III. The last remark I have to make is to THE UNCONVERTED.
Perhaps there are some here who are not the people of God, and yet they are very happy and prosperous. They have all that heart can wish, and as they hear me talk about God’s children being chastened, they say, “I do not want to be one of them, if such is their portion.” You would rather be what you are, would you? “Yes,” say you. Hearken! We will suppose that we have before us a prince of the blood who will one day be a king. He has been doing something wrong, and his father has chastened him the rod. There stands the young prince with the tears running down his cheeks; and over yonder is a street arab, who has no father that he knows of—certainly none that ever chastened him for his good. He may do what he likes—use any sort of language—steal, lie, swear, if he likes, and no one will chasten him. He stands on his head, or makes wheels in the streets, or rolls in the dirt, but no father ever holds a rod over him. He sees this little prince crying, and he laughs at him, “You don’t have the liberty I do. You are not allowed to stand on your head as I do. Your father wouldn’t let you beg for coppers by the side of the omnibuses as I do. You don’t sleep under an arch all night as I do. I would not be you to catch that thrashing! I would sooner be a street-boy than a prince!” Your little prince very soon wipes his eyes, and answers, “Go along with you. Why, I would rather be chastened every day and be a prince and heir to a kingdom, than I would be you with all your fine liberty!” He looks down upon the ragged urchin with the greatest conceivable pity, even though he himself is smarting from the rod. Now, sinners, that is just what we think of you and your freedom from heavenly discipline. When you are merriest and happiest, and fullest of your joy, we would not be you for the world; when you have been electrified by that splendid spectacle at the theater, or have enjoyed yourself so much in a licentious dance, or, perhaps, in something worse, we would not be as you are. Take us at our worst—when we are most sick, most desponding, most tried, most penitent before God, we would not exchange with you at your best. Would we change with you, for all your mirth and sinful hilarity? No, that we would not! Ask the old woman in the winter time, who has only a couple of sticks to make a fire with, and has nothing to live upon but what the tender mercy of the parish allows her, ask her if she would change with Dives in his purple and fine linen. Look at her. She puts on an old red cloak to shelter her poor limbs, which are as full of rheumatism as they can be; the cupboard is bare, her poor husband lies in the churchyard, and she has not a child to come and see her. Ah, there she is. You say, “She is a miserable object.” Here is the young squire in his top-boots, coming home from the hunt. He is standing in front of her. He might say to her, with all his large possessions and broad acres, “You would change with me, mother, would you not?” She knows his character, and she knows that he has no love to God, and no union to Christ, and therefore she replies, “Change with you? no, that I would not, for a thousand worlds.”
“Go you that boast of all your stores,
And tell how bright they shine;
Your heaps of glittering dust are yours,
But my Redeemers mine.”
I have yet another word for you that fear not God. I wish you would reflect for a moment what will become of you one of these days. God loves his dear children very much: he loves them so much that Jesus died to save them, and yet he does not spare them when they sin, but he chastens them with the rod of men. Now, if he does so with his children, what will he do with you who are his enemies? If judgment begins at the house of God—if when his anger does but gently smoke it is so hot—what will it be when the winds of justice fan it to a furious flame? As when the fire sets the forests of the mountains burning, or as when the vast prairie becomes one sheet of fire, so shall it be in that dread day when God shall launch out all his vengeance against the sins of the ungodly. I beseech you, think of this. He spared not his own Son, but put him to a cruel death upon the tree for the sins of others: will he spare his enemies, think you, who have rebelled against him, and rejected his mercy, when he visits them for their own personal sins? “Beware, ye that forget God, lest he tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver you.”
One only thought, for I must not send you away with that terrible warning and no gospel encouragement. Learn a lesson from the Lord’s children. When his children are chastened they submit, and when they submit they obtain peace. Sinner, I pray you, learn wisdom; and if you have been troubled of late, if you have had trials from God, yield to him, yield to him. Old Master Quarles gives a quaint picture of a man who is striking at an enemy with a flail. The person assaulted runs right into the striker’s arms, and so escapes the force of the stroke, and Quarles adds the remark, “The farther off the heavier the blow.” Sinner, run in, run into God’s bosom to-night. Say “I will arise and go unto my Father.” God will not smite you if you come there. How can he? The Lord says, “Let him take hold of my strength.” When that arm is lifted to scourge you, lay hold of it. Lay hold upon that arm of strength as it is revealed in Jesus Christ, for in him God hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the people. Hang on the arm that else might smite you. Trust in the Lord, sinner, through Jesus Christ, the atoning sacrifice, and you shall find peace with him. Ask him with humble submission to put away the sin that has made you suffer, and has nearly cost you your soul. Pray him to search you, and find out the sin. Repent and believe the gospel. Forsake evil and cling to the Savior, the great Physician who heals the disease of sin, and you shall live. Come now to your Father’s home. Those rags, that hungry belly, those swine and filthy troughs, those citizens that would not help you, that blandest of all citizens whose only kindness lay in degrading you lower than you were before—all these are sent to fetch you home. Believe it, soul, and say, “I will arise and go unto my Father, and will say unto him, Father I have sinned”; and while you are yet saying it you shall have the kiss of his love, the embraces of his affection, the robe of his righteousness, and the fatted calf of spiritual food, and there shall be merriment concerning you, both on earth and in heaven. The Lord bless you, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
