Bible Commentaries
Proverbs 5

Verse 11

At the End of Your Life December 31, 1865 by C. H. Spurgeon (1834-1892)

“At the end of your life.”--Proverbs 5:11

The wise man saw a young and foolish man straying into the house of the adulterous woman. The house seemed so completely different from what he knew it to be, that he desired to shed a light on it, that the young man might not sin in the dark, but might understand the nature of his actions. The wise man looked around, and he saw only one lamp suitable for his purpose; it was called “At the end;” so, grabbing this lamp, he held it up in the midst of the adulterous woman’s den of iniquity, and suddenly everything was changed from what it had been before: the truth had come to light, and the deception vanished. The young man dreamed of pleasure, he hoped to find delight in lustful lovemaking; but when the lamp called “At the end” began to shine, he saw rottenness in his bones, filthiness in his flesh, pains and griefs and sorrows, as the necessary consequence of sin, and, wisely guided, wisely taught, the simple-minded young man started back and listened to the warnings of the teacher, “Do not go near the door of her house, for her house is a highway to the grave, leading down to the chambers of death.”

Now if this lamp called “At the end” was found so useful in this one particular case, I think it would be equally useful everywhere else, and it may help us all to better understand the truth of matters if we will look at them in the light which this wonderful lamp yields. I can only compare my text in its matchless power to Ithuriel’s spear. Now, according to Milton, Ithuriel was an angel, who on finding Satan, in a toad-like form, tempting Eve, touched him with his spear and transformed him into his proper likeness, into his true colors. Therefore, if I can apply my text to certain things today, they will come out in their true light; “At the end,” will be the rod in my hand with which I will touch tinsel, and it will disappear and you will see it is not gold, and I will touch varnish and paint, and you will understand what they really are, and not what they profess to be: the “At the end” light will be the light of truth, the light of wisdom to our souls. It seems to me that this morning is a fitting occasion for holding up this light, since we have come to the end of the year, and will in a few short hours be at the beginning of another. Let us look back on the year that is past, and look forward on the year that is to come, and my four-sided lamp will perhaps shine off in the distance. I hope that you have the courage to look down the vista of the years that you have already lived, and think of everything that you have thought, and spoken, and done, in the light of the beams of this lamp called “At the end,” and then I hope you will be bold enough to let the same light shine forward on the years yet to come, when your hair will be grey and your teeth begin to fall out, and your eyesight fails.

We will, this morning, examine the past and the future of life in the light of “At the end.” May it teach us wisdom, and make us walk in the fear of God.

I have said that my lamp has four sides to it, and so it has: we will look at the first side of the light which streams from death.

In some sense it is the end, of this mortal life; it is the end of our period of trial here below; it is the end of the day of grace; it is the end of the day of sin. The tree falls when we die, and it will not sprout again; the house is removed from its foundations and it is not to be built again, if it has been founded on sin. Death is the end of this present life. And how certain it is to all of us! This year we have had many proofs of its certainty. One might almost compose an almanac for this year, and write down, each month, the name of a noteworthy person who has died, and I would not be exaggerating if I said every week, throughout the year. All ranks and classes have been made to feel the sting of death. From royalty down to poverty the grave has been gorged with its prey. Early this year there fell one whose benevolence mingled with wisdom had blessed our land, and who being dead is still remembered by the needy, because he lowered the cost of their food, and abolished the laws which, have fattened the rich, and impoverished the poor. His wisdom and kindness could not spare him, and though he is embalmed in the hearts of thousands, yet to the dust he has returned.

Swiftly after him there fell another who ruled a mighty people in the afterglow of victory, when what threatened to be a disruption and a separation had ended in triumph to one side and the nation seemed as if it were about to start on a fresh course of prosperity. By the assassin’s hand he fell. Whatever question there might have been about him in his life, all men conspired to honor him in his death. The ruler of a nation who could subdue a fearless and a mighty enemy, could not subdue that old enemy who conquers whomever he wills. Abraham Lincoln died just like all the rest.

And then there was he who had saved many precious lives by warning mariners of the approaching storm, and thus many a ship had remained in harbor and been delivered from the merciless jaws of the deep, but this person could not forecast or escape the last dreaded storm; he, too, must go down into that fathomless deep which swallows all mankind.

Then, when the year was ripe and the flowers were all in bloom--an appropriate season for his death--there was taken away the man who has garnished our nation with objects of beauty and of joy, a man who loved the flowers and sleeps beneath them now. Like flowers he withered as all of us must do--Sir Joseph Paxton died. Then in the month of September, when the year began to wane, three men who studied the stars, astronomers who predicted eclipses and told of comets, men of fame and name--all three died at once. They might tell of a coming eclipse, but they themselves must be eclipsed; and they who could foretell the track of the next comet, are themselves gone from us just like those dazzling meteor stars have disappeared from view.

Then you will remember, when the year had waned, grown old, it is but a day or two ago, that all were startled by the death of that man who had ruled our nation so long and on the whole so well. We will not forget that he who was taken away from us, was, in some respects, a king throughout our land. Wisdom, cheerfulness, youthful strength such as he possessed, could not avert the time of death. And then, as if the muster roll were not completed, as if death could not be satisfied till the year had yielded up yet another grave, we heard that the oldest of monarchs had been taken away; and though his goodness and his wisdom had successfully guided the little nation over which he ruled, and given him an influence far more extensive than his own sphere, yet death did not spare him, and King Leopold I of Belgium must die.

This past year has been a year of dying rather than of living, and you may look on yourselves and wonder why you are still here. Some younger than we are have been taken. You that are older, are you ready? It is amazing that although you are so ripe for death, yet you should have been spared for so long.

Now in the light of all these deaths, I want you to look at the deadliness of sin. If you were to visit a graveyard you would notice that some gravestones have angels sculptured on them; then let each angel from the gravestone speak to us this morning, and we will listen to their words, for they will surely be wise and solemn, and worthy of our notice, as if they had risen from the dead.

Let me take you to your own death bed, for there, perhaps, the lamp will burn best for you. Look at the various activities of your life which you thought were great, and on which you have prided yourself--how will they look at the end? You made money; you made money fast; you did it very cleverly; you praised yourself for it, just as others have praised themselves for conquering nations, or forcing their way to fame, or lifting themselves into eminence. Now you are dying, and what do you think of all that? Is it so great as it seemed to be? Oh, how hard you climbed up to it, how you strained yourself to reach it, and you have got it, and you are dying. What do you think of it now? The greatest of human accomplishments will appear to be insignificant when we come to die, and especially those on which men most pride themselves--these will yield them the bitterest humiliation. We will then say what madmen we must have been to have wasted so much time and energy on such worthless things. When we discover that they were not real, that they were only mere bubbles, mere pretences, we will then look on ourselves as having been crazy to have spent our entire life and all of our energy on them.

Let us look at our selfish actions in that light of death.

A man says, “I know how to make money,” “and I know how to hold on to it too,” he says, and he prides himself that he is not such a fool as to be generous, nor such a simpleton as to give either to God or to the poor. Now, there he lies. Ah! do you know how to hold on to it now? Can you take it with you? Can you carry so much as a single penny of it across the river of death? You have come to the water’s edge--how much of it will you carry over? Oh you fool! how much wiser you would have been if you had laid up your treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys! You called such men fools when you were living. What do you think of them now that you are dying? Who is the fool, he that sent his riches on ahead, or he that stored them up here on earth to leave them forever? Everything that is selfish will look disgraceful when we come to die; but everything which in the sight of God we have done for Christ’s sake that has been generous, and self-denying, and noble, will even amidst the tombs of death sparkle with celestial splendor. Some of you have been, during this past week, giving very generously to the cause of Christ, for which I thank you, and when I have thought of it, I have said to myself, “Surely, when these generous people come to die, none of them will regret that they have served the cause of Christ. Yes, if they have even given to the point of personal sacrifice, it will be no source of sorrow when they come to their death bed that they did it to one of the least of God’s little ones.” Look at your actions in the light of death, and the selfish ones will soon fade away.

I pray also, dear friends, that some of you would look at your self-righteousness in the light of death.

You have been very good people, very upright, honest, moral, friendly, generous, and so on, and you are resting on what you are. Do you think this will bear your weight when you come to die? When you are in good health any form of religion may satisfy, but a dying soul wants more than sand to rest on. You will want the Rock of Ages. Then let me assure you, that in the light of the grave, all confidence, except confidence in the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ, is a clear delusion. Flee from it, I beg you. Will you rest beneath Jonah’s vine that will wither when chewed by the worm? Seek a better shelter; cling to the Rock of Ages; find the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.

I can say the same thing of all confidence in the value of the Roman Catholic ceremonies and sacraments. When Roman Catholics are in good health it seems sufficient for them to have been baptized, and to have taken the sacrament of Holy Communion and to go to Mass, and read prayers and all that, and take a little “holy” water, out of those little wells while they are strong and joyous; but when they become sick and are about to die, these sacraments and ceremonies will mean nothing to them.

Likewise, for those claiming to be Christians, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper will also deceive you, if you rest your salvation on them; when you are near death you will find them too frail to be supports to bear the weight of an immortal soul’s eternal interests. It will be worthless when you lie dying, if your conscience prompts you to say, “I went to church or to prayer meetings so many times a week.” You will find it a poor dressing to your soul’s wounds to be able to say, “I made a profession of godliness.” Oh, your facade will all be torn away from you by the rough hand of the skeleton called “Death”; you will need a real Savior, vital godliness, true regeneration, not baptismal regeneration; you will need Christ, not sacraments; and nothing short of this will do “at the end.”

And, dear friends, let me ask as I hold up the light, “How will sin appear when we come to die?”

Sin is pleasant now and we can excuse it, calling it a venial sin, a little trivial mistake, a juvenile error, and an indiscretion, and so on; but how will sin appear when we come to die? The grim ghosts of our iniquities, if they have not been laid in the grave of Christ Jesus, will haunt our dying bed. That ghastly figure of Death, with his fingers all bloody and red, will draw the curtain around us. What a horrid prospect, to be shut in with our sins forever, to be dying, with no friends around the bed to comfort, but only the remembrances of the past to terrify and to frighten!

Think, I pray that you think, not only of the root and principle of evil, but of the fruit of it. Remember that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. Do not consider what the thing looks like today, but what they will look like at the end of your life? Today you provide a warm resting place for the viper of sin in your heart, but how will you bear its sting in the last day when you are lying on your death bed? I know the sea is smooth and calm to you, for the moment, as you navigate your ship through life; but remember, there are storms, there are hurricanes that sweep down, and what will your poor cry of distress accomplish without Christ at the helm when the dreaded storm of death comes? Imagine with me, that you are going down, down, down in the waters of death, where you will feel your feet sinking in the dreadful sand of uncertainty, and hear the explosive sounds of the distant sea, and your spirit will begin to ask, “What is that ocean that I hear?” And there will come back an answer, “You hear the breaking of the everlasting waves of judgment; the bottomless sea of eternity is that to which you are descending.” You will feel its chilling floods as they rise up from the ankles to the knees, and from the knees to the hips; and you will find it (if you are without Christ), not a river to swim in, but an ocean to be drowned in forever, forever, and forever.

Oh, may God help you to look at present joys, and actions, and thoughts, and behavior, in the light of death!

What a contrast there often is between the life of a man and his time of death! You would praise some men if you only saw their lives, but, when you see their deaths, you change your estimation. There is Moses: he is in line to become the King of Egypt, but he gives up royalty and all its tempting joys. On the mountain he is told that he will become the founder of a mighty race--a desire always prominent in the Eastern mind, but, instead of desiring that he would be made be made a great nation, he, unselfishly, desires that he himself would be blotted out of the Book of Life, if God will but spare his people Israel. And what does Moses get for it all? His only earthly reward is to be the leader of a group of slaves who are perpetually rebelling against him and greatly troubling his heart. Now there is Balaam, on the other hand, he has visitations from God; and when Balak, the son of Zippor, begs him to curse Israel, he cannot curse, though he is quite willing to go as far as he can. He is compelled by the Holy Spirit to bless the people, but, after he has done that, for gain and for reward, he devises a plan against Israel by which they were cursed: he tells their enemy to send out the idolatrous women of Moab to lead astray the children of Israel. Now there he goes, with his treasures of silver and gold, back to his own house, and the shrewd busy worldly man says, “That is the man for me: do not tell me about your meek Moses, that is afraid of doing this and that. He has thrown away a kingdom, and has thrown away the chance of being the head of a nation. That is the man to make money--Balaam. He will be a city father, or a mayor, or governor one day--that Balaam. A man must not get too caught up with principles; he must move ahead, and make hay while the sun shines.

That is the man for me, the one who knows when to launch out on the waters and who does not ask if they are dirty or clean if they only carry him onward to wealth and success.” Ah, but they come to die, and Balaam dies--how? He had prayed to God, “Let me die the death of the righteous, and may my end be like theirs!” Balaam wanted to die the death of the righteous, but how did he die? He died in battle, fighting against the righteous and against the God of the righteous.

When Moses died; how did he die? You know how--standing on Mount Nebo, looking at, Canaan, the Promised Land, in the distance, and melting what he saw into visions of the Promised Land which is above, the New Jerusalem, which is the mother of us all. In death, who would not want to be a Moses, let all who will be Balaam in life? Be it yours and my desire to aspire to be like Moses, both in life and in death. “At the end!” think of that, and whenever you are tempted by sin, or tempted by wealth or honor, look at it by the light--called, “At the end,” “At the end.” God help you to judge with a righteous judgment.

II. And now we will turn to the second side of our lantern. The second light at the end is the light of JUDGMENT.

After death comes the judgment. When we die, we don’t really die! When a man dies, will he live again? Yes, he will--for his spirit never dies. God has made us such strange wondrous creatures, with such far reaching hopes and aspirations, that it is not possible we should die and become extinct. Animals have no longing for immortality; you never hear them sigh for the celestial state: they have no fear of judgment, because there is no second life, no judgment for the animal that perishes. But the God who gives to man the fear of things to come, and makes him feel and long after something better than this earthly life provides, cannot have mocked us, cannot have made us more wretched than the beast that perishes, by giving us passions and desires never to be gratified.

We are immortal, every one of us, and when the stars cease to exist and the sun’s great furnace is extinguished for lack of fuel, and, like a scroll, God’s universe is rolled up, we will still be living a life as eternal as the Eternal God himself. Oh, when we leave this world, we are told that after death there comes a judgment for us. I don’t know how it is with you--you may be more accustomed to courts of justice than I am--but there always creeps a somberness over me, even in a common court of justice among men, and especially, when a man is being tried for his life. Laughter seems out of place there, and everything is solemn. How much more dread will be in that Court where men and women will be tried for their eternal lives, where their souls rather than their bodies will be at stake! Judgment by our fellowmen is not to be despised. A bold good man can afford to laugh at the world’s opinion; still it is trying to him, for they just may be right: multitudes of men, if they have really thought on the matter, may not all be wrong. It is not easy to be given the judgment of public opinion, and receive the verdict of condemnation; but what will it be like to stand before the judgment throne of God, who is greater than all, and to receive from him the sentence of eternal damnation! God save us from that!

Let us think of this judgment for a moment.

We will rise from the dead: we will be there in body as well as spirit. These very bodies will stand on the earth during the last days: when Christ will come and the trumpet will sound, his people will rise at the first resurrection, and the wicked will rise also, and in their flesh they will see God. Let me think of all that I have done in the light of that. There will be present every man and woman who has ever lived on earth. How will I like to have all my deeds published there? My very thoughts--how will I feel when they are read out loud; what I whispered in the ear--how will I like to have that proclaimed with the sound of trumpet! And what I did in the dark--how will I like to have that revealed in the light? And yet these things must be revealed before the assembled universe. My enemies will be present there. If I have treated them badly, if I have been a backbiter, a slanderer, then it will be declared: if I have been a hypocrite and a deceiver, and made others think I was speaking the truth when I was lying, I will be unmasked then. Those I have injured will be there. The seducer will panic to see those whom he has seduced stand with fiery eyes to accuse him there! With what horror will the oppressor see the widow and the fatherless, whom he drove to poverty, stand there, swift witnesses against him to condemnation! If I have spread false doctrine, a moral pestilence destroying human souls, my victims will be there to gather around me in a circle and, like dogs that bay the deer, each of them demanding my blood. They will all be there, friends and foes. But still even more solemn, “He” will be there--the man of men, the grandest among men, because He is God as well as man, and if I have despised and rejected his salvation, I will then see him in another way and with a much different nature.

“The Lord will come! but not the same As once in lowliness he came, A silent Lamb before his foes, A weary man, and full of woes.

How will you face him, you that have despised him? You who have doubted his deity, how will you bear the blaze of it? You rejected and trampled on his precious blood, how will you bear the weight of his almighty arm? When on the cross you would not receive him, and when on the throne you will not escape from him. That silver scepter which he now stretches out to you on earth today, if you refuse to touch it, will be laid aside at your death, and he will take one of another metal, a rod of iron, and he will break you in pieces, yes, he will smash you in pieces like potters’ jars. And God will be there, manifestly there, that God who is here this morning, on the last day of this year, and who sees your thoughts and reads your minds at this very moment, but who is so invisible that you forget that he fills this place, and fills all places; you will not be able to forget him then. Your eyes will see him in that day; you will understand his presence. You will try to be hidden from him; would desire hell itself, and think it a place of shelter, if you could escape from him; but everywhere that fire will encircle you, will consume you, for “our God is a consuming fire.” You will no more be able to escape from yourself than from God. You will find him as present with you as your own soul will be, and you will feel his hand of fire searching for your soul. Unspeakable misery must be yours when the voice of the God-man, will say, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fires,” of hell.

I pray to God that you would look at all your actions in the light of the Day of Judgment. Our secret thoughts, let us expose them this morning; they have been lying hidden till they have become moldy; let us bring them out today. My thoughts, how will they look in the light of judgment? My profession of faith, my imaginations, my conceptions, how will they all be when the judgment day will shine on them? My profession of faith, how does that look? I have been baptized in Christ because of my professed faith, I wear the name “Christian,” I preach the gospel, I am a Church officer or a Church member, how will all this stand the light of that tremendous day? When I am put on the scales and weighed, will I be the weight that I am labeled? In that dreadful day will I see the handwriting on the wall, “MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSIN”--“You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting”? or will I hear the gracious sentence which will pronounce me saved in Jesus Christ?

As to my graces, what must they be in the light of judgment?

My own salvation, all the matters of experience and knowledge--how do they all look in that light! I think I have believed: I think I love the Savior: I sometimes hope that I am his; but am I really? Will I be found to be a true believer at the end? Will my love be mere lip service or true affection? Will my graces be mere talk, or will they be found to be the work of God the Holy Spirit? Am I vitally united to Christ or not? Am I a mere pretender, or a true possessor of eternal things? Oh, my soul, ask these questions in the light of that tremendous day. I pray to God we could now go forward to the day of judgment, in thought at any rate; and since I feel myself quite unable to lead you there, let me adopt my Savior’s words: “He says that the day will come when he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. There will be some on his left hand to whom he will say, “I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me. Depart from me, you who are cursed.” Will he say that to you and to me? There will be some on his right hand to whom he will say, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” Will he say that to you and to me? It will be one or the other.

As I stand here this morning, I seem to feel, and I hope you all do too, what a certain man once felt in court. Sentence was about to be given in his case, or, at least he thought the case would be called on immediately, and he rushed to his attorney and he said, “Have we done everything we can do? Are you sure? for if I lose this case I am a ruined man.” His face was white with anxiety. And so it is with you. Have you done everything you can do? for if you lose this case at God’s throne of judgment--you are a ruined man. Come, have you believed in Christ Jesus, or is your faith incomplete? Have you given up your self-righteousness? Have you left your sin? Have you given your heart to the Savior? Is your regeneration still unaccomplished? Are you born again? Are you in Christ? Are you saved? If your case is lost you then you are a ruined man. A man ruined here on earth may still retrieve his fortunes; the bankrupt person may start all over again and still become rich; the captain who has lost a battle may renew the fight and win the next victory and begin the campaign anew; but lose the battle of life, and the fight will be over. Become bankrupt in this life’s business, and you have no more trading. This is the business of eternity.

Soul, is there anything left unfinished? Brother, sister, is there anything left incomplete? for if you lose this case, you are ruined, and that for all eternity. I pray that you look at this day and at all your days, the past and the future, in the light of the day of judgment.

III. But my lamp has a third side to it, bright, gleaming like a cluster of stars. The third light at the end of our lives is the light of HEAVEN.

We hope, when days and years have passed, that many of us will meet to part no more on the other side of the Jordan, in heaven. Now, let us see if we can cast a little light from heaven on things from the present and the past. You have been working--working very hard, and wiping the sweat from your brow, and saying, “My lot in life is not a desirable one. Oh, how tired I feel! I cannot bear it.” Courage, brother, courage, sister; there is rest for the weary; there is eternal rest for the beloved of the Lord, and when you arrive in heaven, how little, how utterly insignificant your labor on earth will seem, even if it will have lasted seventy years. You are in much pain; even now pain shoots through your body; you don’t often know what it is to have an easy hour, and you half murmur to yourself, “Why am I like this? Why did God deal so harshly with me?” Think of heaven, where the inhabitants will never again say, “I am sick;” where there are no groans to mingle with the songs that sing from immortal tongues. Courage, tried one, Oh it will soon be over; it is only a pin’s prick or a moment’s pang, and then eternal glory. Cheer up, and don’t let your patience fail you.

So you have been slandered. You have received shame and reproach because of Christ’s dear name, and you are ready to give up. Come, my friend, look beyond this earth! Can’t you hear the applause of the angels as the conquerors receive, one by one, their eternal crowns? What! Why won’t you fight when there is so much to be won? Must you be carried to the skies on flowery beds of comfort? You must fight if you would reign. Prepare your mind for action and think of the rewards waiting for you in heaven. In the light of heaven, the shame of earth will seem to be less than nothing and vanity.

So you have had many losses and crosses: you were once well-to-do, but now you are poor. You will have to go home today to a very poor house and to a meager meal, Oh, but beloved, you will not be there long. “In my Father’s house are many rooms.” It is only an inn you are staying at for awhile, and, if the accommodation is a little rough, remember you are gone tomorrow; so don’t complain. I pray to God we could look on all our actions in the light of heaven--I mean those who are believers in Jesus Christ. If we could have regrets in heaven, I think it would be that we did not do more than we did for Christ here below. In heaven they cannot feed Christ’s poor, cannot teach the ignorant. They can extol him with songs of praise, but there are some things in which we have the preference over them: they cannot clothe the naked, or visit the sick, or speak words of cheer to those that are sad. If there is anything that can give joy in heaven, surely it will be in looking back on the grace which enabled us to serve the Master. Oh, if I can win souls to Christ, I will be a gainer as well as you. I will have another heaven in their heaven, another joy as it were in their life, and another happiness in their souls’ happiness. And, dear brothers and sisters, if in your Sunday-school teaching, or visiting, or talking to others, you can bring any to glory, you will, if it is possible, multiply your heaven and make it all the more glad and joyful.

Now, look at the life of some Christians. They come here, and if I preach what they call a good sermon, they like it and drink it in. They are willing to eat the best foods and drink the sweetest drinks, but what do they do for Christ? Nothing. What do they give for Christ? Hardly anything. There are a few such people among us, and these are generally the most miserable people you meet with--neither a comfort to others, nor any joy to themselves. Now, I think, even in heaven, though no sorrow should be there, it will only be God’s wiping it away that will keep them from regretting that they did not do what they might have done on earth. We are saved by grace, blessed be God--by grace alone; but, being saved, we desire to make known the savor of Christ in every place, and we believe in heaven we will have joy in having made this known among the sons of men on earth. Look at your joy in the light of heaven, and you will see it differently than it now appears.

IV. Lastly, we now turn to the fourth side of our lamp, and that is the fourth light at the end of our lives, the light of HELL. Let us look at all things in the light of HELL, that dreadful and gloomy light, the glare of the fiery abyss.

Bring that lantern here. Here is a young man very merry. “Ho! ho!” he sings, “Christians are fools.” Hold up the light of Hell. There you are, young man, without God, without hope, with the great iron gate of death shut on you and locked forever, your body and soul in the horrible flames of the wrath of God. Who is the fool now? Oh, when your spirit is damned, as it must be if you live without a Savior, you will not even think of laughing. Laugh now, sir! Scoff now! For a few minutes’ merriment you sold eternal joys. You had a bowl of red stew and you ate it quickly, and you sold your birthright. What do you think of it now? It is an awful thing that men should be content, for a few short hours of silly amusement, to throw away their souls. Look at your fun and games in the glare of the flames of hell. Note that man in agony down in the vault of hell, he made money by sin, and there he is; he gained the whole world and lost his own soul. How does it look now? “I would give fifty thousand dollars,” said a gentleman when he lay dying, “if any man could prove to me, without a doubt, that there is no hell.” That man did not want to believe in a literal hell, and was willing to pay almost anything for some proof to satisfy his conscience, but now, with indescribable pain, he knows hell is real. If lost spirits could return here, surely they would do what Judas did--throw down the thirty pieces of silver in the temple, and curse themselves that they ever took the reward of this world and destroyed their souls.

And how will unbelief look in the flames of hell?

There are no unbelievers anywhere except on earth: there are none in heaven, and there are none in hell. Atheism is a strange thing. Even the demons never fell into that vice, for the Bible says, “the demons believe and shudder.” Yet, there are some of the devil’s children that have gone beyond their father in sin, but how will it look when they are forever lost? When God’s wrath crushes them, they will not be able to doubt his existence. When he tears them in pieces and there is no one to save them, then their sophisticated reasoning, their empty logic, their boasts and showy defiance, will be of no avail. Oh, that they had been wise and had not darkened their foolish hearts, but had turned to the living God!

I have another thought which will come home to some of your spirits with special power. How will procrastination seem when you get to hell?

Some of you have been attending this church for a long time: you have often felt conviction in your hearts, but you have always said “Tomorrow,” “Tomorrow.” You have been aroused and aroused again, but still it has been “Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.” How that word “tomorrow” will ring in your ears when you are actually burning in the fires of hell! What would you not give for another day of mercy, another hour of grace? I feel this morning as if I would do with you what the Roman Ambassadors did with Antiochus. They met him and asked him whether he intended war or peace. He said he hadn’t decided yet; and one of them taking his staff, made a circle around him where he stood, and said, “You must answer before you leave that spot. If you step out of the circle then it is war. Now, war or peace?” And I too would draw a circle around you in the pew this morning, and say to you, “Which will it be, sin or holiness, self or Christ? Will it be grace or hostility, heaven or hell? And I pray you answer that question in the light of hell. It is a dreadful light, but it is a revealing one. It is a fire that will devour the scales that cover your eyes and prevent you from seeing clearly. God grant that it may burn those scales away, that you may now see how dreadful a thing it is to be an enemy of God, and be led by his Holy Spirit to plead for mercy from Jesus Christ even now.

Ah, how will the gospel seem in the light of hell, and how will your indifference to it seem?

When I was thinking of preaching this morning, I wished that I could preach as in that light. To think that there are some to whom I have spoken again and again, who during this year have passed out of this world of hope and into the fires of despair, is a dreadful thought. Persons that occupied these pews, some even stood during the service and listened and heard the gospel--and now they are gone! Did I warn them fairly, truly? If not--if you didn’t warn them, then they perished, but their blood God will require at our hands. My God, by the blood of the Savior, set us free from these men! Oh deliver us from that solemn condemnation. But with those of you that still live, I will be innocent of your blood. Dear listeners, don’t you feel that you are mortal? Don’t you have within you a sense that you are dying? It is a thought that is always with me; life seems so short. It was not always this way with me; but the shortness of life now seems to hang over my mind perpetually, and I suppose it must be so for those of you who are thirty, forty, fifty, or sixty, and who frequently see your friends taken away. Now, since you too must soon die, since there is a world to come, and you believe there is, how can some of you play with these things? How is it that while you are attentive to your business, you neglect the business of your soul? What are you waiting for, my friend? Are you waiting for another season? Doesn’t the Bible say, “Now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation”? What are you waiting for? Oh that you were wise, and would think of the end of your life and seek after God! I call on you, because of the shortness of life, because of the certainty of death, because of the terrors of judgment, because of the glories of heaven, because of the agonies of hell, to seek the narrow path to heaven and follow it. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. This is the gospel, “Whoever believes in Christ is not condemned.” To believe is to trust. Oh, that you may have grace to trust your souls with the Lord Jesus now and forever, and then we will not need to fear those words, “At the end,” nor the four lights at the end of our lives: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. God bless you, for his name’s sake. Amen.

Verse 22

Sinners Bound with the Cords of Sin February 13th, 1870 by C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892)

"His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins." Proverbs 5:22 .

The first sentence has reference to a net, in which birds or beasts are taken. The ungodly man first of all finds sin to be a bait, and, charmed by its apparent pleasantness he indulges in it, and then he becomes entangled in its meshes so that he cannot escape. That which first attracted the sinner, afterwards detains him. Evil habits are soon formed, the soul readily becomes accustomed to evil, and then, even if the man should have lingering thoughts of better things, and form frail resolutions to amend, his iniquities hold him captive like a bird in the fowler's snare. You have seen the foolish fly descend into the sweet which is spread to destroy him, he sips, and sips again, and by-and-by he plunges boldly in to feast himself greedily: when satisfied, he attempts to fly, but the sweet holds him by the feet and clogs his wings; he is a victim, and the more he struggles the more surely is he held. Even so is it with the sins of ungodly men, they are at first a tempting bait, and afterwards a snare. Having sinned, they become so bewitched with sin, that the scriptural statement is no exaggeration: "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil." The first sentence of the text also may have reference to an arrest by an officer of law. The transgressor's own sins shall take him, shall seize him; they bear a warrant for arresting him, they shall judge him, they shall even execute him. Sin, which at the first bringeth to man a specious pleasure, ere long turneth into bitterness, remorse, and fear. Sin is a dragon, with eyes like stars, but it carrieth a deadly sting in its tail. The cup of sin, with rainbow bubbles on its brim, is black with deep damnation in its dregs. O that men would consider this, and turn from their delusions. To bring torment to the guilty, there is little need that God should, literally in the world to come, pile up Tophet with its wood and much smoke, nor even that the pit should be digged for the ungodly in order to make them miserable; sin shall of itself bring forth death. Leave a man to his own sins, and hell itself surrounds him; only suffer a sinner to do what he wills, and to give his lusts unbridled headway, and you have secured him boundless misery; only allow the seething caldron of his corruptions to boil at its own pleasure, and the man must inevitably become a vessel filled with sorrow. Be assured that sin is the root of bitterness. Gild the pill as you may, iniquity is death. Sweet is an unholy morsel in the mouth, but it will be wormwood in the bowels. Let but man heartily believe this, and surely he will not so readily be led astray. "Surely in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird," and shall man be more foolish than the fowls of the air? will he wilfully pursue his own destruction? will he wrong his own soul? Sin, then, becomes first a net to hold the sinner by the force of custom and habit, and afterwards, a sheriffs officer to arrest him, and to scourge him with its inevitable results. The second sentence of our text speaks of the sinner being holden with cords, and a parable may be readily fashioned out of the expression. The lifelong occupation of the ungodly man is to twist ropes of sin. All his sins are as so much twine and cord out of which ropes may be made. His thoughts and his imaginations are so much raw material, and while he thinks of evil, while he contrives transgression, while he lusts after filthiness, while he follows after evil devices, while with head, and hand, and heart he pursues eagerly after mischief, he is still twisting evermore the cords of sin which are afterwards to bind him. The binding meant is that of a culprit pinioned for execution. Iniquity pinions a man, disables him from delivering himself from its power, enchains his soul, and inflicts a bondage on the spirit far worse than chaining of the body. Sin cripples all desires after holiness, damps every aspiration after goodness, and thus, fettering the man hand and foot, delivers him over to the executioner, which executioner shall be the wrath of God, but also sin itself, in the natural consequences which in every case must flow from it. Samson could burst asunder green withes and new ropes, but when at last his darling sin had bound him to his Delilah, that bond he could not snap, though it cost him his eyes. Make a man's will a prisoner, and he is a captive indeed. Determined independence of spirit walks at freedom in a tyrant's Bastille, and defies a despot's hosts; but a mind enslaved by sin builds its own dungeon, forges its own fetters, and rivets on its chains. It is slavery indeed when the iron enters into the soul. Who would not scorn to make himself a slave to his baser passions? and yet the mass of men are such the cords of their sins bind them. Thus, having introduced to you the truth which this verse teaches, namely, the captivating, enslaving power of sin, I shall advance to our first point of consideration. This is a solution to a great mystery; but then, secondly, it is itself a greater mystery; and when we have considered these two matters it will be time for us to note what is the practical conclusion from this line of thought. I. First, then, the doctrine of the text, that iniquity entraps the wicked as in a net, and binds them as with cords is A SOLUTION OF A GREAT MYSTERY. When you and I first began to do good by telling out the gospel, we labored under the delusion that as soon as our neighbors heard of the blessed way of salvation they would joyfully receive it, and be saved in crowds. We have long ago seen that pleasant delusion dispelled; we find that our position is that of the serpent-charmer with the deaf adder, charm we ever so wisely, men will not hear so as to receive the truth. Like the ardent reformer, we have found out that old Adam is too strong for young Melancthon. We now perceive that for a sinner to receive the gospel involves a work of grace that shall change his heart and renew his nature. Yet none the less is it a great mystery that it should be so. It is one of the prodigies of the god of this world that he makes men love sin, and abide in indifference as if they were fully content to be lost. It is a marvel of marvels that man should be so base as to reject Christ, and abide in wilful and wicked unbelief. I will try and set forth this mystery, in the way in which, I dare say, it has struck many an honest hearted worker for Jesus Christ. Is it not a mysterious thing that men should be content to abide in a state of imminent peril? Every unconverted man is already condemned. Our Lord has said it: "He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed on the Son of God." Every unregenerate man is not only liable to the wrath of God in the future, but the wrath of God abideth on him. It is on him now, it always will remain upon him; as long as he is what he is, it abideth on him. And yet in this state men do not start, they are not amazed or alarmed, they are not even anxious. Sabbath after Sabbath they are reminded of their unhappy position: it makes us unhappy to think they should be in such a state, but they are strangely at ease. The sword of vengeance hangs over them by a single hair, yet sit they at their banquets, and they laugh and sport as though there were no God, no wrath to come, no certainty of appearing before the judgment-seat of Christ. See a number of persons in a train that has broken down. The guard has only to intimate that another train is approaching, and that it may perhaps dash into the carriages and mangle the passengers; he has only to give half a hint, and see how the carriage doors fly open, how the travelers rush up the embankment, each one so eager for his own preservation as to forget his fellow's. Yet here are men and women by hundreds and thousands, with the fast-rushing train of divine vengeance close behind them; they may almost hear the sound of its thundering wheels, and, lo, they sit in all quietness, exposed to present peril and in danger of a speedy and overwhelming destruction. "'Tis strange. 'tis passing strange, 'tis wonderful." Here is a mystery indeed, that can only be understood in the light of the fact that these foolish beings are taken by their sing, and bound by the cords of their iniquities. Be it ever remembered that before very long these unconverted men and women, many of whom are present this morning, will be in a stale whose wretchedness it is not possible for language fully to express. Within four-and-twenty hours their spirits may be summoned before the bar of God; and, according to this book, which partially uplifts the veil of the future, the very least punishment that can fall upon an unconverted soul will cause it "weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth." All they had endured, of whom it is written, that they wept and gnashed their teeth, was to be shut out into outer darkness, nothing more; no stripes had then fallen, they had not yet been shut up in the prison-house of hell, only the gate of heaven was shut, only the light of glory was hid; and straightway there was weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. What, then, will be the woe of the lost when positive punishment is inflicted? As for what they will endure who have beard the gospel, but have wilfully rejected it, we have some faint notion from the Master's words: "It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for them." We know that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, for "our God is a consuming fire." From this platform there rings full often that question, "How shall ye escape if ye neglect so great salvation?" And yet for all this, men are willing to pass on through time into eternity regardless of the escape which God provides, turning aside from the only salvation which can rescue them from enduring "the blackness of darkness for ever." O reason, art thou utterly fled? Is every sinner altogether brutish? If we should meet with a man condemned to die, and tell him that pardon was to be had, would he hear us with indifference? Would he abide in the condemned cell and use no means for obtaining the boon of life and liberty? Yes, there awaits the sinner a more awful doom, and a more terrible sentence, and we are sent to publish a sure pardon from the God of heaven; and yet thousands upon thousands give us no deep heartfelt attention, but turn aside and perish in their sins. O that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep for the folly of the race to which I belong, and mourn over the destruction of my fellow men! It often strikes us with wonder that men do not receive the gospel of Jesus Christ, when we recollect that the gospel is so plain. If it were a great mystery one might excuse the illiterate from attending to it. If the plan of salvation could only be discovered by the attentive perusal of a long series of volumes, and if it required a classical training and a thorough education, why then the multitude of the poor and needy, whose time is taken up with earning their bread, might have same excuse; but there is under heaven no truth more plain than this, "He that believeth on the Lord Jesus hath everlasting life;" "He that believeth and is baptised, shall be saved." To believe that is, simply to trust Christ. How plain! There is no road, though it ran straight as an arrow, that can be more plain than this. Legible only by the light they give, but all so legible that be who runs may read, stand these soul-quickening words, "Believe and live." Trust Christ and your sins are forgiven; you are saved. This is so plain a precept, that I may call it a very A B C for infants, yet men receive it not. Are they not indeed holden by the cords of their sins when they refuse to obey? Moreover, brethren, there is a wonderful attractiveness in the gospel. If the gospel could possibly be a revelation of horrors piled on horrors, if there were something in it utterly inconsistent with reason, or something that shocked all the sensitive affections of our better part, we might excuse mankind, but the gospel is just this: man is lost, but God becomes man to save him, "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." Out of infinite love to his enemies the Son of God took upon himself human flesh, that he might suffer in the room and stead of men what they ought to have suffered. The doctrine of substitution, while it wondrously magnifies the grace of God and satisfies the justice of God, methinks ought to strike you all with love because of the disinterested affection which it reveals on Jesus Christ's part. O King of Glory, dost thou bleed for me? O Prince of Life, canst thou lie shrouded in the grave for me? Doth God stoop from his glory to be spat upon by sinful lips? Doth he stoop from the splendor of heaven to be "despised and rejected of men," that men may be saved? Why, it ought to win every human ear, it ought to entrance every human heart. Was ever love like this? Go ye to your poets, and see if they have ever imagined anything nobler than the love of Christ the Son of God for the dying sons of men! Go to your philosophers, and see if in all their maxims they have ever taught a diviner philosophy than that of Christ's life, or ever have imagined in their pictures of what men ought to be, an heroic love like that which Christ in very deed displayed! We lift before you no gory banner that might sicken your hearts; we bring before you no rattling chains of a tyrant's domination; but we lift up Jesus crucified, and "Love" is written on the banner that is waved in the forefront of our hosts; we bid you yield to the gentle sway of love, and not to the tyranny of terror. Alas! men must be bound, indeed, and fettered fast by an accursed love to sin, or else the divine attractions of a crucified Redeemer would win their hearts. Consider, my friends, you who love the souls of your fellow men, how marvellous it is that men should not receive the gospel when the commandment of the gospel is not burdensome! Methinks if it had been written that no man should enter heaven except by the way of martyrdom, it had been wisdom for every one of us to give our bodies to be burned, or to be stretched upon the rack; yea, if there had been no path to escape from the wrath of God, but to be flayed alive with Bartholomew, enduring present but exquisite torture, it would have been but a cheap price for an escape from wrath, and an entrance into heaven. But I find in God's word prescribed as the way of salvation, no such physical agonies. No austerities are commanded; not even the milder law which governed the Pharisee when he "fasted thrice in the week." Only this is written "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved;" and the precept of the Christian's life is, "Love thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself." Most pleasant duties these of love! What more sweet? What more delightful than to permit the soul to flow out in streams of affection? The ways of true religion are not irksome, her ways are pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. What, heaven given for believing? What, heaven's gate opened only for knocking, and boons all priceless bestowed for nothing but the asking? Yet they will not ask, they will not knock. Alas, my God, what creatures are men! Alas, O sin, what monsters hast thou made mankind, that they will forget their own interests, and wrong their own souls! Further, it is clear that men must be fast held by the bondage of their sins when we recollect that, according to the confession of the most of them, the pleasures of sin are by no means great. I have heard them say themselves that they have been satiated after a short season of indulgence We know how true the word is, "Who hath woe? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine." No form of sin has ever been discovered yet that has yielded satisfaction. You shall look at those who have had all that heart could wish, and have without restraint indulged their passions, and you shall find them to be in their latter end amongst the most wretched rather than the most satisfied of mankind. Yet for these pleasures I think I degrade the word when I call them pleasures for these pleasures they are willing to pawn their souls and risk everlasting woe; and all this while, be it remembered, to add to the wonder, there are pleasures to be found in godliness; they do not deny this, they cannot without belying their own observation. We who are at least as honest as they are, bear our testimony that we never knew what true happiness was till we gave our hearts to Christ; but since then our peace has been like a river. We have had our afflictions, we have suffered grievous bodily pain, we have endured mental depression, we have been heavily burdened, we have borne many trials; but we can say

"We would not change our blest estate For all the world calls good or great."

"Happy are the people whose God is the Lord!" We can set our seal to this experimentally. See ye then, my brethren, these poor souls will prefer the pleasures that mock them to the pleasures that alone can satisfy. If we had to die like dogs, it would be worth while to be a Christian. If there were no hereafter, and our only consideration were who should enjoy this life the best, it would be the wisest thing to be a servant of God and a soldier of the cross. I say not it would ensure our being rich, I say not it would ensure our being respected, I say not it would ensure our walking smoothly and free from outward trouble; but I do say that because of "the secret something which sweetens all," because of the profound serenity which true religion brings, the Christian life out-masters every other, and there is none to be compared therewith. But think ye for awhile what the ungodly man's life is! I can only compare it to that famous diabolical invention of the Inquisition of ancient times. They had as a fatal punishment for heretics, what they called the "Virgin's Kiss." There stood in a long corridor the image of the Virgin. She outstretched her arms to receive her heretic child; she looked fair, and her dress was adorned with gold and tinsel, but as soon as the poor victim came into her arms the machinery within began to work, and the arms closed and pressed the wretch closer and closer to her bosom, which was set with knives, and daggers, and lancets, and razors, and everything that could cut and tear him, till he was ground to pieces in the horrible embrace; and such is the ungodly man's life. It standeth like a fair virgin, and with witching smile it seems to say, "Come to my bosom, no place so warm and blissful as this;" and then anon it begins to fold its arms of habit about the sinner, and he sins again and again, brings misery into his body, perhaps, if he fall into some form of sin, stings his soul, makes his thoughts a case of knives to torture him, and grinds him to powder beneath the force of his own iniquities. Men perceive this, and dare not deny it; and yet into this virgin's bosom they still thrust themselves, and reap the deep damnation that iniquity must everywhere involve. Alas, alas, my God! And now, once more, this terrible mystery, which is only solved by men's being held by their sins, has this added to it, that all the while in the case of most of you now present, all that I have said is believed, and a great deal of it is felt. I mean this: if I were talking with persons who did not believe they had a soul, or believe in the judgment to come, or believe in the penalty of sin, or believe in the reward of righteousness, I should see some reason why they rejected the great salvation; but the most of you who attend this house of prayer I think I might say all have scarcely ever had a doubt about these things. You would be very much horrified if any one would insinuate that you did not believe the Bible to be the word of God. You have a little Pharisaism in your soul, that you think you are not as scoffers are, nor infidels. I own you are not, but I grieve to say I think you are more inconsistent than they. If these things be a fiction, well, sirs, your course is rational; but if these things be realities, what shall I say for you when I plead with God on your behalf? What excuse can I make for you? If you profess to believe these things, act as though you believe them; if you do not, practically act so. Why do you profess to own them as the truth? The case is worse, for you not only believe these thing's to be true, but some of you have felt their power. You have gone home from this place, and you could not help it, you have sought your chamber and bowed your knee in prayer; such prayer as it was, for, alas! your goodness has been like the morning cloud and the early dew. I know some of you who have had to break off some of your sins, for your conscience would not let you rest in them. Yet you are unbelievers still, still you are undecided, still you are unsaved, and at this moment, if your soul were required of you, nothing would be in prospect but a fearful looking for of judgment and of fiery indignation. O my hearer, you whose conscience has been at times awakened, in whom the arrows of the great King have found a lodging place, in whom they are rankling still, yield, I pray thee, yield to the divine thrusts, and give up thy contrite spirit to thy Redeemer's hands. But if thou do not, what shall I say to thee? The kingdom of God has been thrust from you by yourselves. Be sure of this, it has come near you, and in coming near it has involved solemn responsibilities which I pray you may not have to feel the weight of in the world to come. Here, then, stands the riddle, that man is so set against God and his Christ that he never will accept eternal salvation until the Holy Spirit, by a supernatural work, overcomes his will and turns the current of his affections; and why is this? The answer lies in the text, because his own iniquities have taken him, and he is holden with the cords of his sin. For this reason he will not come unto Christ that he may have life; for this reason he cannot come, except the Father which hath sent Christ draw him. II. But now, secondly, I pass on to observe that though this is the solution of one mystery, IT IS IN ITSELF A GREATER MYSTERY. It is a terrible mystery that man should be so great a fool, so mad a creature as to be held by cords apparently so feeble as the cords of his own sins. To be bound by reason is honorable; to be hold by compulsion, if you cannot resist it, is at least not discreditable; but to be held simply by sin, by sin and nothing else, is a bondage which is disgraceful to the human name. It lowers man to the last degree, to think that be should want no fetter to hold him but the fetter of his own evil lusts and desires. Let us just think of one or two cords, and you will see this. One reason why men receive not Christ and are not saved, is because they are hampered by the sin of forgetting God. Think of that for a minute. Men forget God altogether. The commission of many a sin has been prevented by the presence of a child. In the presence of a fellow creature, ordinarily a man will feel himself under some degree of restraint. Yet that eye which never sleeps, the eye of the eternal God, exercises no restraint on the most of men. If there were a child in that chamber thou wouldst respect it-but God being there thou canst sin with impunity. If thy mother or thy father were there thou wouldst not dare offend, but God who made thee and whose will can crush thee, thy lawful sovereign, thou takest no more account of him than though he were a dog, yea, not so much as that. Oh, strange thing that men should thus act! And yet with many it is not because of the difficulty of thinking of God. Men of study, for instance, if they are considering the works of God, must be led up to thoughts of God. Galen was converted from being an atheist while in the process of dissecting the human body; he could not but see the finger of God in the nerves and sinews, and all the rest of the wonderful embroidery of the human frame. There is not an emmet or an infusorial animalcule beneath the microscope but what as plainly as tongue can speak, saith, "Mortal, think of God who made thee and me." Some men travel daily over scenes that naturally suggest the Creator; they go down to the sea in ships, and do business on great waters, where they must see the works of the Lord, and yet they even manage to become the most boisterous blasphemers against the sacred majesty of the Most High, in his very temple where everything speaks of his glory. But you will tell me perhaps, some of you, that you are not engaged in such pursuits. I reply, I know it. Many of you have to labor with your hands for your daily bread, in occupations requiring but little mental exercise. So much the more guilty then are you that when your mind is not necessarily taken up with other things, you still divert it from all thoughts of God. The working man often find is it very possible to spend his leisure hours in politics, and to amuse his working hours by meditating upon schemes more or less rational concerning the government of his country, and will he dare to tell me therefore that he could not during that time think of God? There is an aversion to God in your heart, my brother, or else it would not be that from Monday morning to Saturday night you forget him altogether. Even when sitting here you find it by no means a pleasant thing to be reminded of your God, and yet if I brought up the recollection of your mother, perhaps in heaven, the topic would not be displeasing to you. What owe you to your mother compared with what you owe to your God? If I spoke to you of some dear friend who has assisted you in times of distress, you would be pleased that I had touched upon such a chord; and may I not talk with you concerning your God, and ask you why do you forget him? Have you good thoughts for all but the best? Have you kind thoughts of gratitude for every friend but the best friend that man can have? My God! my God! why do men treat thee thus? Brightest, fairest, best, kindest, and most tender, and yet forgotten by the objects of thy care! If men were far away from God, and it were a topic abstruse and altogether beyond reach, something might be said. But imagine a fish that despised the ocean and yet lived in it, a man who should be unconscious of the air he breathes! "In him we live and move and have our being; we are also his offspring." He sends the frost, and he will send the spring; he sends the seed-time and the harvest, and every shower that drops with plenty comes from him, and every wind that blows with health speeds forth from his mouth. Wherefore then is he to be forgotten when everything reminds you of him? This is a sin, a cruel sin, a cursed sin, a sin indeed that binds men hard and fast, that they will not come to Christ that they may have life; but it is strange, it is beyond all miracles a miracle, that such a folly as this should hold men from coming to Christ. Another sin binds all unregenerate hearts; it is the sin of not loving the Christ of God. I am not about to charge any person here with such sins as adultery, or theft, or blasphemy, but I will venture to say that this is a sin masterly and gigantic, which towers as high as any other the sin of not loving the Christ of God. Think a minute. Here is one who came into the world out of pure love, for no motive but mercy, with nothing to gain, but though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor; why then is he not loved? The other day there rode through these streets a true hero, a brave bold man who set his country free, and I do remember how I heard your shouts in yonder street, and you thronged to look into the lion-like face of Italy's liberator. I blame you not, I longed to do the same myself, he well deserved your shouts and your loudest praises. But what had he done compared with what the Christ of God has done in actually laying down his life to redeem men from bondage, yielding up himself to the accursed death of the cross that man might be saved through him? Where are your acclamations, sirs, for this greater Hero? Where are the laurels that you cast at his feet? Is it nothing to you, is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by, is it nothing to you that Jesus should die? Such a character, so inexpressibly lovely, and yet despised! Such a salvation, so inexpressibly precious, and yet rejected! Oh, mystery of iniquity! indeed, the depths of sin are almost as fathomless as the depths of God, and the transgressions of the wicked all but as infinite in infamy as God is infinite in love. I might also speak of sins against the Holy Ghost that men commit, in that they live and even die without reverential thoughts of him or care about him; but I shall speak of one sin, and that is the mystery that men should be held by the sin of neglecting their souls. You meet with a person who neglects his body, you call him fool, if, knowing that there is a disease, he will not seek a remedy. If, suffering, from some fatal malady, he never attempts to find a cure, you think the man is fit only for a lunatic asylum. But a person who neglects his soul, be is but one of so numerous a class, that we overlook the madness. Your body will soon die, it is but as it were the garment of yourself and will be worn out; but you yourself are better than your body as a man is better than the dress he wears. Why spend you then all thoughts about this present life and give none to the life to come? It has long been a mystery who was the man in the iron mask. We believe that the mystery was solved some years ago, by the conjecture that he was the twin brother of Louis XIV., King of France, who, fearful lest he might have his throne disturbed by his twin brother, whose features were extremely like his own, encased his face in a mask of iron and shut him up in the Bastille for life. Your body and your soul are twin brothers. Your body, as though it were jealous of your soul, encases it as in an iron mask of spiritual ignorance, lest its true lineaments, its immortal lineage should be discovered, and shuts it up within the Bastille of sin, lest getting liberty and discovering its royalty, it should win the mastery over the baser nature. But what a wretch was that Louis XIV., to do such a thing to his own brother! How brutal, how worse than the beasts that perish! But, sir, what art thou if thou doest thus to thine own soul, merely that thy body may be satisfied, and thy earthly nature may have a present gratification? O sirs, be not so unkind, so cruel to yourselves. But yet this sin of living for the mouth and living for the eye, this sin of living for what ye shall eat and what ye shall drink, and wherewithal ye shall be clothed, this sin of living by the clock within the narrow limits of the time that ticks by the pendulum, this sin of living as if this earth were all and there were nought beyond this is the sin that holds this City of London, and holds the world, and binds it like a martyr to the stake to perish, unless it be set free. Generally, however, there also lies some distinct form of actual sin at the bottom of most men's impenitence. I will not attempt to make a guess, my dear hearer, as to what it may be that keeps thee from Christ, but without difficulty I could, I think, state what these sins generally are. Some men would fain be saved, but they would not like to tale up the cross and be despised as Christians. Some would fain follow Christ, but they will not give up their self-righteous pride; they want to have a part of the glory of salvation. Some men have a temper, which they do not intend to try to restrain. Others have a secret sin, too sweet for them to give it up; it is like a right arm, and they cannot come to the cutting of it off. Some enjoy company which is attractive, but destructive, and from that company they cannot fly. Men one way or another are held fast like birds with birdlime, till the fowler comes and takes them to their destruction. O that they were wise, for then they might be awakened out of this folly! But this still remaineth the mystery of mysteries, that those sins absurd and deadly, bind men as with cords, and hold them fast like a bull in a net. THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER IS THIS, a message sinner to thee, and saint, to thee. Sinner, to thee. Thou art held fast by thy sins, and I fear me much thou wilt be held so till thou perish, perish everlastingly. Man, does not this concern you? I lay last night by the hour together on my bed awake, tossing with a burden on my heart, and I tell thee that only burden that I had was thy soul. I cannot endure it, man, that thou shouldst be cast into the "lake that burneth with fire and brimstone." I believe that book as thou dost; believing it, I am alarmed at the prospect which awaits the unconverted. The more I look into the subject of the world to come, the more I am impressed that all those who would lessen our ideas of the judgment that God will bring upon the wicked, are waging war against God and against virtue and the best interests of men. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." Do not try it, my friend, I pray thee do not try it. Run not this risk, this certainty of endless misery, I beseech thee, dare it not! What sayest thou, "What then should I do?" I venture to reply in the words of one of old, "Break off thy sins by righteousness, for it is time to seek the Lord." But thou repliest, "How can I break them off? they are like cords and bonds." Ah, soul, here is another part of thy misery, that thou hast destroyed thyself, but thou canst not save thyself; thou hast woven the net, thou hast made it fast and firm, but thou canst not tear it in pieces. Bat there is One who can, there is One upon whom the Spirit of the Lord descended that he might loose the prisoner. There is a heart that feels for thee in heaven, and there is One mighty to save, who can rescue thee. Breathe that prayer, "O set me free, thou Liberator of captive souls;" breathe the prayer now, and believe that he can deliver thee, and thou shalt yet, captive as thou art, go free, and this shall be thy ransom price, his precious blood; and this shall be the privilege of thy ransomed life, to love and praise him who hath redeemed thee from going down into the pit. But I said the conclusion of the whole matter had something to do with the child of God. It has this to do with him. Dear brother and sister in Christ, by the love you bear to your fellow sinners, never help to make the bonds of their sins stronger than they are you will do so if you are inconsistent. They will say, "Why, such a one professes to be a saved man, and yet see how he lives!" Will you make excuses for sinners? It was said of Judah, by the prophet, that she had become a comfort to Sodom and Gomorrah. O never do this; never let the ungodly have to say, "There is nothing in it; it is all a lie; it is all a mere pretense; we may as well continue in sin, for see how these Christians act!" No, brethren, they have bonds enough without your tightening them or adding to them. In the next place, never cease to warn sinners. Do not stand by and see them die without lifting up a warning note. A house on fire, and you see it as you go to your morning's labor, and yet never lift up the cry of "Fire!" a man perishing, and yet no tears for him! Can it be so? At the foot of Mr. Richard Knill's likeness I notice these words, "Brethren, the heathen are perishing, will you let them perish?" I would like to have each of you apply to your own conscience the question, "Sinners are perishing, will you let them perish without giving them at least, a warning of what the result of sin must be?" My brethren, I earnestly entreat you who know the gospel to tell it out to others. It is God's way of cutting the bonds which confine men's souls; be instant, in season and out of season, in publishing the good news of liberty to the captives through the redeeming Christ. And lastly, as you and I cannot set these captives free, let us look to him who can. O let our prayers go up and let our tears drop down for sinners. Let it come to an agony, for I am persuaded we shall never get much from God by way of conversion till we feel we must have it, until our soul breaketh for the longing that it hath for the salvation of souls: when your cry is like that of Rachel, "Give me children or I die I" you shall not long be spiritually barren. When you must have converts, or your heart will break, God will hear you and send you an answer. The Lord bless you! May none of you be held by the cords of your sins, but may ye be bound with cords to the horns of God's altar as a happy and willing sacrifice to him that loved you. The Lord bless you for Jesus' sake.