III. We are to WRITE HIS EPITAPH, and his epitaph is contained in these short words: “this also is vanity” And now in a few words I will endeavor to show that it is vanity for a man to come and go from the house of God, and yet have no true religion. If I made up my mind to hate God, to sin against him, and to be lost at last, I would do it thoroughly, out and out. If I had determined to be damned, and had calculated the chances, and made up my mind that it would be better to be cast away for ever, I know there is one thing I would not do, I would not go to the house of God. Why, if I made up my mind to be lost, what is the good of going there to be teared about it? Because, if the man is faithful, he will prick my conscience and wake me up. If I am determined and have made up my mind to be lost, let me go to hell as easily as I can, what need is there that my conscience should be pricked, and this great stone laid in my way to keep me from going there? Besides, I hold that, for a man who has no love for the house of God, regularly to attend because he thinks it is respectable, is just one of the most pitiful kinds of drudgery that can be met with. If I did not love the house of God, I would not go there. If it were not a delight to me to be found in the sanctuary of God, singing of his praise, and hearing of his word, I would stop away. To be seen going to chapel twice on the Sabbath, sitting as God’s people sit, rising when they rise, and singing about what you do not feel; hearing that which pricks your conscience, and listening to the reading of promises that do not belong to you; hearing about heaven, that is not yours, being frightened with hell, which is to be yours for ever—why, the man is just a born fool that goes to the house of God, except he has got an interest in it. We may commend him for going; it is a respectable thing, perhaps, and right that it should be so but I submit it is an intolerable drudgery to go always to the house of God, if you have made up your mind to be lost. Now, on this man’s tomb must be written at last—”there was a men who would not serve God, but who had not courage enough to stand out against God. There is a man so silly that he pretended to be religious, and so wicked that he was a hypocrite to his pretensions.” Why, although you must deplore a wicked man’s wickedness as a fearful crime, yet there is some kind of respect to be paid to the man who is downright honest in it; but not an atom of respect to the man who wants to be a cant and a hypocrite. He wishes, if he can, just to save his neck at last; just as he thinks, to do enough to let him get off free when he comes to lay a-dying; enough to keep his conscience quiet, enough to look respectable; enough as he thinks, when he dies to give him a little chance of entering heaven, though it be, as it were, neck or nothing. Ah, poor thing! Well may we write over him, “This also is vanity!” But, sir, you will be more laughed at for your pretensions than if you had made none. Having professed to be religious, and having pretended to carry it out, you shall have more scorn than if you had came out in your right colors, and have said, “Who is the Lord, that I should fear him? Who is Jehovah, that I should obey his voice?” And now, are there any here who are so wicked as to choose eternal wrath? Have I any here so besotted as to choose destruction? Yes, yes, many; for if to-day, my hearer, thou art choosing sin; if thou art choosing self-righteousness, if thou art choosing pride, or lust, or the pleasures of this world, remember, thou art choosing damnation, for the two things cannot but go together. Sin is the guilt, and hell is the bread beneath it. If you choose sin, you have virtually chosen perdition. Think of this, I beseech you.
“O Lord! do thou the sinner turn!
Now rouse him from his senseless state;
O let him not thy counsel spurn,
Nor rue his fatal choice too late.”
May the Lord lead you to Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth and the life! And when ye are buried, may ye be buried with the righteous, and may your last end be like his!
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
