand times rather know my own state really than
have the most pleasing conceptions about it and find myself deceived.
Many a time have I solemnly prayed that prayer, “Lord, help me to know
the worst of my own case; if I be still an apostate from thee, without God
and without Christ, at least let me be honest to myself and know what I
am.” Remember, my friend, that the time you have for self-examination is,
after all, very short. Soon thou wilt know the great secret. I perhaps may
not say words rough enough to rend off the mask which thou now hast
upon thee, but there is one called Death who will stand no compliment.
You may masquerade it out to-day in the dress of the saint, but death will
soon strip you, and you must stand before the judgment seat after death
has discovered you in all your nakedness, be that naked innocence or naked
guilt. Remember, too, though you may deceive yourself, you will not
deceive your God. You may have light weights, and the beam of the scale
in which you weigh yourself may not be honest, and may not therefore tell
the truth; but when God shall try you he will make no allowances; when
the everlasting Jehovah grasps the balances of justice and puts his law into
one scale, ah, sinner, how wilt thou tremble when he shall put thee into the
other; for unless Christ be thy Christ thou wilt be found light weight —
thou wilt be weighed in the balances and found wanting, and be cast away
for ever.
Oh! what words shall I adopt to induce every one of you now to search
yourselves! I know the various excuses that some of you will make. Some
of you will plead that you are members of churches, and that, therefore, all
is right with you. Perhaps you look across from the gallery, and you say to
me, “Spurgeon, your hands baptized me but this year into the Lord Jesus,
and you have often passed to me the sacramental bread and wine.” Ah, my
hearer, I know that and I have baptized, I fear, many of you that the Lord
hath never baptized, and some of you have been received into the churchfellowship
on earth who were never received by God. If Jesus Christ had
one hypocrite in his twelve, how many hypocrites must I have here in
nearly twelve hundred? Ah! my hearers, in this age it is a very easy thing to
make a profession of religion: many churches receive candidates into their
fellowship without examination at all; I have had such come to me, and I
have told them, “I must treat you just the same as if you came from the
world,” because they said, “I never saw the minister, I wrote a note to the
Church, and they took me in,” Verily, in this age of profession, a man may
make the highest profession in the world, and yet be at last found with
damned apostates. Do not put off the question for that; and do not say, “I
am too busy to attend to my spiritual concerns; there is time enough yet.”
Many have said that, and before their “time enough” has come, they have
found themselves where time shall be no more. Oh! thou that sayest thou
hast time enough, how little dost thou know how near death is to thee.
There are some present that will not see New Year’s Day; there is every
probability that a very large number will never see another year. Oh, may
the Lord our God prepare us each for death and for judgment, and bless
this morning’s exhortation to our preparation, by leading us to ask the
question — “What have I done?”
II. Now, then, I am to help you to answer the question — “What have I
done?”
Christian, true Christian, I have little to say to thee this morning. I will not
multiply words, but leave the enquiry with thine own conscience. What
hast thou done? I hear thee reply, “I have done nothing to save myself, for
that was done for me in the eternal covenant, from before the foundation of
the world. I have done nothing to make a righteousness for myself, for
Christ said, ‘It is finished;’ I have done nothing to procure heaven by my
merits, for all that Jesus did for me before I was born.” But say, brother,
what hast thou done for him who died to save thy wretched soul? What
hast thou done for his church? What hast thou done for the salvation of the
world? What hast thou done to promote thine own spiritual growth in
grace? Ah! I might hit some of you that are true Christians very hard here;
but I will leave you with your God. God will chastise his own children. I
will, however, put a pointed question. Are there not many Christians now
present who cannot recollect that they have been the means of the salvation
of one soul during this year. Come, now; turn back: Have you any reason
to believe that directly or indirectly you have been made the means this
year of the salvation of a soul? I will go further. There are some of you
who are old Christians, and I will ask you this question: Have you any
reason to believe that ever since you were converted you have ever been
the means of the salvation of a soul? It was reckoned in the past, in the
times of the patriarchs, to be a disgrace to a woman that she had no
children; but what disgrace it is to a Christian to have no spiritual children
— to have none born unto God by his instrumentality! And yet there are
some of you here that have been spiritually barren, and have never brought
one convert to Christ; you have not one star in your crown of glory, and
must wear a starless crown in heaven. Oh! I think I see the joy and
gladness with which a good child of God looked upon me last week, when
we had heard some one who had been converted to God by her
instrumentality. I took her by the hand and said, “Well, now, you have
reason to thank God.” “Yes, sir,” she said, “I feel a happy and an honored
woman now. I have never, that I know of before been the means of
bringing a soul to Christ.” And the good woman looked so happy the tears
were in her eyes for gladness. How many have you brought during this
year? Come, Christian, what have you done? Alas! alas! you have not been
barren fig-trees, but still your fruit is such that it cannot be seen. You may
be alive unto God; but how many of you have been very unprofitable, and
exceedingly unfruitful? And do not think that while I thus deal hardly with
you I would escape myself. No, I ask myself the question, “What have I
done?” And when I think of the zeal of Whitfield, and of the earnestness of
many of those great evangelists of former times, I stand here astounded at
myself, and I ask myself the question, “What have I done?” And I can only
answer it with some confusion of face. How often have I preached to you,
my hearers, the Word of God, and yet how seldom have I wept over you as
a pastor should! How often ought I to have warned you of the wrath to
come, when I have forgotten to be so earnest as I might have been. I fear
lest the blood of souls should lie at my door, when I shall come to be
judged of my God at last. I beseech you, pray for your minister in this
thing, that he may be forgiven, if there has ever been a lack of earnestness
and energy, and prayerfulness, and pray that during the next year I may
always preach as though I ne’er might preach again,
“A dying man to dying men.”
I heard the moralist whilst I was questioning the Christian, say, “What have
I done? Sir, I have done all I ought to have done. You may, as a Gospeller,
stand there and talk to me about sins; but I tell you Sir, I have done all that
was my duty; I have always attended my church or chapel regularly every
Sunday as ever a man or woman could; I have always read prayers in the
family, and I always say prayers before I go to bed and when I get up in the
morning. I don’t know that I owe anybody anything, or that I have been
unkind to anybody; I give a fair shave to the poor, and I think if good
works have any merit I certainly have done a great deal.” Quite right, my
friend, very right indeed, if good works have any merit; but then it is very
unfortunate that they have not any; for our good works, if we do them to
save ourselves by them, are no better than our sins. You might as well
hope to go to heaven by cursing and swearing, as by the merits of your
own good works; for although good works are infinitely preferable to
cursing and swearing in a moral point of view, yet there is no more merit in
one than there is in the other, though there is less sin in one than in the
other. Will you please to remember then, that all you have been doing all
these years, is good for nothing ? “Well, but, Sir, I have trusted in Christ.”
Now, stop! Let me ask you a question. Do you mean to say, that you have
trusted partly in Christ and partly in your own good works? “Yes, sir.”
Well, then, let me tell you, the Lord Jesus Christ will never be a makeweight;
you must take Christ wholly, or else no Christ at all, for Christ will
never go shaves with you in the work of salvation. So, I repeat, all you
have ever done is good for nothing. You have been building a card house,
and the tempest will blow it down; you have been building a house upon
the sand, and when the rains descend and the floods come, the last vestige
of it will be swept away for ever. Hear ye the word of the Lord! “By the
works of the law shall no flesh living be justified.” “Cursed is every one
that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to
do them,” and in as much as you have not continued in all things that are
written in the law you are transgressors of the law, and you are under the
curse, and all that the law has to say to you is, “Cursed, cursed, cursed!
Your morality is of no help to you whatever, as to eternal things.”
I turn to another character. He says, “Well, I don’t trust in my morality nor
in anything else; I say,
‘Begone, dull care, I pray thee begone from me.’
I have nothing to do with talking about eternity, as you would have me.
But, sir, I am not a bad fellow after all. It is a very little that I ever do
amiss; now and then a peccadillo, just a little folly, but neither my country,
nor my friends nor my own conscience, can say anything against me. True,
I am none of your saints; I don’t profess to be too strict I may go a little
too far sometimes, but it is only a little, and I dare say we shall be able to
set all matters straight before the end comes.” Well, friend, but I wish you
had asked yourself the question, “What have I done?” — it strikes me that
if each of you would just take off that film, that films your heart and your
life over, you might see a grievous leprosy lurking behind what you have
done. “Well, for the matter of that” says one, “perhaps I may have taken a
glass or two too much sometimes.” Stop a bit! What is the name of that?
Stutter as much as you like! Out with it! What is the name of it? “Why, it is
just a little mirth, sir.” Stop: let us have the right name of it. What do you
call it in any one else? “Drunkeness, I suppose.” Says another, “I have been
a little loose in my talk sometimes.” What is that? “It has been just a merry
spree.” Yes, but please to call it what it ought to be called — lascivious
conversation. Write that down. “Oh! no, sir; things are looking serious.”
Yes, they are indeed; but they do not look any more serious than they
really are. Sometimes you have been out on the Sabbath day, haven’t you?
“Oh! yes; but that has been only now and then — just sometimes.” Yes,
but let us put it down what it is, and we will see what the list comes to.
Sabbath-breaking! “Stop,” you say, “I have gone no further sir, certainly I
have gone no further.” I suppose in your conversation, sometime; during
your life, you have quoted texts of Scripture to make jokes of them haven’t
you? And sometimes you have cried out, when you have been a little
surprised, “Lord have mercy upon me!” and such things. I don’t venture to
say you swear: though there is a Christian way of swearing that some
people get into, and they think it is not quite swearing, but what it is
besides nobody knows, and so we will put it down as swearing — cursing
and swearing. “Oh! sir, it was only when somebody trod on my toes, or I
was angry.” Never mind, put it down by its right name: we shall get a
pretty good list against you by-and-bye. I suppose that in trade you never
adulterate your articles. “Well that is a matter of business in which you
ought not to interfere.” Well, it so happens I am going to interfere — and
if you please, we will call it by its right name — stealing. We will put that
down. I suppose you have never been hard with a debtor, have you? You
have never at any time wished that you were richer, and sometimes half
wished that your opposite neighbor would lose part of his custom, so that
you might have it? Well, we will call it by its right name: that is
“covetousness, which is idolatry.” Now, the list seems to be getting black
indeed. Besides that, how have you spent all this year; and though you
have pretended sometimes to say prayers, have you ever really prayed? No,
you have not. Well, then there is prayerlessness to put down. You have
sometimes read the Bible, you have sometimes listened to the ministry; but
have you not, after all, let all these things pass away? Then I want to know
whether that is not despising God, and whether we must not put it down
under that name. Truly, we need go but very little further; for the list
already when summed up is most fearful, and few of us can escape from
sins so great as these, if our conscience be but a little awake.
But there is one man here who has grown very careless and indifferent to
every point of morality. and he says, “Ah! young man, I could tell you what
I have done during the year.” Stop, sir, I don’t particularly wish to know
just now; you may as well tell it to yourself when you get home. There are
young people here: it would not do them much good to know what you
have done perhaps. You are no better than you should be, some people
say; which means, you are so bad they would not like to say what you are.
Do you suppose in all this congregation we have no debauched men —
none that indulge in the vilest sin and lust? Why, God’s angel seems even
now to be flying through our midst, and touching the conscience of some,
to let them know in what iniquities they have indulged during the year. I
pray God that my just simply alluding to them may be the means of
startling your conscience. Ah! ye may hide your sins; the coverlet of
darkness may be your shelter; you may think they shall never be
discovered; but remember, every sin that you have done shall be read
before the sun, and men and angels shall hear it in the day of final account.
Ah! my hearer, be thou moral or be thou dissolute, I beseech thee, answer
this question solemnly to-day: “What have I done?” It would be as well if
you took a piece of paper when you went home, and just wrote down what
you have done from last January to December; and if some of you do not
get frightened at it I must say you have got pretty strong nerves, and are
not likely to be frightened at much yet.
Now I specially address myself to the unconverted man, and I would help
him to answer this question in another point of view. “What have I done?”
Ah! man, thou that livest in sin thou that art a lover of pleasure more than a
lover of God, what hast thou done? Dost thou not know that one sin is
enough to damn a soul for ever? Hast thou never read in Holy Scripture
that cursed is he that sins but once? How damned then, art thou by the
myriad sins of this one year! Recall, I beseech thee, the sins of thy youth
and thy former transgressions up till now; and if one sin would ruin thee for
ever, how ruined art thou now! Why man, one wave of sin may swamp
thee. What will these oceans of thy guilt do? One witness against thee will
be enough to condemn thee: behold the crowds of follies and of crimes
now gathered round the judgment sea that have gone before thee into
judgment. How wilt thou escape from their testimonies, when God shall
call thee to his bar? What hast thou done? Come, man, answer this
question. There are many consequences involved in thy sin, and in order to
answer this question rightly thou must reply to every consequence, what
hast thou done to thine own soul? Why, thou hast destroyed it; thou hast
done thy best to ruin it for ever, For thine own poor soul thou hast been
digging dungeons; thou hast been piling faggots; thou hast been forging
chains of iron — faggots with which to burn it, and fetters with which to
bind it for ever.
Remember, thy sins are like sowing for a harvest. What a harvest is that
which thou hast sown for thy poor soul! Thou hast sown the wind, thou
shalt reap the whirlwind; thou hast sown iniquity, thou shalt reap
damnation. But what hast thou done against the gospel? Remember, how
many times this year thou hast heard it preached. Why since thy birth there
have been waggon loads of sermons wasted on thee. Thy parents prayed
for thee in thy youth, thy friends instructed thee till thou didst come to
manhood. Since then how many a tear has been wept by the minister for
thee! How many an earnest appeal has been shot into thine heart! But thou
hast rent out the arrow. Ministers have been concerned to save thee, and
thou hast never been concerned about thyself. What hast thou done against
Christ? Remember, Christ has been a good Christ to sinners here; but as
there is nothing that burns so well as that soft substance oil, so there is
nothing that will be so furious as that gentle-hearted Savior, when he
comes to be your Judge. Fiercer than a lion on his prey is rejected love.
Despise Christ on the cross, and it will be a terrible thing to be judged by
Christ on his throne.
But again: what have you done for your children this year? Oh! there be
some here present that have been doing all they could to ruin their
children’s souls. ‘Tis solemn what responsibility rests upon a father; and
what shall be said of a drunken father? — the father that sets his children
an example of drunkenness. Swearer, what have you done for your family?
Haven’t you too been twisting the rope for their eternal destruction? Will
they not be sure to do as you do? Mother you have several children, but
this year you have never prayed for one of them never put your arms round
their necks as they kneeled at their little chair at night and said, “Our
Father;” you have never told them of Jesus that loved children and once
became a child like them. Ah, then, you too have neglected your children. I
remember a mother who was converted to God in her old age, and she said
to me — and I shall never forget the woman’s grief — “God has forgiven
me, but I shall never forgive myself. For, sir,” she said, “I have nourished
and brought up children, but I have done it without any respect to
religion.” And then she burst into tears, and said, “I have been a cruel
mother, sir; I have been a wretch!” “Why,” said I, “my good woman, you
have brought your children up.” “Yes,” said she, “my husband died when
they were young, and left me with six of them, and these hands have
earned their bread and found them clothes, no one,” she said, “can accuse
me of being unkind to them in anything but this; but this is the worst of all,
I have been a cruel mother to them, for while I fed their bodies I neglected
their souls.” But some have gone further than this. Ah, young man, you
have not only done your best this year to damn yourself, but you have done
your best to damn others! Remember, last January when you took that
young man into the tavern for the first time, and laughed at all his boyish
scruples as you called them, and told him to drink away as you did.
Remember, when in the darkness of night you first led astray one young
man whose principles were virtuous, and who had not known lust unless
you had revealed it to him. you said at the time, “Come with me, I’ll show
you London life, I’ll let you see pleasure!” That young man, when he first
came to your shop, used to go to the house of God on Sunday, and seemed
to bid fair for heaven — “Ah,” you say, “I have laughed religion out of
Jackson, he doesn’t go anywhere on a Sunday now except for a spree, and
he is just as merry as any of us.” Ah! sir, and you will have two hells when
you are damned; you will have your own hell and his too, for he will look
through the lurid flames upon you, and say, “Mayhap, I had never been
here if you had not brought me here!” And ah! seducer, what eyes will be
those that will glare at you through hell’s horror? — The eyes of one
whom you led into iniquity! what double hells they will be to you as they
glare on you like two stars, whose light is fury, and wither your blood for
ever! Pause ye that have led others astray, and tremble now. I paused
myself, and prayed to God when first I knew a Savior. that he would help
me to lead those to Christ, that I had ever in any way led astray. And I
remember George Whitfield says when he began to pray, his first prayer
was that God would convert those with whom he used to play at cards and
waste his Sundays. “And blessed be God,” he says, “I got everyone of
them.”
O my God, can I not detect in some face here astonishment and terror.
Doth no man’s knees knock together? Doth no man’s heart quail within
him because of his iniquity? Surely it cannot be so, else were your hearts
turned to steel, and your bowels become as iron in the midst of you.
Surely, if it be so, the words of God are most certainly true, wherein he
saith in the seventh verse of this chapter — “The stork in the heaven
knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle, and the crane, and the
swallow, observe the time of their coming, but my people know not the
judgment of the Lord,” and certainly that prophet was true who said, “The
ox knoweth its owner, and the ass his master’s crib, but my people doth
not know, Israel doth not consider.” Oh, are ye so brutish as to let the
reflections of that guilt pass over you without causing astonishment and
terror? Then, surely we who feel our guilt have need to bend our knees for
you, and pray that God might yet bring you to know yourselves; for, living
and dying as you are, hardened and without hope, your lot must be horrible
in the extreme.
How happy should I be if I might hope that the great mass of you could
accompany me in this humble confession of our faith; may I speak as if I
were speaking for each one of you? It shall be at your option, either to
accept what I say, or to reject it; but, I trust, the great multitude of you will
follow me. “Oh, Lord! I this morning confess that my sins are greater than
I can bear; I have deserved thy hottest wrath, and thine infinite displeasure;
and I hardly dare to hope that thou canst have mercy upon me, but
inasmuch as thou didst give thy Son to die upon the cross for sinners, thou
hast also said, ‘Look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth,’
Lord I look to thee this morning, though I never looked before, yet I look
now; though I have been a slave of sin to this moment, yet Lord accept me
sinner though I be, through the blood and righteousness of thy Son, Jesus
Christ. Oh Father, frown not on me, thou mayest well do so, but I plead
that promise which says, ‘Whosoever cometh unto me, I will in no wise
cast out.’ Lord, I come —
‘Just as I am, without one plea,
But that thy blood was shed for me,
And that thou bid’st me come to thee;
O Lamb of God, I come.’
‘My faith doth lay its hand,
On that dear head of thine,
While like a penitent I stand,
And there confess my sin.’
Lord accept me, Lord pardon me, and take me as I am, from this time forth
and for ever, to be thy servant whilst I live, to be thy redeemed when I
die.” Can you say that? Did not many a heart say it? Did I not hear many a
lip in silence utter it? Be of good cheer, my brother, my sister, if that came
from your heart, you are as safe as the angels of heaven, for you are a child
of God, and you shall never perish.
III. Now I have to address a few words of AFFECTIONATE ADMONITION,
and then I have done. It is a very solemn thing to think how years roll
away. I never spent a shorter year in my life than this one, and the older I
grow the shorter the years get; and you, old men, I dare say, look back on
your sixty and seventy years, and you say, “Ah young man, they will seem
shorter soon.” No doubt they will. “So teach us to number our days, O
God, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” But is it not a solemn
thing that there is another year nearly gone; and yet many of you are
unsaved? You are just were you were last year. No, you are not, you are
nearer death, and you are nearer hell, except you repent; and perhaps even
what I have said this morning will have no effect upon you. You are not
altogether hardened, for you have had many serious impressions. Scores of
times you have wept under discourses and yet all has been in vain, for you
are what you were. I beseech you answer this question, “What have I
done?” for remember there will be a time when you will ask this question,
but it will be too late. When is that — say you — on the death bed? No, it
is not too late there.
“While the lamp holds out to burn,
The vilest sinner may return.”
But it will be too late to ask, “What have I done?” when the breath has
gone out of your body. Just suppose the monument as it used to be, before
they caged it round. Suppose a man going up the winding staircase to the
top, with a full determination to destroy himself. He has got on the outside
of the railings. Can you imagine him for a moment saying, “What have I
done?” just after he has taken his leap. Why, methinks some spirit in the air
might whisper, “Done? you have done what you can never undo. You are
lost — lost — lost!” Now, remember that you that have not Christ, are today
going up that spiral staircase; perhaps to-morrow you will be standing
in the article of death upon the pallisading, and when death has gotten you,
and you are just leaping from that monument of life down to the gulf of
despair, that question will be full of horror to you. “What have you done?”
But the answer for it will not be profitable, but full of terror Methinks, I
see a spirit launched upon the sea of eternity I hear it say “What have I
done?” It is plunged in flaming waves, and cries, “What have I done?” It
sees before it a long eternity; but it asks the question again, “What have I
done?” The dread answer comes: “Thou hast earned all this for thyself.
Thou knewest thy duty, but thou didst it not, Thou wast warned, but thou
didst despise the warning.” Ah! hear the doleful soliloquy of such a spirit.
The last great day is come; the flaming throne is set, and the great book is
opened. I hear the leaves as with terrible rustle they are turned over. I see
men motioned to the right or to the left, according to the result of that
great book. And what have I done? I know that to me sin will be
destruction for I have never sought a Savior. What is that? The Judge has
fixed his eye on me. Now it is on me turned. Will he say, “Depart ye
cursed,” unto me? Oh! let me be crushed for ever rather than bear that
sight. There is no noise, but the finger is lifted, and I am dragged out of the
crowd, and singly I stand before the Judge. He turns to my page, and
before he reads it my heart quakes within me. “Be it so,” says he, “it has
never been blotted with my blood. You despised my calls; you laughed at
my people; you would have none of my mercy; you said that you would
take the wages of unrighteousness. You shall have them, the wages of sin
is death.” Ah! me, and is he about to say, “Depart, ye cursed?” Yes, with a
voice louder than a thousand thunders, he says, “Depart, ye cursed into
everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” Ah! it is all true
now. I laughed at the minister because he preached about hell; and here am
I in hell myself, Ah! I used to wonder why he wanted to frighten us so. Ah!
I would to God he had frightened me more, if he might but have frightened
me out of this place. But now here am I lost, and there is no escape. I am
in darkness so dark, there is not a ray of light can ever reach me. I am shut
up so close, that not one of the bolts and bars can ever be removed. I am
damned for ever. Ah! that is a dreary soliloquy. I cannot tell it to you. Oh!
if you were there yourselves, if you could only know what they feel, and
see what they endure, then would you wonder that I am not more earnest
in preaching the Gospel, and you would marvel, not that I wish to make
you weep, but that I did not weep far more myself and preach more
solemnly. Ah! my hearers as the Lord my God liveth, before whom I stand,
I shall one day stand acknowleged by your conscience as having been a
true witness unto you this morning; for there is not one of you here to-day
but will be without excuse if you perish. You have been warned, I have
warned you as earnestly as I can. I have no more powers to spend, no
more arts to try, no more persuasion that I can use. I can only conclude by
saying, I beseech you, fly to Jesus. I entreat you, as immortal spirits that
are bound for endless weal or woe, fly ye to Christ; seek for mercy at his
hands; trust in him and be saved; and at your peril reject my solemn
warning. Remember ye may reject it, but ye reject not me, but him that sent
me. Ye may despise it, but ye despise not me, but a greater than Moses,
even Jesus Christ the Lord; and when ye come before his bar. piercing will
be his language, and terrible his words, when he condemns you for ever,
for ever, for ever, without hope, for ever, for ever, for ever. May God
deliver us from that, for Jesus’ sake Amen.
