However, I have some here who can consume their own
smoke. There are some of my congregation who, when they
have any trials, can manage to get over them very well
themselves. They say, “Well, I don’t care, you seem to
be a sad set of simpletons, you feel everything; but as
for me, it all rolls off, and I don’t care for
anything.” NO, I dare say you don’t but the time will
come when you will find the truth of that little story
you used to read when you were children, that don’t
care came to a very bad end. These persons are not like
bottles in the smoke, but like pieces of wood hanging
over it; but they will find there is something more
than smoke by-and-bye; they will come to a place, where
there is not only smoke, but fire; and though they can
endure the smoke of this world’s troubles, they will
find it not so easy as they imagine to endure the
unutterable burnings and the everlasting flames of that
pit whose fire knows no extinction, and whose worm
shall know no death. Oh! hardened sinner, thou hast
sorrows now, which are like the skirmishers before an
army, a few light-armed troops to lead the way for the
whole hosts of God’s avengers, who shall trample thee
beneath their feet. One or two drops of woe have fallen
on the pavement of thy life; thou laughest at them; ah!
but they are the heralds of a shower of fire and
brimstone, which God shall rain out of heaven upon thy
soul throughout eternity. And yet you may be pitying us
poor Christians, because of our troubles and
sufferings. Pity us, do you? Ah! but our light
afflictions is but for a moment, and it worketh for us
a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Take
your pity back, and reserve it for yourselves; for your
light joy, which is but for a moment, worketh out for
you a far more exceeding and eternal weight of torment,
and your little bliss will be the mother of an
everlasting, unutterable torture, which we shall
happily escape. Your sun will soon set, and at its
setting your night shall come; and when your night
cometh, it will be night for ever, without hope of
light again. Ere thy sun setteth, my hearer, may God
give thee grace. Dost thou inquire what thou shouldst
do to be saved? Again comes the old answer: “Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ and be baptized, and thou shalt
be saved.” If thou art no sinner, I have no salvation
for thee; if thou art a Pharisee, and knowest not thy
sins, I have no Christ to preach to thee; I have no
heaven to offer to thee, as some have; but if thou art
a sinner, a bona-fide sinner, if thou art a real
sinner, not a sham one, I have this to tell thee:
“Jesus Christ came to save sinners, even the chief;”
and if thou wilt believe on him, thou shalt go out of
this house of prayer, shriven, absolved, without a sin;
forgiven, pardoned, washed, without a stain, accepted
in the Beloved. As long as thou livest, that pardon
shall avail thee; and when thou diest, thou wilt have
nought to do, but to show it at the gates of paradise,
to gain admittance. And then, in a nobler and sweeter
song, that pardon shall form the basis of thy praise,
while heaven’s choirs shall sing, or while the praise
of the Eternal shall be the chaunt of the universe. God
bless thee! Amen.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
