 Sermon 193 of Charles Spurgeon The world turned upside down. Delivered on Sabbath morning, May the 9th, 1858, at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens. These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also. Acts 17.6 This is just an old version of an oft-repeated story. When disturbances arise in a state, and rebellions and mutinies cause blood to be shared, it is still the custom to cry, the Christians have done this. In the days of Jesus we know that it was laid to the charge of our blessed and divine master, that he was a stirrer of sedition, whereas he himself had refused to be a king, when his followers would have taken him by force to make him one, for he said, My kingdom is not of this world, yet he was crucified under two false charges of sedition and blasphemy. The same thing occurred with the apostles. Wherever they went to preach the gospel, the Jews who opposed them sought to stir up the refuse of the city to put an end to their ministry, and then, when a great tumult had been made by the Jews themselves, who had taken unto them certain lewd fellows of the base of sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city in an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring him out to the people, then the Jews laid the tumult and the uproar at the door of the apostles, saying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also. This plan was followed all through the Roman Empire, until Christianity became the state religion. There was never a calamity befell Rome, never a war arose, never a famine or a plague, but the vulgar multitude cried, The Christians to the lions, the Christians have done this. So himself imputed the burning of Rome, of which he himself doubtless was the incendiary to the Christians. The believers in Jesus were slandered, as if they were the common sewer, into which all the filth of sin was to be poured, whereas they were, like Solomon's great brazen sea, which was full of the purest water, wherein even priests themselves might wash their robes. And you will remark that to this day the world still lays its ills at the door of the Christians. Was it not the foolish cry a few months ago? And are there not some weak-minded individuals who still believe it, that the great massacre and mutiny in India was caused by the missionaries? Forsooth the men who turned the world upside down had gone there also. And because men broke through all the restraints of nature and law, and committed deeds for which fiends might blush, this must be laid at the door of Christ's holy gospel, and the men of peace must bear on the shoulders the blame of war. Ah, we need not refute this! Calumne is too idle to need a refutation. Can it be true that he whose gospel is love should be the fermenter of disturbance? Can it be fair for a moment to lay mutiny and rebellion at the door of the gospel, the very motto of which is peace on earth goodwill towards men? Did not our master say, Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's? Did he not himself pay tribute though he sent to the fish of the sea, to get the shackle? And have not his followers at all times been a peaceful generation? Save only and accept where the liberty of their conscience was touched. And then they were not the men to bow their knees to tyrants and kings, but with brave old Oliver they did bind their kings in chains and their nobles in fetters of iron, as they will do again if their liberty ever should be infringed, so that they should not have the power to worship God as they ought. We believe that what these Jews said of the apostles was just a downright willful lie. They knew better. The apostles were not the disturbance of states. It is true they preached that which would disturb the sinful constitution of a kingdom, and which would disturb the evil practices of false priests, but they never meant to set men in an uproar. They did come to set men at arms with sin. They did draw the sword against iniquity, but against men as men, against kings as kings, they had no battle. It is with iniquity and sin and wrong everywhere that they proclaimed an everlasting warfare. But still, brethren, there is many a true word spoken in jest, we say, and surely there is many a true word spoken in malice. They said the apostles turned the world upside down. They meant by that that they were disturbers of the peace, but they said a great true thing for Christ's gospel does turn the world upside down. It was the wrong way upwards before, and now that the gospel is preached, and when it shall prevail, it will just set the world right by turning it upside down. And now I shall try to show how, in the world at large, Christ's gospel turns the world upside down, and then I shall endeavour, as well as God shall help me, to show how the little world that is within every man is turned upside down when he becomes a believer in the gospel of Christ. Just then the gospel of Christ turns the world upside down, with regard to the position of different classes of men. In the esteem of men the kingdom of heaven is something like this. High there on the sun it there sits the most grand rabbi, the right venerable, estimable and excellent doctor of divinity, the great philosopher, the highly learned, the deeply instructed, the immensely intellectual man. He sits on the apex. He is the highest, because he is the wisest. And just below him there is a class of men who are deeply studied, not quite so skilled as the former but still exceeding wise, who look down on those who stand at the basement of the pyramid, and who say to them, ah, they are the ignoble multitude, they know nothing at all. A little lower down we come to the sober respectable thinking men, not those who set up for teachers, but those who seldom will be taught, because they already, in their own opinion, know all that is to be learned. Then after them there come a still larger number of very estimable folks who are exceeding wise in worldly wisdom, although not quite so exalted as the philosopher and the rabbi, lower still come those who have just a respectable amount of wisdom and knowledge, and then at the very basement there come the fool, and the little child, and the babe. When we look at these we say, this is the wisdom of this world. Behold, how great a difference there is between the babe at the bottom, and the learned doctor on the summit. How wide the distinction between the ignorant simpleton who forms the hard rocky stubborn basement, and the wise man of polished marble who there stands resplendent at the apex of the pyramid. Now just see how Christ turns the world upside down. There it stands, he just reverses it. Except he be converted, and become as little children he can in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. Not many great men after the flesh, not many mighty men are chosen, but God hath chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, heirs of the kingdom. It is just turning the whole social fabric upside down, and the wise man finds now that he has to go upstairs towards his simplicity. He has been all his life trying, as far as he could, to get away from the simplicity of the credulous child. He has been thinking, and judging, and weighing, and bringing his logic to cut up every truth he heard, and now he has to begin and go up again. He has to become a little child, and turn back to his former simplicity. This is the world turned upside down with a vengeance, and therefore the wise seldom love it. If you wish to see the world turned upside down to perfection, just turn to the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. Here you have a whole summary of the world reversed. Jesus Christ turned the world upside down, the first sermon he preached. Look at the third verse, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Now we like a man who has an ambitious spirit, a man who, as we say, knows how to push his way in the world, who looks up, is not contented with the position that he occupies, but is always for climbing higher and higher. And we have a very fair opinion, too, of a man who has a very fair opinion of himself, a man who is not going to bow and cringe. He will have his rights that he will not give way to anybody. He believes himself to be somewhat, and he will stand on his own belief, and will prove it to the world yet. He is not one of your poor, mean-spirited fellows who are content with poverty and sit still. He will not be contented. Now, such a man as this the world admires. But Christ just turns that upside down and says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The men who have no strength of their own, but look for all to Christ. The men who have no spirit to run with a wicked world, but who would rather suffer an injury than resent one. The men who are lowly and of a humble carriage, who seek not to lift their heads above their fellows, who, if they be great, have greatness thrust upon them, but never seek it, who are content among the cool, sequestered veil of life to keep the even tenor of their way. Who seem to have always ringing in their ears, seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not. The poor in spirit, happy in their poverty, who are content with the Lord's providence and think themselves far more rich than they deserve to be. Now these men, Christ says, are blessed. The world says they are soft, they are fools, but Christ puts those on the top whom the world puts at the bottom. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Then there is another lot of people in the world. They are always mourning. They do not let you see it often, for their master has told them when they fast to anoint their face, that they appear not unto men to fast, but still secretly before God they have to groan. They hang their hearts upon the willows, they mourn for their own sin, and then they mourn for the sin of the times. The world says of these. They are a moping melancholy set. I would not care to belong to their number. And the gay reveler comes in, and he almost spits upon them in his scorn. For what are they? They love the darkness, they are the willows of the stream, but this man, like the proud poplar, lifts his head, and is swayed to and fro in the wind of his joy, boasting off his greatness and his freedom. Here how the gay youth talks to his mourning friend, who is under conviction of sin. Ah! yours is a morbid disposition. I pity you. You ought to be under the hand of a physician. You go mourning through this world. What a miserable thing to be plunging through waves of tribulation. What a dismal case is yours. I would not stand in your shoes and be in your position for all the world. No. But Christ turns the world upside down, and so those people whom you think to be mournful and sorrowful are the very ones who are to rejoice, for read the fourth verse. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Yes, worldling, your joy is like the crackling of thorns under a pot. It blazes it a little and makes it a great noise it is soon done with. But light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart. You cannot see the light now, because it is sown. It lies under the clods of poverty, and shame, and persecution may happen. But when the great harvest day shall come, the blades of light, upstarting at the second coming, shall bring forth the full corn in the ear of bliss and glory everlasting. O ye mourning souls, be glad, for whereas the world puts you beneath it, Christ puts you above the world's head. When he turns the world upside down, he says you shall be comforted. Then there is another race of people called the meek. You may have met with them now and then. Let me describe the opposite. I know a man who never feels a happy unless he has a lawsuit. He would never pay a bill unless he had a writ about it. He is fond of law. The idea of pulling another up before the court is a great delicacy to him. A slight affront he will not easily forget. He has a large amount of meek dignity, and if he be never so slightly touched, if a harsh word be spoken against him, or one slander uttered, he is down upon his enemy at once, for he is a man of a hard temper, and he casts the debtor into prison. And verily I say unto thee, if thou gettest in there by his writ, thou shalt never come out until thou hast paid the uttermost farthing. Now the meek are of a very different disposition. You may revile them, but they will not revile again. You may injure them, but they know that their master has said, I say unto thee, resist not evil. They do not put themselves into heirs and passions on a slight affront, for they know that all men are imperfect, and therefore they think that perhaps their brother made a mistake and did not wish to hurt their feelings, and therefore they say, well, if he didn't wish to do it, then I will not be hurt by it. I dare say he meant well, and therefore I will take the will for the deed, and though he spoke harshly, yet he will be sorrow for it. Tomorrow I will not mention it to him. I will put up with whatever he chooses to say. There is a slander uttered against him. He says, well, let it alone it will dive itself, where no woody is the far-goeth out. Another speaketh exceeding ill against him in his hearing, but he just holds his tongue. He is dumb and openeth not his mouth. He is not like the sons of Zeruaia who said to David, let us go and take off that dead dog's head, because he cursed the king. He says, no, if the Lord hath bidden him curse, let him curse. Vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord. He is quite content to bear and forebear, and put up with a thousand injuries rather than inflict one. Meekly and quietly he goes his way through the world, and people say, ah, such a man as that will never get on. He'll always be taken in. Why he'll be lending money, and will never get it back again? He'll be giving his substance to the poor, and he'll never receive it. How stupid he is! He allows people to infringe on his rights. He has no strength of mind. He doesn't know how to stand up for himself. Fool that he is! Aye! But Christ turns it upside down, and he says, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Is that not provoking to you graspers, you high-spirited people, you lawyers, you that are always trying to bring your neighbour into trouble touching your rights? You do it in order that you may inherit the earth. See how Christ spites you, and treads your wisdom and defeat. He says the meek shall inherit the earth. After all, very often the best way to get our rights is to let them alone. I am quite certain that the safest way to defend your character is never to say a word about it. If every person in this place chooses to slander me and utter the most furious libels that he pleases, he may rest quite assured that he will never have a lawsuit from me. I am not quite fool enough for that. I have always noticed that when a man defends himself in court of law against any slander, he just does his enemy's business with his own hand. Our enemies cannot hurt us unless we hurt ourselves. No man's character was ever really injured except by himself. Be you among the meek, and you shall inherit the earth. Bear all things, hope all things, believe all things, and it shall be the best, even on this earth, in the end. Do you see that very respectable gentleman Yonder, who has never omitted to attend his church or his chapel twice every Sunday ever since he became a man? He reads his Bible too, and he has family prayers. It is true that there are certain stories flying about that he is rather hard upon his labourers and exacting at times in his payments, but thus justice to all men, although no further will he go. This man is on very good terms with himself. When he gets up in the morning he always shakes hands with himself and compliments himself on being a very excellent person. He generally lives in a front street, in his opinion, and the first number in the street too. If you speak to him about his state before God, he says that if he does not go to heaven nobody will, for he pays twenty shillings in the pound to everybody, he is strictly upright, and there is no one who can find any fault with his character. Is any a good man? Don't you envy him? A man who has so excellent an opinion of himself that he thinks himself perfect, or if he is not quite perfect yet he is so good that he believes that with a little help he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Well now. Do you see standing at the back of the church? There, a poor woman, with tears running down her eyes. Come forward, ma'am, let us hear your history. She is afraid to come forward. She dares not speak in the presence of respectable persons, but we gather thus much from her. She has lately found out that she is full of sin, and she desires to know what she must do to be saved. Ask her. She tells you she has no merits of her own. Her song is, I the chief of sinners am, O that mercy would save me. She never compliments herself upon her good works, for she says she has none. All her righteousnesses are as filthy rags. She puts her mouth in the very dust when she prays, and she dares not lift so much as her eyes towards heaven. You pity that poor woman. You would not like to be in her case. The other man, whom I have just mentioned, stands at the very top of the ladder, does he not? But this poor woman stands at the bottom. Now just see the gospel process. The world turned upside down. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled, while the man who is content with himself has this for his portion. As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse. Christians and harlots enter into the kingdom of heaven before you, because you seek not the righteousness which is of faith, but you seek it as it were by the works of the law. So here you see again is the world turned upside down in the first sermon Christ ever preached. Now turn to the next beatitude, in the seventh verse, blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Of this I have already spoken. The merciful are not so much respected in this world, at least if they are imprudently merciful, the man who forgives too much or who is too generous, is not considered to be wise. But Christ declares that he who has been merciful, merciful to supply the wants of the poor, merciful to forgive his enemies and to pass by offenses, shall obtain mercy. Here again is the world turned upside down. Most are the pure in heart for they shall see God. The world says, blessed is the man who indulges in a gay life. If you ask the common run of mankind who is the happy man, they'll tell you. The happy man is he who has abundance of money and spends it freely and is freed from restraint, who leads a merry dance of life, who drinks deep of the cup of intoxication, who revels riotously, who like the wild horse of the prairie is not bitted by order or restrained by reason, but who dashes across the broad planes of sin, unharnessed, unguided, unrestrained. This is the man whom the world calls happy, the proud man, the mighty man, the nimrod, the man who can do just as he wishes, and who spurns to keep the narrow way of holiness. Now the scripture says, not so. Most are the pure in heart for they shall see God. Blessed is the man who shuns the place where sinners love to meet, who fears to tread their wicked ways and hates the scoffer's seat. The man who cannot touch one thing because that would be lascivious, nor another because that would spoil his communion with his master. A man who cannot frequent this place of amusement because he could not pray there and cannot go to another because he could not hope to have his master's sanction upon an eye so spent. That man, pure in heart, is said to be a puritanical moralist, a strict sabbatarian, a man who has not any mind of his own, but Jesus Christ puts all straight, for he says, these are the blessed men, these are the happy ones. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. And now look at the ninth verse. What a turning of the world upside down that is! You walk through London, and who are the men that we put up on our columns and pillars and upon our park gates and so on? Read the ninth verse, and see how that turns the world upside down. There upon the very top of the world, high, high up, can be seen the armless sleeve of a Nelson. There he stands, high exalted above his fellows, and there, in another place with a long file up his back stands a duke, and in another place riding upon a war-horse is a mighty man of war. These are the world's blessed heroes. Go into the capital of what empire you choose to select, and you shall see that the blessed men, who are put upon pedestals, and who have statues erected to their memory, who are put into our St. Paul's Cathedral and our Westminster Abbey, are not exactly the men mentioned in the ninth verse. Let us read it. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Ah! But you do not often bless the peacemakers, do you? The man who comes between two belligerents and bears the stroke himself, the man who will lie down on the earth and plead with others that they should cease from warfare. These are the blessed. How rarely are they set on high? They are generally set aside, as people who cannot be blessed, even though it seemed that they try to make others so. Here is the world turned upside down. The warrior with his garment, stained in blood, is put into the ignoble earth to die and rot, but the peacemaker is lifted up, and God's crown of blessing is put round about his head, and men one day shall see it, and, struck with admiration, they shall lament their own folly, that they exalted the blood-red sword of the warrior, but that they did rend the modest mantle of the man who did make peace among mankind. And to conclude our Saviour's sermon, notice once more that we find in this world a race of persons who have always been hated, a class of men who have been hunted like the wild goat, persecuted, afflicted, and tormented. As an old divine says, the Christian has been looked upon as if he had a wolf's head, for as the wolf was hunted for his head everywhere, so has the Christian been hunted to the uttermost ends of the earth. And in reading history we are apt to say, these persecuted persons occupy the lowest realm of blessedness, those who have been sawn asunder, who have been burned, who have seen their houses destroyed, and have been driven as houseless exiles into every part of the earth, these men who have wandered about in sheep's skins and goat's skins, these are the very least of mankind. Not so. The Gospel reverses all this, and it says, blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness's sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. I repeat it, the whole of these Beatitudes are just in conflict with the world's opinion, and we may quote the words of the Jew and say, Jesus Christ was the man who turned the world upside down. And now I find I must be very brief, for I have taken so much time in endeavouring to show how Christ's Gospel turned the world upside down in the position of its characters, that I shall have no space left for anything else. But will you have patience with me, and I will briefly pass through the other points? I have next to remark that the Christian religion turns the world upside down in its maxims. I will just quote a few texts which show this very clearly. It was said by them of old time, eye for eye, and tooth for tooth, but I say unto you, resist not evil. It has generally been held by each of us that we are not to allow anyone to infringe upon our rights. But the Saviour says, Whosoever would soothe ye at law and take thy cloak, let him take thy coat also. If any man smite thee on one cheek, turn unto him the other also. If these precepts were kept, would it not turn the world upside down? It has been said by them of old time, love thy neighbour and hate thy enemy, but Jesus Christ said, Let love be unto all men. He commands us to love our enemies and to pray for them who despitefully use us. He says, If thine enemy hunger feed him, and if he thirst give him drink, for in doing so thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. This would indeed be turning the world upside down, for what would become of our warships and our warriors if, at the portholes where now we put our cannons, we should have sent out to some burning city of our enemies, for instance to burning Sebastopol, if we had sent to the houseless inhabitants who had been driven from their homes, barrels of beef and bundles of bread and clothes to supply their wants. That would have been a reversal of all human policy. But yet it would have been just the carrying out of Christ's law after all. So shall it be in the days that are to come our enemies shall be loved and our foemen shall be fed. We are told, too, in these times, that it is good to a man to heap unto himself abundant wealth, and to make himself rich. But Jesus Christ turned the world upside down, for he said, There was a certain rich man who was clothed in scarlet, and fared sumptuously every day, and so on, and his fields brought forth abundantly, and he said, I will pull down my barns and build greater, but the Lord says, Thou fool! Christ is reversing everything in this world. You would have made an alderman of him, or a Lord Mayor, and fathers would have patted their boys on the head, and said, That is all through his frugality and taking care. See how he has got on in the world. When he has got a good crop, he didn't give it away to the poor, as that extravagant man does, who has kept on working all his life, and never be able to retire from business, he saved it all up. Be as good a boy as so and so, and get on, too. But Christ said, Thou fool! This night shall thy soul be required of thee. A turning of everything upside down, and others of us will have it, that we ought to be very careful every day, and always looking forward to the future, and always fretting about what is to be. Here is a turning of the world upside down, when Jesus Christ says, Remember the ravens, they so not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not better than they? I do believe that at this day the maxims of business are clean opposed to the maxims of Christ, but I shall be answered by this, business is business. Yes, I know business is business, but business has no business to be such business as it is. Oh, that it might be altered till every man could make his business his religion, and make a religion of his business. I have not detained you long upon that point, and therefore I am free to mention a third. How Christ has turned the world upside down as to our religious notions. Why the mass of mankind believe that if any man wills to be saved, that is all which is necessary. Many of our preachers do in effect preach this worldly maxim. They tell men that they must make themselves willing. Now just hear how the gospel upsets that. It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runeth, but of God that showeth mercy. The world will have a universal religion too, but how Christ overturns that? I pray for them, I pray not for the world. He hath ordained us from among men, elect according to the foreknowledge of God through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth. The Lord knoweth them that are his. Now that runs counter to all the world's opinion of religion. The world's religion is this. Do and thou shalt live. Christ's religion is believe and live. We will have it that if a man be righteous, sober, upright, he shall enter the kingdom of heaven. But Christ says, this thou oughtst to have done, but still not this can ever cleanse thee, as many as are under the works of the law are under the curse. By the works or the law shall no flesh live in be justified. Believe and live is the upsetting of every human notion. Cast thyself on Christ, trust in him. Have good works afterward, but first of all trust in him that died upon the tree. This is the overturning of every opinion of man, and hence mortals will always fight against it, so long as the human heart is what it is. Oh, that we knew the gospel. For it would be the upsetting of all self-righteousness and the casting down of every high look and of every proud thing. And now, beloved, spare me a little time, while I try to show that which is true in the world is true in the heart. Instead, however, of enlarging at full length upon the different topics, I shall make my last point the subject of examination. Man is a little world, and what God does in the outer world he does in the inner. If any of you would be saved, your hearts must be turned upside down. I will now appeal to you and ask you whether you have ever felt this, whether you know the meaning of it. In the first place, your judgment must be turned upside down. Cannot many of you say that which you now believe to be the truth of God is very far opposed to your former carnal notions? Why, if anyone had told you that you should be a believer in the distinguishing doctrines of free and sovereign grace, you would have laughed him in the face. What? I believe the doctrine of election. What? I ever hold the doctrine of particular redemption or final perseverance? Nonsense! It cannot be. But now you do hold it. And the thing which you thought unreasonable and undue, and the thing which you thought unreasonable and unjust now seems to you to be for God's glory and for man's eternal benefit. You can kiss the doctrine which once you despised, and you meekly receive it as sweeter than the droppings of honey from the honeycomb, though once you thought it to be the very poison of asps and gall and wormwood. Yes, when grace enters the heart there is a turning upside down of all our opinions, and the great truth of Jesus sits reigning on our soul. Is there not again a total change in all your hopes? Why, your hopes used to be all for this world. If you could but get rich, if you could but be great and honoured, you would be happy. You looked forward to it. All you were expecting was a paradise this side the flood. And now, where are your hopes? Not on earth. For where your treasure is, there must your heart be also. You are looking for a city that hands have not piled. Your desires are heavenly, whereas they were gross and carnal once. Can you say that? Oh, all ye members of this congregation, can you say that your hopes and your desires are changed? Are you looking upward instead of downward? Are you looking to serve God on earth and to enjoy him for ever? Or are you still content with thinking what he shall eat and what he shall drink and wherewith all he shall be clothed? Again, it is a complete upsetting of all your pleasures. You loved the tavern once. You hate it now. You hated God's house once. It is now your much-loved habitation. The song, the Sunday newspaper, the lewd novel, all these were sweet to your taste, but you have burned the books that once enchanted you, and now the dusty Bible from the back of the shelf is taken down, and there it lies wide open upon the family table, and is read both morn and night, much-loved, much-prized, and delighted in. The Sabbath was once the dullest day of the week to you. You either loitered outside the door and your shirt leaves if you were poor, or if you were rich you spent the day in your drawing-rule and had company in the evening. Now, instead thereof, your company you find in the Church of the Living God, and you make the Lord's house the drawing-room where you entertain your friends. Your feast is no longer a banquet of wine, but a banquet of communion with Christ. There are some of you who once loved nothing better than the theatre, the low concert-room or the casino. Over such places you now see a great black mark of the curse, and you never go there. You seek now the prayer-meeting, the church-meeting, the gathering of the righteous, the habitation of the Lord God of hosts. It is marvellous how great a change the gospel makes in a man's house, too. Why turns his house upside down? Look over the mantelpiece. There is a vile daub of a picture there, or a wretched print, and the subject is worse than the style of the thing. But when the man follows Jesus he takes that down, and he gets a print of John Bunyan in his prison, or his wife standing before the magistrate, or a print of the apostle Paul preaching at Athens, or some good old subject representing something biblical. There is a pack of cards and a cribbage-board in the cupboard. He turns them out, and instead he puts there perhaps the monthly magazine, or may have few works of old divines, just here and there one of the publications of the religious tract society, or a volume of a commentary. Everything is upside down there. The children say, Father is so altered. They never knew such a thing. He used to come home sometimes drunk of a night, and the children used to run upstairs and be in bed before he came in. And now little John and little Sarah sit at the window and watch till he comes home, and they go toddling down the street to meet him, and he takes one in his arms and the other by the hand and brings them home with him. He used to teach them to sing begun dull care or something worse. Now he tells them of gentle Jesus meek and mild, or puts into their mouth some sweet song of old. A jolly set of companions he used to have come to see him, and a roaring party there used to be of them on a Sunday afternoon, but that is all done with. The mother smiles upon her husband. She is a happy woman now. She knows that he will no longer disgrace himself by plunging into the vilest of society and being seduced into the worst of sins. Now if you could take a man's heart out and put a new heart right into him, it would not be half so good if it were another natural heart as the change that God works when he takes out the heart of stone and puts in a heart of flesh. A heart resigned, submissive, meek, our dear redeems thrown where only Christ is heard to speak, where Jesus reigns alone. I put then the question to you again. Have you been turned upside down? How about your companions? You loved those the best who could swear the loudest, talk the fastest, and tell the greatest falsehoods. Now you love those who can pray the most earnestly and tell you the most of Jesus. Everything is changed with you. If you were to meet your old self going down the street you wouldn't know him, except by hearsay. You are no relation to him at all. Sometimes the old gentleman comes to your house and he begins to tempt you to go back. But you turn him out of doors as soon as you can and say be gone. I never got on so long as I knew you. I had a ragged coat to my back then and I was always giving the public all my money. I never went round God's house but cursed my maker and added sin to sin and tied a millstone round my neck. So away from me I will have nothing to do with you. I have been buried with Christ and I have risen with him. I am a new man in Christ Jesus. Old things have passed away and behold, all things have become new. I have some here, however, who belong to a different class of society, who could not indulge in any of these things, ah, ladies and gentlemen, if you are ever converted, you must have as great a sweeping out as the poorest man that ever lived. There must be as truer turning upside down in the salvation of an earl or a duke or a lord as in the salvation of a pauper or a peasant. There is as much sin in the higher ranks as in the lower and sometimes more because they have more light, more knowledge, more influence, and when they sin they not only damn themselves but others too. Oh, you that are rich! Have you had a change too? Have the frivolities of this world become sickening things to you? Do you turn away with loathing from the common cant and conventionalism of high life? Have you forsaken it? And can you now say, although I am in the world yet I am not of it? Its pumps and vanities I do estue, its pride and its glory, I trample under feet, these are nothing to me. I would follow my master bearing his cross through evil report and through good report. If such be not the case, if you are not changed, remember there are no exceptions. One truth is true for all. Except ye be born again, ye cannot see the kingdom of heaven. And that amounts in substance to my test. Except ye be thoroughly renewed, termed outside on, ye cannot be saved. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, for he that believeth shall be sanctified and renewed. Shall be saved at last, but he that believeth not must be cast away in the great day of God's account. The Lord bless you for Jesus' sake. End of Sermon 193 Sermon 194 of Charles Spurgeon This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Vivian Bush, Houston, Texas, on May 21, 2007. Spurgeon's Sermons from May 1858. Sermon 194 by Charles Spurgeon. Human Responsibility Delivered on Sabbath morning, May 16, 1858, at the Music Hall Royal Surrey Gardens. If I had not come and spoken to them, they had not sin. But now they have no cloak for their sin. John 1522 The peculiar sin of the Jews, the sin which aggravated above everything their former iniquities, was their rejection of Jesus Christ as the Messiah. He had been very plainly described in the books of the prophets, and they who waited for him, such as Simeon and Anna, no sooner beheld him, even in his infant state, than they rejoiced to see him and understood that God had sent forth his salvation. But because Jesus Christ did not answer the expectation of that evil generation, because he did not come arrayed in pomp and clothed with power, because he had not the outward garnishing of a prince and the honors of a king, they shut their eyes against him. He was a root out of a dry ground. He was despised and they esteemed him not. Nor did their sin stop there. Not content with denying his Messiahship, they were exceeding hot against him in their anger. They hunted him all his life, seeking his blood. Nor were they content till their fiendish malice had been fully glutted by sitting down at the foot of the cross and watching the dying throes and the expiring agonies of their crucified Messiah. The over the cross itself the words were written, Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews. Yet they knew not their king, God's everlasting son. And knowing him not, they crucified him. For had they known him, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Now the sin of the Jews is every day repeated by the Gentiles. That which they did once, many have done every day. Are there not many of you now present this day listening to my voice who forgets the Messiah? You did not chowl yourself to deny him. You would not degrade yourself in what is called a Christian country by standing up to blaspheme his name. Perhaps you hold the right doctrine concerning him and believe him to be the son of God as well as the son of Mary. But still you neglect his claims and give him no honor and do not accept him as worthy of your trust. He is not your redeemer. You are not looking for his second advent. Nor are you expecting to be saved through his blood. Nay, even worse, you are this day crucifying him. For know ye not that as many as put away from them the Gospel of Christ do crucify the Lord afresh and open wide his wounds. As often as he hear the word preached and reject it, as often as he are warned and stifle the voice of your conscience, as often as he are made to tremble and yet say, Go thy way for this time. I have a more convenient season I will send for thee. So often do you in effect grasp the hammer in the nail and once more pierce the hand and make the blood issue from the side. And there are other ways by which you wound him through his members. As often as you despise his ministers or cast stumbling blocks in the way of his servants or impede his Gospel by your evil example or by your hard words seek to pervert the seeker from the way of truth. So often do you commit that great iniquity which brought the curse upon the Jew and which have doomed him to wander through the earth until the day of the second advent when he shall come who shall even by the Jew be acknowledged the king of the Jews for whom both Jew and Gentile are now looking with anxious expectation even Messiah the prince who came once to suffer but who comes again to reign. And now I shall endeavor this morning to show the parallel between your case and that of the Jew not doing so in set phrases but yet incidentally as God shall help me appealing to your conscience in making you feel that in rejecting Christ you commit the same sin and incur the same doom. We shall note first of all the excellence of the ministry since Christ comes in it and speaks to men if I had not spoken to them we shall notice secondly the aggravation of sin caused by the rejection of Christ's message if I had not spoken to them they had not sin thirdly the death of all excuses caused by the preaching of the word now they have no cloak for their sin and then in the last place we shall briefly but very solemnly announce the fearfully aggravated doom of those who thus reject the Saviour and increase their guilt by despising him. 1. In the first place then this morning it is ours to say and to say truly too that in the preaching of this gospel there is to man's conscience the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and the speaking of the Saviour through us. 2. When Israel of old despised Moses and murmured against him Moses meekly said you have not murmured against us but you have murmured against the Lord God of Israel and truly the minister may with scripture warrants say the same he that despised us despised not us but him that sent us he who rejected the message rejecteth not what we say but rejected the message of the everlasting God. 3. The minister is but a man he has no priestly power but he is a man called out of the rest of mankind and endowed with the Holy Spirit to speak to his fellow men and when he preacheth the truth as with power sent down from heaven God owns him by calling him his ambassador and puts him in the high and responsible position of a watchman on the walls of Zion and he bids all men take heed that a faithful message faithfully delivered when despised and trampled on amounts to rebellion against God and to sin and iniquity against the most high as for what I may say as a man it is but little that I should say it but if I speak as the Lord's ambassador take heed that you slight not the message it is the word of God sent down from heaven which we preach with the power of the Holy Spirit earnestly beseeching you to believe it and remember it is at the peril of your own souls that you put it from you for it is not we that speak but the Spirit of the Lord God who speaketh in us with what a solemnity does this invest the gospel ministry O ye sons of men the ministry is not the speaking of men but the speaking of God through men as many as are the real called and sent servants of God are not the authors of their message but they first hear it from the master and they speak it to the people and they see ever before their eyes these solemn words take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine continue in them for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee and they hear behind them this awful threatening if thou warn them not they shall perish but their blood I will require at thine hand O that ye might see written in letters of fire before you this day the words of the prophet O earth earth earth hear the word of the Lord for as far as our ministry is true and untainted by error it is God's word and it hath the same right and claim to your belief as if God himself should speak it from the top of Sinai instead of speaking it through the humble ministry of the word of God and now let us pause over this doctrine and let us ask ourselves the solemn question have we not all of us grossly send against God in the neglect that we have often put upon the means of grace how often have you stayed away from the house of God when God himself was speaking there what would have been the doom of Israel if when summoned on that sacred day to hear the word of God from the top of the mountain they had perversely rambled into the wilderness rather than attend to hear it and yet so have you done you have sought your own pleasure and listened to the siren song of temptation but you have shut your ear against the voice of the Most High and when he has himself been speaking in his house you have turned aside into crooked ways and have not regarded the voice of the Lord your God and when you have come up to the house of God how often has there been the careless eye the inattentive ear you have heard as though you heard not your ear has been penetrated but the hidden man of the heart has been deaf and you have been like the deaf adder charm we never so wisely you would not listen nor regard us God himself has spoken to at times in your conscience so that you have heard it you have stood in the aisle and your knees have knocked together you have sat in your pew and while some mighty blunderous has thundered out the word you have heard it said as with an angel's voice prepare to meet thy God consider thy way set thine house in order for thou shalt die and not live you have forgotten what manner of men you were you have quenched the spirit you have done despite to the spirit of grace you have put far from you the struggles of your conscience you have throttled those infant prayers that were beginning to cry in your heart you have drowned those newborn desires that were just springing up you have put away from you everything that was good and sacred you have turned again to your own ways and have once more wandered on the mountains of sin in the valley of iniquity my friends just think then for a moment that in all this you have despised God I am certain if the Holy Spirit would but apply this one solemn truth to your consciences this morning this hall of music would be turned into a house of mourning and this place would become a bokem a place of weeping and lamentation oh to have despised God to have trampled underfoot the son of man to have passed by his cross to have rejected the woeings of his love and the warnings of his grace how solemn did you ever think of this before you have thought it was but despising man will you now think of it as despising Christ for Christ has spoken to you ah God is my witness that often times Christ hath wept with these eyes and spoken to you with these lips I have sought nothing but the winning of your souls sometimes with rough words I have endeavored to drive you to the cross and at other times with weeping accents I have sought to weep you to my redeeming and sure I am I did not speak myself then but Jesus spoke through me and in as much as you did here in weep and then went away and did forget remember that Christ spoke to you twas he who said look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth twas he who said come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden twas he who warned you that if you neglected this great salvation you must perish and in having put away the warning and rejected the invitation you have not despised us but you have despised our master and well unto you except you repent purchase a fearful thing to have despised the voice of him that speaketh from heaven two and now we must notice the second point namely that the rejection of the gospel aggravates men sin now do not let me be misunderstood I have heard of persons who having gone to the house of God have been filled with a sense of sin and at last they have been driven almost to despair for Satan has tempted them to forsake the house of God for says he the more you go the more you increase your condemnation now I believe that this is an error we do not increase our condemnation by going to the house of God we are far more likely to increase it by stopping away for in stopping away from the house of God there is a double rejection of Christ you reject him even with the outward mind as well as with the inward spirit you neglect even the lying at the pool of Bethesda you are worse than the man who lay at the pool but cannot get in you will not lie there and therefore neglecting the hearing of the word of God you do indeed incur a fearful doom but if you go up to the house of God sincerely seeking a blessing if you do not get comfort if you do not find grace in the means still if you go there devoutly seeking it your condemnation is not increased thereby your sin is not aggravated merely by the hearing of the gospel but by the willful and wicked rejection of it when it is heard the man who listens to the sound of the gospel and after having heard it turns upon his heel with a laugh or who after hearing time after time and being visibly affected allows the cares and the pleasures of this wicked life to come in and choke the seed such a man does in a fearful measure increase his guilt and now we will just notice why in a two fold measure he does this because in the first place he gets a new sin altogether that he never had before and beside that he aggravates all his other sins bring me here a hot and taut or a man from Komschaka a wild savage who has never listened to the word that man may have every sin in the catalog of guilt except one but that one I am sure he has not he has not the sin of rejecting the gospel when it is preached to him but you when you hear the gospel have an opportunity for committing a fresh sin and if you have rejected it you have added a fresh iniquity to all those others that hang about your neck I have often been rebuked by certain men who have aired from the truth for preaching the doctrine that is a sin if they reject the gospel of Christ I care for every appropriate title I am certain that I have the warrant of God's word in so preaching and I do not believe that any man can be faithful to men's souls and clear of their blood unless he bears his frequent and solemn testimony upon this vital subject when he the spirit of truth has come he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment of sin because they believe not on me and this is the condemnation that light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light he that believe if not is condemned already because he is not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God if I had not done among them the works which none other man did they had not sin but now they have both seen and hated both me and my father woe unto thee Corazine woe unto thee Bethsaida for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon which have been done in you they had a great while ago repented sitting in sackcloth and ashes but I say unto you it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you if I had not come and spoken unto them they had not had sin but now they have no cloak for their sin therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard lest at any time we should flip for if the word spoken by angels was steadfast and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward how shall we escaped if we neglect so great salvation he that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses of how much sore a punishment supposed he shall he be thought worthy who with trodden underfoot the son of God and hath counted the blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified and unholy thing and hath done despite unto the spirit of grace for we know him that hath said vengeance belongeth unto me I will recompense says the Lord and again the Lord shall judge his people it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God I have been quoting you see some scripture passages and if they do not mean that unbelief is a sin and the sin which above all others damns men souls they do not mean anything at all but they are just a dead letter in the word of God now adultery and murder and theft and lying all these are damning and deadly sins but repentance can cleanse all these through the blood of Christ but to reject Christ destroys a man hopelessly the murderer, the thief, the drunkard may yet enter the kingdom of heaven if repenting of his sins he will lay hold on the cross of Christ but with these sins a man is inevitably lost if he believeth not on the Lord Jesus Christ and now my hears will you consider for one moment what an awful sin this is which you add to all your other sins everything lies in the bowels of this sin the rejecting of Christ there is murder in this for if the man on the scaffold rejects a pardon does he not murder himself there is pride in this for you reject Christ because your proud hearts have turned you aside there is rebellion in this for we rebel against God when we reject Christ there is high treason in this for you reject a king you put far from you him who is crowned king of the earth and you incur therefore the weightiest of all guilt oh to think that the Lord Jesus should come from heaven to think for a moment that he should hang upon the tree that there he should die in agony's extreme and that from that cross he should stay looked down upon you and should say come unto me ye weary and ye heavy laden that you should still turn away from him this is the unkindest stab of all what more brutish what more devilish than to turn away from him who gave his life for you oh that you were wise that you understood this that you would consider your later end but again we do not only add a new sin to the catalogs of guilt but we aggravate all the rest you cannot sin so cheap as other people ye who have had the gospel when the unenlightened ignorant sin their conscience does not prick them and there is not that guilt in the sin of the ignorant that there is in the sin of the enlightened did you steal before that was bad enough but hear the gospel and continue a thief and you are a thief indeed did you lie before you heard the gospel the liar shall have his portion in the lake but he after hearing it and it seems as if the fire of tofu should be fanned up to a seven fold fury he who sins ignorantly have some little excuse but he who sins against light and knowledge sins presumptuously and under the law there was no atonement for this presumptuous sins were out of the pole of legal atonement although blessed be God Christ had the tone for even these and he that believeth shall be saved despite even his guilt oh I beseech you recollect that the sin of unbelief blackens every other sin it is like Jeroboam it is said of him he sinned and made Israel to sin so unbelief sins itself and leads to every other sin unbelief is the file by which you sharpen the axe and the colter and the sword which you use in rebellion against the most high your sins become more exceedingly the more you disbelieve in Christ the more you know of him and the longer you reject him this is God's truth but a truth that is to be spoken with reluctance and with many groanings in our spirits oh to have such a message to deliver to you to you I say for if there be a people under heaven to whom my text applies it is you if there is one race of men in the world who have more to account for than others it is yourselves who are in unequality with you who sit under a faithful and earnest ministry but as God shall judge betwixt you and me at the great day to the utmost of my powers I have been faithful to your souls I have never in this pulpit sought by hard words by technical language to magnify my own wisdom I have spoken to you plainly and not a word to the best of my knowledge has escaped these lips which every one of you could not understand you have had a simple gospel I have not stood here and preached coldly to you I could say as I came up beyond stairs the burden of the Lord was upon me for my heart has come here heavy and my soul has been hot within me and when I have preached feebly my words may have been uncouth and the language far from proper but heart never has been wanting this whole soul has spoken to you and if I could have ransacked heaven and earth to find language that might have won you to the Saviour I would have done so I have not shunned to reprove you I have never minced matters I have spoken to this age of its iniquities and to you of your sins I have not softened down the Bible to suit the carnal taste of men I have said damn or God said damn I have not sweetened it into condemn I have not minced matters nor endeavored to veil or conceal the truth but as to every man's conscience in the sight of God have I endeavored to commend the gospel earnestly and with power and with a plain, outspoken earnest and honest ministry I have not kept back the glorious doctrines of grace although by preaching them the enemies of the cross have called me an antinomian nor have I been afraid to preach man's solemn responsibility although another tribe have slandered me as an Arminian and in saying this I say it not in a way of glorying but I say it for your rebuke if you have rejected the gospel for you have sinned far above that of any other men in casting away Christ a double measure of the fury of the wrath of God shall fall on you sin then is aggravated by the rejection of Christ 3 and now in the third place the preaching of the gospel of Christ takes away all excuse from those who hear it and reject it now they have no cloak for their sin a cloak is a very poor covering for sin and there is an all-seeing eye to look through it in the great day of the tempest of God's wrath a cloak will be a very poor shelter but still man is always fond of a cloak in the day of cold and rain we see men gathering their cloaks about them and if they have no shelter and no refuge still they feel a little comforted by their garment and so it is with you you will gather together if you can an excuse for your sin and when conscience pricks you you seek to heal the wound with an excuse and even in the day of judgment although a cloak will be a sorry covering yet it will be better than nothing at all but now you have no cloak for your sin the traveler is left in the rain without his covering exposed to the tempest without that garment which once did shelter him now you have no cloak for your sin discovered, detected and unmasked you are left inexcusable without a cloak for your iniquity and now let me just notice how the preaching of the gospel when it is faithfully performed takes away all cloaks for sin in the first place one man might get up and say I did not know I was doing wrong when I committed such and such in iniquity now that you cannot say God has by his law told you solemnly what is wrong there stand the ten commandments and there stands the common of our master where he is enlarged upon the commandment and told us that the old law thou shalt not commit adultery but all sins of the lascivious look and the evil eye if the seboy commits iniquity there is a cloak for it I doubt not that his conscience tells him that he is wrong but his sacred books teach that he is doing right and therefore he has that cloak if the Mohammedan commits lust I doubt not his conscience doth prick him but his sacred books give him liberty but you profess to believe your Bibles and have them in your houses and have the preachers of them in all your streets therefore when you sin you sin with the proclamation of the law upon the very wall before your eyes you do willfully violate a well known law which has come from heaven and come to you again you might say when I sinned I did not know how great would be the punishment of this also by the gospel you are left without excuse but did not Jesus Christ tell you and does he not tell you every day that those who will not have him will confess or shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth hath he not said these shall go away into everlasting punishment but the righteous into life eternal does he not himself declare that the wicked shall be burned up with unquenchable fire has he not told you of a place where their worm dieeth not and where their fire is not quenched and the ministers of the gospel have not shunned to tell you this too you have sinned though you knew you would be lost by it there isn't a straw not thinking that it was harmless you knew that every drop in the cup was scalding with damnation and yet you have taken the cup and drained it to its drags you have destroyed your own souls with your eyes open you have gone like a fool to the stocks like an ox to the slaughter and like a lamb you have licked the knife of the butcher in this then you are left without excuse but some of you may say and I knew that I was doing wrong but I did not know what I must do to be saved is there one among you who can urge such an excuse as this me thinks you will not have the impudence to do so believe and live is preached every day in your hearing many of you these 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 years have been hearing the gospel and you dare not say I did not know what the gospel was from your earliest childhood the name of Jesus was mingled with the hush of lullaby you drank in a holy gospel with your mother's milk and yet despite all that you have never sought Christ knowledge is power men say alas, knowledge when not used is wrath, wrath, wrath to the uttermost against the man who knows and yet does that which he knoweth to be wrong me thinks I can hear another say well I heard the gospel preached and never had a good example set me some of you may say that and it would be partially true but there are others of you concerning whom I may say that this would be a lying excuse ah man you have been very fond of speaking of the inconsistencies of Christians you have said they do not live as they ought and alas there is too much truth in what you have said but there was one Christian whom you knew and whose character you were compelled to admire do you not remember her it was the mother who brought you forth that has always been the one difficulty with you up to this day you could have rejected the gospel very easily but your mother's example stood before you and you could not overcome that do you not remember amongst the first early darklings of your recollection how you opened your little eyes in the morning and you saw a mother's loving face looking down upon you and you caught her with a tear in her eye and you heard her say God bless the child all the redeemer blessed you remember how your father did often chide you she did seldom chide but she often spoke in tones of love recollect that little upper room where she took you aside and putting her arms around your neck dedicated you to God and prayed that the Lord would save you in your childhood remember the letter she gave you and your book in which she wrote your name when you left the parental roof to go abroad and the sorrow with which she wrote to you when she heard you had begun to plunge in gaiety and mix with the ungodly recollect that sorrowful look in which she did ring your hand the last time you left her remember how she said to you you will bring my hairs with sorrow to the grave if you walk in the ways of iniquity well you knew that what she said was not can't there was reality in that you could laugh at the minister you could say it was his business but at her you could not scoff she was a Christian there was no mistake about it how often did she put up with your angry temper and bear with your rough manners for she was a sweet spirit almost too good for earth and you recollect that you were not there when she was dying you could not arrive in time but she said to her friend as she was dying there was only one thing that I want then I could die happy oh that I could see my children walking in the truth now I apprehend such an example leaves you without a cloak for your wickedness and if you commit iniquity after that how fearful must be the weight of your woe but others of you can say that you had no such mother your first school was the street and the first example you ever had was that of a swearing father recollect my friend there is one perfect example Christ and that you have read of though you have not seen him Jesus Christ the man of Nazareth was a perfect man in him there was no sin neither was there guile in his mouth and if you have never seen anything like Christian worth anywhere else yet you can see it in Christ and in venturing such an excuse as this remember you have ventured upon a lie for the example of Christ the works of Christ as well as the words of Christ leave you without excuse for your sin ah and I think I hear one more excuse offered and that is this well I certainly had many advantages but they were never sent home to my conscience so that I felt them now there are very few of you here who can say that some of you will say yes I heard the minister but he never made an impression upon me ah young men and young women and all of you this morning I must be a witness against you in the day of judgment that this is untrue for but now your consciences were touched did I not see some soft tears of repentance I trust they were such flowing but just now no you have not always been unmoved by the gospel you have grown old now and it takes a deal to stir you but it was not always so there was a time in your youth when you were very susceptible of impressing remember the sins of your youth will cause your bones to rot if you have still persevered in rejecting the gospel your old heart has grown hard still you are without excuse you did feel once I and even now you cannot help feeling I know there are some of you that can scarcely keep your seats at the thought of your iniquities and you have almost vowed some of you that this day you will seek God and the first thing you will do will be to climb to your chamber and shut the door and seek the Lord ah but I remember a story of one who remarked to a minister what a wonderful thing it was to see so many people weeping nay said he will tell you something more wonderful still that so many will forget all they wept about when they get outside the door and you will do this still when you have done it you will recollect that you have not been without the strivings of God's spirit you will remember that God has this morning as it were put a hurdle across your road dig the ditch in your way and put up a hand post and said take warning beware beware beware and I have come to the ways of iniquity and I have come before you this morning and in God's name I have said stop stop stop thus sayeth the Lord consider your ways why will you die turn ye turn ye why will you die oh house of Israel and now if you will put this from you it must be even so if you will put out these sparks if you will quench this first burning torch it must be so at your own door lay your iniquities four but now I have this one thing more to do and it is awful work for I have as it were to put on the black cap and pronounce these sentence of condemnation for those who live and die rejecting Christ there is a most fearful doom they shall perish with an utter destruction their degrees of punishment but the highest degree is given to the man who rejects Christ you have noticed that passage I dare say that the liar and the hormonger and drunkard shall have their portion whom do you suppose with with unbelievers as if hell were made first of all for unbelievers as if the pit was not for hormongers and swears and drunkards but for men who despise Christ because that is the A1 sin the cardinal vice and men are condemned for that they come following after them but this one goes before them to judgment imagine for a moment that time is past and that the day of judgment is come we are all gathered together both quick and dead the trumpet blast waxes exceeding loud and long we are all attentive expecting something marvelous the exchange stands still in its business the shop is deserted by the tradesmen the crowded streets are filled all men stand still they feel that the last great business day is come and that now they must settle their accounts forever a solemn stillness fills the air no sound is heard all is noiseless presently a great white cloud with solemn state sails through the sky and then hark the twofold clamor of the startled earth on that cloud there sits one likened to the son of man every eye looks and at last heard a unanimous shout it is he, it is he and after that you hear on the one hand shouts of hallelujah, hallelujah hallelujah welcome, welcome, welcome son of god but mixed with that there's a deep base composed of the weeping and the wailing of the men who have persecuted him and who have rejected him listen I think I can dissect this on it I think I can hear the words as they come separately each one of them tolling like a death knell what say they they say rocks hide us mountains fall upon us hide us from the face of him that sits upon the throne and shall you be among the number of those who say to the rocks hide us my impenitent hearer I suppose for a moment that you have gone out of this world and that you have died impenitent and that you are among those who are weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth oh what will then be your terror blanched cheeks and knocking knees are nothing compared to thy horror of heart when thou shalt be drunken but not with wine when thou shalt reel to and fro with the intoxication of amazement and shall fall down and roll in the dust for horror and dismay for there he comes and there he is with fierce fire darting eye and now the time has come for the great division the voice has heard gather my people from the four winds of heaven mine elect in whom my soul delighteth they are gathered at the right hand and there they are and now sayeth he gather up the tears and bind them in bundles to burn and you are gathered and on the left hand there you are gathered into the bundle and all that is wanted is the lighting of the pile where shall be the torch that shall kindle them the tears are to be burned where is the flame the flame comes out of his mouth and it is composed of words like these depart ye cursed into everlasting fire and hell prepared for the devil and his angels do you linger depart do you seek a blessing ye are cursed I curse you with a curse do you seek to escape it is everlasting fire do you stop and plead no I called and ye refused I stretched out my hands and ye regarded me not therefore I will mock at your calamity I will laugh when your fear cometh depart again I say depart forever and you are gone and what is your reflection why it is this oh what to God that I had never been born oh that I had never heard the gospel preached that I might never have had the sin of rejecting it this will be the gnawing of the worm in your conscience I knew better but I did not do better as I sowed the wind it is right that I should reap the whirlwind I was checked but I would not be stopped I was wooed but I would not be invited now I see that I have murdered myself oh thought above all thoughts most deadly I am lost lost lost and this is the horror of horrors I have caused myself to be lost I have put for me the gospel of Christ I have destroyed myself shall this be so with thee my hearer shall this be so with thee I pray it may not oh may the Holy Spirit now constrain thee to come to Jesus for I know that thou art too vile to yield unless he compels thee but I hope for thee me thinks I hear thee say what must I do to be saved let me tell you the way of salvation and then farewell if thou wouldst be saved believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved he that believeth in his baptize shall be saved he that believeth not shall be damned there he hangs dying on his cross look to him and live venture on him, venture holy let no other trust intrude none but Jesus can do helpless sinners good be you wicked, filthy, depraved degraded you are still invited to Christ the devil's castaways Christ takes in the off scouring the dross, the scum, the draught the sewerage of this world is now invited to Christ come to him now and obtain mercy but if he harden your hearts the Lord in anger dressed shall lift his hand and swear you that despise my promised rest shall have no portion there End of Sermon 194