The Cup of Wrath! (Andrew Bonar, 1810–1892)

 

Psalms 75:8

“For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup, and the wine is red; it is full of mixture; and he poureth out of the same: but the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them.”

It will help greatly to the right apprehension of this solemn subject, to notice that Christ is the speaker of these sober truths. They cannot, then, have been spoken harshly; they must have been uttered in all tenderness.

This shall be in the day when He returns to judge the earth. It is He, meanwhile, who upholds all by the word of His power; He keeps the world from falling into ruin; He it is who sustains that blue firmament, as well as earths foundations, "I bear up the pillars thereof" — and were I to withhold my hand, all would tumble into ruin.

Oh that an unthinking world would consider! Oh that fools would learn wisdom, and the proud fall down before their Lord. For the Judge shall surely come, with the cup of red wine in His hand — a cup of wrath, of which every rebellious one must drink to the dregs! The horns of the wicked shall soon be laid low, and the righteous alone exalted (Psalm 75:9-10).

It is of this cup, that we this day wish to speak to you. It gives an alarming, awakening view of our God and Savior. It is not "God in Christ reconciling the world to Himself," but God the Judge, Christ the Judge. It is not the King with the golden scepter, inviting all to draw near — it is the King risen up in wrath, in the evening of the day of grace, to "judge all the wicked of the earth."

Oh there is a Hell, an endless Hell, awaiting the ungodly! The Judge warns us of it — in order that none of us may be cast into that tremendous woe! Say not in your hearts, "God is too loving and merciful ever to condemn a soul to such woe." If you continue in sin, you shall know too late that the Judge does condemn; not because He is not infinitely loving, but because your sin compels Him so to do. Listen to what is written, and you will every unbeliever shall drink of this wine of God's indignation.

 

I. The Cup of Wrath

The general idea of the verse is, that there is wrath against sin to be manifested by God, terrible beyond conception. As it is written in Ezekiel 18:4, "The soul that sins, it shall die;" and Psalm 7:11-12, "God is angry with the wicked every day. If he turns not — He will whet His sword; He has bent His bow, and made it ready. He has prepared for him the instruments of death." In Psalm 11:6-7, "Upon the wicked He shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest: this is the portion of their cup. For the righteous Lord loves righteousness." In Psalm 21:9, "You shall make them as a fiery oven in the time of Your anger." In Job 36:18, "Because there is wrath, beware lest He take you away with His stroke; then a great ransom cannot deliver you." In Romans 2:5 we read, You "treasures up unto yourself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;" and in Revelation 14:9-10, "If any man worships the beast, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of His holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb!" Can words be found more emphatic to express God's indignation at man's sin?

"A CUP" is spoken of. A measured out portion. (Psalm 11:6 and Psalm 16:5, "The Lord is the portion of my cup"). It is frequently used to express a full amount; as when fulfillment of curse is called the "cup of trembling," (Isaiah 51:22); and in Ezekiel 23:31-33, wrath upon Samaria is, "the cup of Samaria."

God's wrath shall be given forth in a measured portion, deliberately and fairly considered. There shall be nothing of caprice, nothing arbitrary, in God's judgment on sin; all shall be fairly adjusted. Here are the sins — there is the cup, of a size proportioned to the sin, and full. God's perfections direct and dictate the filling of it. It is "a cup of red wine." He elsewhere calls it "The wine of my fury;" and Revelation 16:19, it is "Wine of the fierceness of His wrath." In the East, red wine was usually the strongest; but besides, the fiery nature of the contents is indicated by the color.

This "red wine" is pressed out of the grapes by the divine attributes. It must be the concentrated essence of wrath; no weak potion, but one like that in Jeremiah 25:16, where they "drink, and are moved, and are mad;" or that in Ezekiel 23:32, 33, "A cup deep and large; it contains much; a cup of astonishment and desolation, filled with drunkenness and sorrow."

It is "mixed with spices." This signifies that the wine's natural quality has been strengthened; its force has been intensified by various ingredients cast into it. Such is the sense of "mingled wine" in Isaiah 5:22, and in Proverbs 9:5, "Come... drink of the wine which I have mingled." We must distinguish this from the expression "without mixture," in Revelation 14:10, where the speaker means to say, that there is no infusion of water to weaken the strength of the wine.

Here in Psalm 95, there is everything that may enhance the bitterness of the cup; and let us ask, What may be these various ingredients? From every side of the lost sinner's nature, forms of misery shall arise. The body, as well as the soul, shall be steeped in never-ending anguish, amid the unceasing wretchedness of eternal exile and lonely imprisonment. Further, each attribute of Godhead casts something into the cup!

Righteousness is there, so that the rich man in Hell (Luke 16) dare not hint that his torment is too great. Mercy and Love stand by and cast on it their ingredients, testifying that the sinner was dealt with in longsuffering, and salvation placed within his reach. O the aggravation which this thought will lend to misery. Omnipotence contributes to it; the lost man in the hands of the Almighty is utterly helpless, as weak as a worm! Eternity is an ingredient, telling that this wrath endures as long as God lives. And truth is there, declaring that all this is what God spoke, and so cannot be altered without overturning His throne.

Yet more! While shame and contempt, and the consciousness of being disowned by every holy being, fiercely sting the soul — there are ingredients cast in by the sinner himself. His conscience asserts and attests that this woe is all deserved, and the man loathes himself. Memory recalls past opportunities and times of hope despised. Sin goes on increasing, and passions rage; cravings gnaw the unsatisfied soul with eternal hunger! It may be that every particular sin will contribute to the mixture — a woe for lusts gratified; a woe for every act of drunkenness, and every falsehood and dishonesty; a woe for every rejected invitation, and every threatening disregarded. Who can tell what more may be meant by the words: "mixed with spices?"

It has "dregs" in it. The dregs lie at the bottom, out of sight, but are the bitterest. Do these mean hidden woes not yet conceived of by any? Such as may be hinted at in the words, "Better he had never been born!" Such as Christ's woes seem to speak of? These shall be the reverse of the saved man's joys, "which never have entered the heart" to imagine!

Backsliders seem sometimes to have begun to taste these dregs. Apostates, like Spira, have shown a little of what they may be. But oh, the reality in the ages to come! For it shall be the wrath of Him whose breath makes the mountains smoke, and rocks earth to its center. O the staggering madness of eternal despair!

God "pours out of the same." "The wicked shall drink it down to its very dregs!" They are not meant to be merely shown; this is not a cup whose contents shall only be exhibited and then withdrawn. No, the wicked must "drink it" and cannot refuse. When Socrates, the Athenian sage, was adjudged to drink the cup of poison, he was able to protest his innocence, and thus to abate the bitterness of the draught, though he took it as awarded by the laws of his country. Here, however, there shall be nothing like protest, nothing of and such alleviation of the awful draught which the sinner must drink! "God pours out," and the guilty soul "shall drink it down to its very dregs!"

Job 27:22, says "They would gladly flee out of his hand," but cannot, for it is written, "God shall cast upon him, and not spare." In Jeremiah 25:15-16, we have the Lord most peremptorily commanding, "Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. When they drink it, they will stagger and go mad." And further, He insists, verse 28, "But if they refuse to take the cup from your hand and drink, tell them, 'This is what the LORD Almighty says: You must drink it!" "They shall drink of the wrath of the Almighty" (Job 21:20).

And what do those words already quoted in Revelation 14:10 mean? "He, too, will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb!"

It shall not, on God's part, be a mere silent feeling of indignation at sin; there must be infliction of curse. There is no thunder while the electricity sleeps in the cloud. The seven seals showed no deliverance for earth, while unbroken; the seven trumpets summoned no avengers, till sounded; the seven vials brought down no judgment, while only held in the angels' hands. Ah yes, the penalty must be exacted, and it will require eternity to exact it all!

O fellow-sinner, we have tried to say something of this doom; but what are words of man? You have seen a porous vessel, in which was fine flavored liquor. Outside you tasted the moisture, and it gave a slight idea of what was within; but slight indeed. So our words today. And remember each new sin of yours will throw more ingredients into the mixture. It is the merciful One Himself, who speaks in Ezekiel 22:14: "Can your hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with you? I the Lord have spoken it — and will do it." It is dreadful to read and hear this proclamation of wrath; but it is all given in order to compel us to flee from it. As one of our poets (Montgomery) sings:

"Mercy has writ the lines of judgment here;
 None who from the earth can read them, need despair."
 

II. The story of One who drank this cup to the dregs!

We would not leave you merely contemplating the terrors of that wrath. We go on, in connection with it, to speak of one whose history has a strange bearing on our case.

There has been only One who has ever "drunk this cup to its very dregs!"

Cain has been drinking it for 5,000 years and finds his punishment greater than he can bear, but has not come to the dregs.

Judas had been drinking it for some 2000 years, often crying out with a groan that shakes Hell, "Oh that I had never been born! Oh that I had never seen or heard of the Lord Jesus Christ!" But he has not reached the dregs.

The fallen angels have not come near the dregs: for they have not arrived at the judgment of the Great Day.

The only One who has taken, tasted, drunk, and wrung out the bitterest of the bitter dregs — has been the Judge Himself, the Lord Jesus!

You know how often, when on earth, He spoke of it. "Are you able to drink the cup that I shall drink of?" (Matthew 20:22). "The cup which My Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?" (John 18:11). The universe saw Him with it at His lips. It was our cup of trembling; the cup in which the wrath due to the "multitude which no man can number" was mixed. What wrath, what woe! A few drops made Him cry, "Now is my soul deeply troubled!" In the garden, the sight of it wrung out the strange, mysterious words, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death!" though God-man, He staggered at what He saw, and went on trembling.

The next day, on Calvary, He drank it all! I suppose the three hours of darkness may have been the time when He "was drinking down the dregs"; for then arose from His broken heart the wail which so appealed to the heart of the Father, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!" As He ended the last drop, and cried out, "It is finished!" we may believe angels felt an inconceivable relief — and even the Father Himself! So tremendous was the wrath and curse! — the wrath and curse due to our sin!

In all this, there was nothing too much. Love would protest against one drop too much; and never do you find God exceeding. Did He not hasten to stay Abraham's hand, when enough had been done on Moriah? and at that same spot again, David's day, when Justice had sufficiently declared the sharpness of its two-edged sword — did He not again hasten to deliver, crying, "It is enough!" How much more then, when it was His beloved Son!

He sought from Him, all that was needed by justice. And so we find in this transaction, what may well be good news to us. For Jesus drank that cup as the substitute for "the great multitude," His innumerable people, given Him of the Father; and thereby freed them from ever tasting even one drop of that fierce wrath, that "cup of red wine, mixed with spices," with its dregs — its unknown terrors.

Now, this One, this One alone, who so drank the whole — presents to the sinners of our world, the emptied Cup — His own Cup emptied! He sends it round the world, calling on mankind  —  sinners to take it and offer it to the Father as satisfaction for their sins. Come, O fellow-sinner, grasp it and hold it up to God! Plead it, and you are acquitted!

Yes, if you are anxious at all to be saved and blessed, take up this emptied cup. However cold your heart, however dull your feelings, however slight your sorrow for sin — take this emptied cup. Your appeal to this emptied cup arrests judgment at once. Do not think you need to endure some anguish of soul, some great sorrow — to take some sips of the red wine, far less to taste its dregs — before you can be accepted. What thoughtless presumption — imitating Christ in His atoning work! If Uzziah, the king, presenting incense when he ought to have let the priest do it for him, was smitten for his presumption — take care lest you be thrust away, if you presume to bring the imagined incense of your sorrow and bitter tears. It is the emptied cup which is offered us, not the cup wet with our tears, or its purity dimmed by the breath of our prayers. Feelings of ours, graces of ours, can do nothing but cast a veil over the perfect merits of Christ!

Children of God who have used this cup — keep pleading it always. Ever make it the ground of your assurance of acceptance. Examine it often and well — see how God was glorified here, and how plentifully it illustrates and honors the claims of God's righteousness. Full payment of every claim advanced by Justice is here; and so you, in using it, give good measure, pressed down and running over! What then remains but that you render thanks and take this salvation, often singing —

"Once it was mine, that cup of wrath,
 And Jesus drank it dry!"

What should ever hinder your triumphant joy? Be full of gratitude; and let this gratitude appear in your letting others know what it has done for you, and may do for them.

For again we say to you, fellow-sinner, if you accept it not, soon you shall have no opportunity of choice. May I never see one of my people drinking this dreadful cup! May I never see it put into their hands! The groaning of a soul, dying in sin, is at times heard on this side of the veil, and it is the saddest and most haunting of all solemn and awful scenes. But what is that, compared to the actual drinking of the cup, and wringing out the very dregs!

Never may Satan have it in his power to upbraid you with having once had the offer of salvation, an offer never made to him! It seems to me that every Sabbath, especially the Lord takes Gospel-hearers aside into a quiet secluded nook, and there sets down before them the "cup of red wine, mixed with spices," and then the emptied cup of Jesus — earnestly, most earnestly, most sincerely, most compassionately — pressing them to decide and be blessed. Men and brethren, never rest till the Holy Spirit has in your eye so glorified Christ who drank the cup, that you see in Him your salvation and God's glory secured beyond controversy, beyond even Satan's power to question or assail!

https://www.gracegems.org/

Not Now, But Hereafter! (Charles H. Spurgeon, 1861)

 

Job 21:29-31

“Have ye not asked them that go by the way? and do ye not know their tokens,

That the wicked is reserved to the day of destruction? they shall be brought forth to the day of wrath.

Who shall declare his way to his face? and who shall repay him what he hath done?”

The sermon which I preached two Lord's days ago upon the accidents, has caused considerable consternation among pious people with weak heads. Their idea that an calamities are judgments, is so inveterate a prejudice, and so favourite a dogma, that our exposure of its absurdity is, in their opinion, eminently calculated to encourage sin and quiet the consciences of offenders. Now, I feel quite at ease in this matter, and am confident that I have done service to our great cause, even though the timid should be alarmed, and the superstitious should be annoyed. Our gracious God and Father has seen fit to give us a whole book of the Bible upon the subject; the main drift of the Book of Job is to prove that temporal afflictions are not evidences of the Lord's displeasure, and I beg the modern Bildads and Zophars to reconsider their position, lest they too should be found to be "speaking wickedly for God, and talking deceitfully for him."—Job 13:7. In my very soul I feel that if evil days shall come upon me, it poverty, desertion, and disease should place me upon Job's dunghill, I shall point to that sermon with pleasure, and say to those who will tell me that God is angry with me, and has judged me to be unworthy, "Nay, ye know not what ye say, for the judgment is not passed already, nor is this the field of execution; neither disease, nor bereavements, nor poverty, can prove a man to be wicked, nor do they even hint that the chosen are divided from the hearts of Christ." O my beloved friends, settle it in your hearts that men are not to be judged according to their present circumstances, and learn like David to understand their end. It will save you from writing bitter things against yourselves in the time of trouble, and prevent your scanning the works of Providence, and measuring the infinite by line and plummet.

It is mainly my business, today, to deal with those who may wickedly continue in sin because their judgment tarries. If the Lord does not in this world visit the urn godly with stripes, this is but the surer evidence that in the world to come there is a solemn retribution for the impenitent. If the affliction which is here accorded to men be not the punishment of sin, we turn to Scripture and discover what that punishment will be, and we are soon informed that it is something far heavier than any calamities which occur in this life,—something infinitely more tremendous than the most disastrous accident, the most shocking mutilation, or the most painful death. I know that there be some in these days who are like those in the time of the royal preacher, of whom he said, "because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." Should I be addressing some this morning who have found a stupid quiet for their consciences in the fact that God does not here usually visit men's sins upon their heads, let me put it to them whether such peace is reasonable. There is a city which has revolted. A great king has threatened them with entire destruction for the revolt. He does not, in hurried passion, send against them a handful of soldiers to inflict instant and petty chastisement, he waits awhile, and marshals all his hosts, till every battalion has been put in array, till every mighty man has girded on his armor. Fools! will ye draw consolation from the delay of your destroyer? Will ye say, because he has not ridden forth against you on the very day of your rebellion that therefore this is a time of revelry and mirth? Nay, rather, inasmuch as he is gathering his hosts for the battle, let it cause you to tremble, for he shall break down your walls, and give your whole company to the sword. Imagine yourselves voyagers, far out upon the sea. A black cloud darkens in the sky, you say you fear not the cloud because it is not at present pouring forth the rain-flood. But that is the reason why ye should fear it, for the cloud is waiting until it grows and spreads, till under the wing of darkness the egg of cloud has been hatched into the black screaming eagle of the storm. See you, the clouds are hurrying from east and west, mustering for the strife! Mark you not the sea heaving heavily in sympathy with heaven's convulsions? Behold how all the dread artillery of heaven is gathering up for one tremendous shock. Fools! do ye say ye will not fear because the thundercloud has not yet burst, because as yet the breath of wind has not transformed itself into the blast of hurricane? It is gathering, sirs, congregating its forces and accumulating its fury, and the longer that it gathers, the more terrible shall be the moment when it bursts upon your devoted heads. And so to-day, God's clouds that float in the sky, the calamities of Providence, are not pouring on you the tempest of wrath; but is this a reason why ye should be at peace? Nay! the clouds are gathering, every sin is adding to the mass, every day of God's long-suffering is covering heaven in blacker sable, every moment that he spares he does but prepare to punish in more tremendous force; and dread and direful shall be the day, when at last omnipotence itself shall come to the assistance of outraged justice, and you shall feel that God is God as much in punishing sin, as in the making of the worlds.

It was a fable of the old Jewish rabbis, that when the angel Gabriel flew he used both wings, because he always came with good tidings; but that when Michael flew, bearing God's sword to smite through the loins of king", he always flew with one wing. But Michael arrives as surely at his destined goal as Gabriel himself. The feet of the avenging deities may seem to be shod with lead for tardiness, and their tread may be as noiseless as wool, but they are as sure as the feet of mercy. I know, when God comes to bless, the axles of his chariot are hot with speed, and his steeds are white with foam, and when he comes to curse he travels slowly, with many a sigh, for he willeth not the death of any, but had rather "that he should turn unto him and live;" but remember, in judgment he comes in all his might, and he shall be discovered to be not less a God when he smiteth than when he giveth the kisses of his lips, and lifts the pardoned sinner into acceptance and favor.

We shall now deal with the sorrowful topic of the punishment of sin in the world to come. I have preached less upon this subject than almost upon any other, and yet always is it thrown in our teeth that we delight to dwell upon these horrors. I never come to this subject without the deepest distress of heart, and God alone shall know how many tears it costs these eyes when I have to deal out as God's faithful ambassador the thunders of his law. I delight to preach of Calvary, and of divine love, and of grace unsearchable. But this theme is to me the burden of the Lord, we must not, we dare not keep it back; fidelity to conscience, truthfulness to God, love to the souls of men, constrains us to make this a part of our ministry, not keeping back any part of the price.

I shall divide the discourse this morning into three parts, first, I shall speak of the punishment of sin, by way of affirmation, or prove that it must be so; secondly, by way of explanation, of what kind and nature this punishment must be; and then, thirdly, by way of expostulation, pleading with those who are yet in the land of mercy, that they would hasten to the voice of wisdom, and that God's grace may turn them from the error of their ways.

I. First, then, by wag of affirmation—THERE MUST BE A PUNISHMENT FOR SIN.

Job says, that this is a truth so written upon the very nature of man, that even those who go by the way, the ignorant traveler and wayfarer, dares not for a moment deny that such is the case. "Have ye not asked them that go by the way? and do ye not know their tokens?" And truly it is so. If there be one intuitive truth which man perceives without need of argument, it is that sin deserves to be punished, and since sin in not punished here, it fellows that the punishment must be endured in the world to come.

Let us, however, very briefly, review the argument. Sin must be punished from the very nature of God. God is; if God is God, he must be just. You can no more separate the idea of justice from the idea of God, than you can omniscience, or omnipresence, or omnipotence. To suppose of a God who was not omnipotent, is to make a supposition which is contradictory in its terms; for the term "God" includes that thought. And to suppose an unjust God, is to imagine an absurdity,—you have used, I repeat it, contradictory terms;—justice is included in the very thought of God. See how the oppressed always recognize this. The slave who has long been trampled under the feet of a tyrannical master, with his back fresh from the gory lash, lifts up his eye to God the avenger, for he feels instinctively that God must be just. Nationalities who have made appeals to arms, but have been subdued again to serfdom, at last in their despair cry out to God, for this is the bottom of man's thoughts, and the one which is sure to come forth when pain has emptied out his lighter notions, that God doth execute righteousness and judgment "for all that are oppressed." So, too, when man would aver a thing to be true he calls upon God to be his witness, because in his innermost nature he feels that God will be a just and impartial witness. If he thought not so, it would be ridiculous to call upon God to witness to his asseveration. Note how the tearful eye, the groaning mind, the bursting heart, all turn instinctively to the Judge of all the earth. Man feels that God must be just. But how just? How just, if crowned beads that do injustice shall go unpunished? How just, if the adulterer, the thief, the liar, and the hypocrite unpunished here, should go unpunished in the world to come. Where is thy justice, God, if this world be all? We say, "Alas for love if, thou were an end nought beyond, O earth!" and we may add, alas, for justice too; for where could it live, where could it dwell, unless there were a world to come, in which God will right the wrongs, and avenge himself upon an who have trampled on his laws.

Not only does his very nature show this, but those acts of God, which are recorded in Revelation, prove incontestably that he will by no means spare the guilty. There have been judgment. I am not now appealing to the crotchets and opinions of ill-judging man, but to the inspired chronicles, for I will quote those judgments alone which the Word of God calls such. Adam sinned. 'Twas but the touching of an apple; Eden was blasted, Adam was exiled. The world sinned; they ate, they drank, they married, and were given in marriage; they forgot the Most High. The fountains of the great deep gave forth their floods; the cisterns of heaven emptied out their cataracts. All the world was drowned; and the last shriek of the strong swimmer yielding at last to universal death, told out to us that God is just. Look across to the allies of the plain. When they had wholly given themselves up to unnatural lusts, God rained fire and brimstone out of heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrha. And when he did so, what did he but write in letters of fire this word—"God is just, he furiously avengeth and terribly punisheth sin." Behold, too, Pharaoh and all his hosts drowned in the Red Sea. For what purpose was Pharaoh but that God might show forth his power in him—might prove to the world that there were vessels of wrath, and that God knew how to fill them to the brim, and break them as with a rod of iron. Look to Palestine, and behold its kings put to death by the sword of the Lord and his servant Joshua. What means a land stained in blood? It meaneth this, that the race had offended much against heaven; and God, that man might have some glimpses of his terrible justice, declared that he would root out the races of Canaan, and would have war with Amalek from generation to generation. It is impossible to reconcile Old Testament history with the effeminate notion of neological divinity, that God is only a universal Father, but not a governor and a judge. If these gentlemen will quietly read some of those awful passages in the Old Testament, they cannot—unless they should deny the inspiration of the passage, or attempt to tone down in meaning—they cannot but confess that they see there far less a loving parent than a God dressed in arms, of whom we may say, "The Lord is a man of war, the Lord is his name. Thy right hand, O Lord, thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces thine enemies." A God without justice is what this modern church is seeking after. These new doctrines would fashion a deity destitute of those sublime attributes, which keep the world in awe, and command for him the reverence of his creatures.

This brings me to my third argument. Not only do the nature and the acts of God prove that he will punish sin, but the very necessities of the world demand it. Imagine the contrary. Put in all our Christian pulpits men who should teach to sinners that there is no punishment for sin. Let them say to them, "What you suffer here is to be looked upon as God's judgment on your offense; but there is no world to come in which your sins will be visited upon your heads." Friends, you may at once advise the government to multiply the number of our jails tenfold. If there be no punishment for sin in another world, if it be so light and trifling an offense that the little sufferings of this life are sufficient atonement for it, then you have thrown up the floodgates which have hitherto dammed up the overflowing floods; you will soon see society swept from its moorings, there will be no possibility that men will seek to be honest, when they find that honesty or dishonesty are terms which have but a trifling difference between them. If sin be so slight a thing, men will think virtue to be a slight thing too, and if there be so little punishment for crime, they will soon think that there can be but little reason for virtue, and where will be our commonwealths, and our social compacts? The best lawgivers, however amiably disposed they may be, find that they must back up their laws with penalties. A state which should be founded upon laws without penalties could not last a week, or if it lasted, you would find that while the laws would be disregarded there would be more death and more suffering than there had been before. When was the guillotine most at work, but when there was loudest boast of liberty, and men's living without law. When would there be the most of murder, but when there should no more be heard the threat of condemnation, and when they who were assassins might be permitted to go abroad untouched. There must be punishment for the world's own good, to say nothing of the nature of God, which for its dignity and holiness necessarily demands that very offense and transgression should receive its just recompense of reward.

But further, I affirm the punishment of sin from the atonement of Christ. Friends, if there be no necessity that sin should be punished, why did Jesus die? Why, Father, didst thou send thy only begotten and well-beloved Son, and lay upon him the iniquities of us an? Was he needed for an example? He might have been our example without dying, in fact if this were all, virtue, crowned and glorified, might have been quite as noble an incentive to goodness, as virtue mocked and crucified. He was needed that he might take our sins, and having taken our sins, it became absolutely necessary that Jesus Christ should die. In the death of Christ, if sin must not necessarily be punished, I see nothing but the death of a martyr, like James, or Peter, or Polycarp, the death of a man murdered for being better than his fellows. And why do we make this fuss and noise about salvation by the death of Christ if that be all. Why has the Christian church existed to be a false witness, to testify to a fiction? Why has her blood been shed these many centuries, to maintain that the blood of Jesus Christ taketh away the sin of the world, if the sin could he taken away without punishment? The wounds of Christ have no meaning, his precious blood has no value, his thorn-crowned head is not worthy of worship, nor is his death worthy of daily ministry, unless it be that he suffered "the just for the unjust to bring us to God;" God in Christ punished the sins of his people; and if he did it in Christ, unpardoned sinner, rest assured he will do it in you. If the imputed sins of Christ brought him the agonies of Gethsemane, what will your sins bring you? If guilt that was not his own brought him an exceeding heaviness, "even unto death," what will your sins bring you, sins remember which are your own? "He that spared not his own Son" wilt never spare rebels. He who did not spare his Son a single lash or a single stroke, will certainly make no exemption in your favor, if you live and die impenitent and reject the gospel of Christ.

Besides, my dear friends, permit me to say that those who think that sin is not to be punished, are generally the worst of men. Men hate hell for the reason that murderers hate the gallows. The miscreant Youngman, who was executed on the top of yonder gaol, informed the chaplain that he objected on principle to all capital punishment, an objection natural enough when it was his own inevitable doom. They who dissent from the doctrine of divine justice, are interested in forming that opinion; the wish is father to the thought, they would have their sin unpunished, they hope it may be, and then they say it will be. You will not hear a thief's objection to a policeman; you do not imagine that a criminal's objection to a judge is very valid, and the sinner's objection to hell lies only here, that he will not repent, and he therefore fears the dread certainty that he shall be punished. Besides even these worst of men, who pretend not to believe, do believe. Their fears betray the secret conviction of their consciences, and on their dying beds, or in a storm, whenever they have thought they were about to see with their own eyes the stern realities of eternity, their fears have proved them to be as strong believers as those who profess the faith. Infidelity is not honest. It may profess to be, but it is not. I think that our judges are right in not accepting the oath of an infidel. It is not possible that he should be honest in the notion that there is no God. When God is around him in every leaf, in every tree, and in every star in the sky; it is not possible that a man should be honest when he calls himself an atheist. Nor do we believe that any man can speak the dictates of his inmost heart, when he says that sin will never be punished, and that he may sin with impunity. His conscience gives him the lie, he knows it must be so, and that God will visit his offenses upon his head.

I shall not enlarge further, except to say in gathering up the thoughts, impenitent sinner, be thou sure of this; there shall not a sin of thine fall to the ground unremembered, "For every idle word that thou shall speak God will bring thee into judgment," how much more for every blasphemous word and for every rebellious act. Do not wrap thyself up in the delusive thought that sin will escape unpunished. Even if it should be so, then the Christian is as well off as you are, but since righteousness will be laid to the line, and judgment to the plummet, what will become of you? Be wise before it is too late. Believe to-day what you will find out to be a fact ere long. God has revealed it to you, his revelation has tokens and signs which prove its divine origin. Believe what He has revealed; do not say in your heart "I never will believe there is a hell unless one should come from it." Do you not see, that if one should come from it then you would not believe at all, because you would say, "If one person came from hell, then another may, and I may myself." It would take away all your dread of future punishment if any spirit should come back from it, and therefore it is you that you should not have that be given you. Yet methinks the shrieks of dying sinners, the cries which some of you have heard coming up from the death beds of blasphemers, ought to be enough evidence that there is a world to come whereof we speak, and that there are terrors of the law which are happily concealed to-day from your eyes and from your ears, but which you may soon know, and know far better than the best words can teach you, by your own feelings, by your own everlasting despair, and banishment from God.

II. I turn now to the second portion of the discourse: THE NATURE OF THIS PUNISHMENT by way of explanation.

How will God punish sin? The text says, "The wicked is reserved to the day of destruction, they shall be brought forth to the day of wrath." The old Puritanic preachers, such men as Alleyne, who wrote the "Alarm," and others of his class—always gave a very cross picture of the world to come. They could never represent it except by brimstone flames, and dancing fiends, and such like horrors. They were conscientious in the drawing of the picture, and to them the terrors of the Lord gross, corporeal, unscriptural ideas of hell, but rather let us feel that it is a great mystery, concerning which we must rather follow Scripture than imagination. The first punishment which will be executed upon man for his sins, will be punishment to his soul. The soul leaves the body, the body is here enclosed in the coffin, rotting in the tomb; the disembodied spirit will appear before its God. It will then know at once what its future destination shall be. The great assize will not then have been held, the Judge will not have officially pronounced the sentence, but the soul anticipating the sentence will antidote its execution. Memory will begin to reflect upon past sins, past mercies unimproved, past opportunities neglected, and past offenses which have long been forgotten. Then the conscience will begin to thunder. "Thou didst this wantonly," saith Conscience. "Thou didst it against light and knowledge, thou didst despise Christ, thou didst neglect the day of mercy, thou hast been a suicide, thou hast destroyed thyself." Then the fears will come in, the fears of the day of judgment, when the body shall be reunited with the soul. And those fears will sting the man with thoughts like these. "What wilt thou say when He comes to judge thee? How will thou bear the eyes of Him that shall read thee through and through? Now thou knowest that what was preached to thee on earth is true. Thou art no infidel now. Now the truth is not kept out of thy soul by the dulness of thy fleshly body; thou seest thou knowest it. What will become of thee when earth shall pass away and heaven shall shake, and hell shall gape to receive its prey?" So the spirit shall be virtually in hell before the body goes there. This shall be the first punishment of sin.

Then, when the day predestined shall have come, the trump of the archangel shall ring through the aid—the trump this time of the second resurrection—for the dead in Christ shall have already risen, and have reigned with Christ upon the earth. Then rings the elation note that wakes the dead. They start up, and the soul returns to its old house, the body. Then it receives its sentence. It is brought forth as the text says, "to the day of wrath,"—it had been reserved in chains before, in blackness and darkness, it is now brought forth to receive the sentence, that the body may begin its hell. Then, mark you, beyond a doubt, for we cannot understand Scripture, and especially the words of Christ without it, the body shall have pains meet for its offenses. Your members were servants of your lusts, they shall be partakers of the wage of your soul—the feet that carried you in the paths of sin, shall tread the fiery road, the eyes which gazed with lustful glance, shall now be made to weep the scalding tear, the teeth which ministered to your gluttony, shall now gnash for pain, the tongues which talked so exceeding proudly against God, shall be "tormented in this flame." There shall be certainly a punishment for the body as well as for the soul, for what else did Christ mean when he said, "Fear him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell." I shall not enlarge upon what sort of punishment this will be, suffice me to say, that whatever it is, it will be just. The sinner in hell shall not endure one iota more than he deserves, he shall have the due reward of his deeds—no more. God is not unjust to punish men arbitrarily,—I know of no arbitrary condemnation. There is no such thing as sovereign damnation; it will be justice—inflexible, I grant you, but yet not such as shall pass the bounds of due and right desert. God will give to man only the harvest of his own deeds. He sowed the wind, and he shall reap the whirlwind. You shall not have the consolation in hell of saying that you did not deserve it, for in hell you will be made to feel, "I brought this on myself, I destroyed myself, it is true I am in pain, but I am the father of my own pains; I planted the tree which yields the bitter fruit, I digged about it and I watered it, I did the work, I labored, and this is my wages;" and you will have to feel there and then, that in every pang that rends the heart God is infinitely just. And then, whatever the pain may be, we know that while it is just, it will be terrible. Whose are those awful words, "He shall burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire! "Is this the language of Moses? No, of Christ. It is a remarkable fact, that the most frightful descriptions of punishment, of another world are from the lips of the Savior. Had Peter spoken them, you would have said Peter was harsh in spirit. It was the Master spake them. He who wept over Jerusalem said, "These shall go away into everlasting punishment;" he spoke of "burning up the chaff;" he spoke of "binding hand and foot and giving them up to the tormentors." In the compass of revelation there are no words so grim and terrible in their awful suggestiveness, as the words of Him "who went about doing good," and wept and cried, "Come unto me, and ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

And we know, again that this punishment will be eternal. This is the very pith of it. There were no hell, if it were not eternal, full the hope of an end would be the end of fear. If there could be an end to hell at any time, there would be an end to it at once, for no man would feel that desperate despair, if there were a hope that it should come to a close. But it is eternity, eternity, eternity, that makes punishment bad. This is the bell which tolls the funeral of every hope—eternity, eternity, eternity. To sail across a sea of fire for ever, never reaching a haven; to sink, but never reach the bottom, or to rise to heights of greater agony, and never reach the summit. Oh, brethren, brethren, it is not the wrath of God in this world that you have so much to fear, the wrath's to come, the wrath's to come. And it is not the wrath that the soul shall be filled with when it has been there a thousand years, it is the wrath's to come. They will go on sinning and God will go on averaging, they will go on blaspheming and they shall go on gnawing their tongues, they shall go on hating God and they shall go on feeling his anger, they shall go from bad to worse in character, and doubtless from ball to worse in agony. O God, help us to escape from this awful thing—the wrath, the wrath to come!

III. I close now by offering SOME FEW WORDS OF EXPOSTULATION.

You will kindly look at the thirty-first verse. He says "Who shall declare his way to his face? and who shall repay him what he hath done!" Now there are many men who think they shall come off soot free, because in this life there are none who will dare to mention their sins to their face. The covetous man is very seldom rebuked for his covetousness. If a man lives an unclean life, he does not usually read books which would prick his conscience. If a man acts dishonorably in his trade, if another should tell him of it, he would be exceedingly insulted. It is true a faithful minister will often make men feel uneasy in their sins, for he will be led by God's direction to give such a description of the offenses and of the punishment, that he will make sinners tremble in their shoes. But still are there not some among you here to-day who can sin with both your hands, and there is no Elijah to say, "Thou art the man. "You have none to meet you in Naboth's vineyard, and say to you, "Hast thou killed and taken possession? "There is perhaps hardly a "still small voice:" there used to be one. The agonizing face of your wife when first you had forsaken the way of virtue; the ghastly look of your mother as you were bringing down her grey hairs with sorrow to the grave, the sorrowful gaze of your little children when first their father became a drunkard, these were still voices to you, but they are hushed now. When God gives you up, then indeed your damnation slumbereth not. But remember, however cheaply you can sin now, God will not fear insulting you; he will bring your sins to your remembrance and there shall be no consideration of your dignity. He vein not consult your feelings, he will not look upon you as a great one; he will bring your sins to remembrance in no courtly phrases and in no polished terms. You shall find that the lips of Justice know not how to make distinctions between you and the basest menial whom once you despised. Now, if a man should speak your character it would be libel; but when God speaks it, you shall not threaten him. What thinkest thou that he will fear and tremble before thee? Who art thou, O man, that the lips of the Eternal God should be silent about thee? Who art thou that he should fail to draw thy character in black or crimson hues? He will convict thee to thy face, and thou shalt be utterly unable to plead guiltless of thy sins. And then the text says "Who shall repay him? "Ah! there is no hand which dares repay you now; you have gone unpunished yet. No law can touch you, you say; ah! but there is a law divulge which overrides the law that is human; and if the arm of human justice be too short, the arm of God is as long as it is strong, and he will reach you, and to the last jot and little pay you your due reward. You shall not escape, even in the slightest degree. No pleas and prayers, no tears and excuses, shall have any avail with him, but till justice shall have had its uttermost farthing, thou shalt by no means come out thence.

And now, sinner, why wilt thou dare the wrath of God? Why wilt thou run this fearful risk? Why wilt thou make thy bed in hell? Why wilt thou dwell in everlasting burnings? Is it wise, or art thou mad, and is thy reason gone? Have I preached to you a bugbear and a fable?—if so, go thy way and sin. But oh! if it be true—and it must be, unless you are prepared to reject that precious book and the very name of Christian—if it be true! Soul, I pray thee let me feel for thee, if thou wilt not feel for thyself. Why dash thyself upon the point of Jehovah's javelin? Why destroy thyself against the bosses of his buckler? What can there be that makes thee so in love with ruin? Why wilt thou hug the grave, and embrace destruction? Soul, again I say, art thou mad?—art thou mad?—art thou mad? May the Lord teach thee reason, and may he help thee to flee to the only refuge where a sinner may find mercy.

I shall close when I have tried to set out the way of Mercy. I have read in the old Histories of England, that Edward the Second, one of our kings, was exceedingly enraged against one of his courtiers; being out hunting one day, he threatened the courtier with the severest punishment. There was a river between them at the time, and the courtier thinking that he was perfectly safe, ventured to offer some jeering remark upon the king—telling him that at any rate he would not be likely to chastise him until he got at him. The king feeling his anger hot within him, told him that the water should not long divide them, leaped into the middle of the stream, and with some difficulty gained the other side. The courtier in great alarm fled in terror, and the king pursued him with might and main, spurring his horse to the utmost. Nor did his anger cease; he carried his drawn sword in his hand with the intention of killing him. At last the courtier, seeing that there was no hope for any escape, knelt down upon the grass, and laying bare his neck, said, "I heartily deserve to die, mercy, King! mercy! "He sent back his sword into the scabbard in a moment, and said, "Whilst you sought to escape me I determined to destroy you, but when I see you humble at my feet I freely forgive you." Even so is it with the King of heaven. Sinners, ye say there is this life between you and God, ah! but how soon will the white horse of Justice pass the stream, and then flee, flee as you may today, he will surely overtake you. He now is swift to destroy, let it be yours on your knees to make confession of your sin and say, "I deserve thy wrath, Great King, I deserve thy wrath," and if to this thou art enabled to add the plea of the precious blood of Christ, the sword of Justice will return into its scabbard, and he will say, "I am just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly." For Jesus died, and inasmuch as Jesus Christ has died, Justice is satisfied on the account of all believers. Go thy way, thy sins which are many are all forgiven thee. "What must I do to saved?" saith one. This is all thou hast to do, and this the Holy Spirit will work in thee. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ with all thine heart." "What is that?" say you. "I believe him to be divine; I believe that he is able to save." That will not save you, there must be something more than that. "What then?" "Believe in him,"—carry out practically your belief that he is able to save by trusting yourself in his hands. To exhibit again an old picture which has often been used, there is a child in a burning house, hanging from the upper window. A strong man stands beneath and offers to catch him, if he will but drop from yonder hot window sill to which he still clings. "Drop, my child," saith he, "I will catch you." The child believes the strength of his preserver; that does not save him. He trusts to the strength, he lets go his hold and falls, is caught and is preserved, that is faith. Let go your hold of your good works, your good thoughts, and all else, and tried in Christ. He never did let one soul dash itself to earth yet, that did but fall into his hands. Oh! for grace for every one of us to say in the words of Watts,—

"A guilty, weak, and helpless worm,
On Christ's kind arms I fall;
He is my strength and righteousness,
My Jesus and my all."

https://www.biblebb.com/

The Chaff Driven Away (Charles H. Spurgeon, 1859)

 

Psalms 1:4

“The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.”

And who are the ungodly? Are they open and wilful sinners—men who take God's name in vain, and curse, and blaspheme—men who break the laws of man, the laws of the state—men who are scarcely to be trusted with liberty? Certainly these are included, but these are not mainly intended. While such men come under the category of "sinners" and "scorners," there is another class expressly aimed at by the term "ungodly." And who are the ungodly? Are they the men who deny God's existence, who neglect the outward forms of religion, who scoff at everything that is sacred, and make a ribald jest of things at which angels tremble? These are included, most certainly, but neither are these the men specially aimed at. They are the scornful, the pestilent: these are the men whose iniquities have gone beforehand to judgment against them, and whose sins are clammering before the throne for justice. Another class of men is intended under the term "ungodly." And who are they? Surely, my brethren, the answer may well strike you with awe. I do trust there are not many in this hall who may be called scorners; and, perhaps, not very many who would come under the denomination of open profligates and rebels; but how large a proportion of all those who attend our places of worship may justly be ranked under the character of the ungodly! What does this exactly mean? Let me just show its differences once again, and then more precisely define it.

We sometimes call men irreligious; and, surely, to be irreligious is bad enough; but to be religious is not good enough. A man may be religious, but yet he may not be godly. There are many who are religious; as touching the law outwardly they are blameless; Hebrews of the Hebrews, Pharisees of the straitest sect. They neglect no rubric, they break no law of their church, they are exceedingly precise in their religion; yet, notwithstanding this, they may rank under the class of the ungodly; for to be religious is one thing. and to be godly is quite another. To be godly, then,—to come at once to the mark—to be godly is to have a constant eye to God, to recognize him in all things' to trust him, to love him, to serve him. And the ungodly man is one who does not have an eye to God in his daily business, who lives in this world as if there were no God; while he attends to all the outward ceremonies of religion, he never goes to their core, never enters into their secret heart and their deep mysteries. He sees the sacraments, but he sees not God therein; he hears the preaching, he comes up to the house of prayer, into the midst of the great congregation, he bows his head, but there is no present Deity to him, there is no manifest God. There is no hearing of his voice, there is no bowing before his throne. Doubtless, there is a large number here who must confess that they are not trusting in the blood of Christ, they are not influenced by the Holy Ghost, they do not love God; they cannot say that the bent and tenour of their fires is towards him. Why you have been the last six days about your business, occupying all your time,—and quite right is it to be diligent in business—but how many of you have forgotten God all the while? You have been trading for yourselves, not for God. The righteous man does everything in the name of God: at least, this is his constant desire. Whether he eats or drinks, or whatsoever he does, he desires to do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. But you have not recognized God in your shop. You have not acknowledged him in your dealings with your fellow-men. You have acted towards them as if there had been no God whatever.

And, perhaps, even this day you must confess that your heart does not love the Lord. You have never gone into his company. You do not seek retirement. You do not relish private prayer. Now God's children cannot be happy without sometimes talking to their Father. The sons of God must have frequent interviews with Jehovah. They love to cling to him. They feel that he is their life, their love, their all. Their daily cry is, "Lord, draw me to thyself; come thou to me, or draw me up to thee." They pant to know more of God; they long to reflect more of his image, they seek to keep his law; and it is their desire that they may be saturated with his Spirit. But such are not your desires. You hare no such longings as these. It is true you are not addicted to strong drink, you do not swear, you are no thief, you are no harlot. In all these things you are blameless; but yet are you ungodly, without God in the world. He is not your friend, he is not your helper. You do not cleave to him with purpose of heart. You are not his child. You have not "the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." You could do as well without a God as with one. In fact you feel that the thought of God, if you think of it solemnly, strikes you with terror, and excites in your breasts, no emotions of delight. You are ungodly. Well then, mark, whatever I have to say this morning, belongs to you. Don't be looking round you and saying, I wonder how this will suit my neighbor. Do not I beseech you be thinking of some thriftless loon who has spent his estate in extravagance and debauchery, but be thinking of yourself. If you are not born again, if you are not a partaker of the Spirit, if you are not reconciled to God, if your sins be not forgiven, if you are not this day a living member of the living church of Christ, all the curses that are written in this book belong to you, and that part of them in particular which it will be my solemn business to thunder out this morning. I pray God that this part may be applied to your soul, that you may be made to tremble before the Most High, and seek him who will certainly be found of you, if you seek him with all your hearts.

You will readily perceive that my text may be divided into three parts. You have, first, a fearful negative—"The ungodly are not so." You have in the next place a terrible comparison—"they are like the chaff. Then you have, thirdly, an awful prophesy—"They are like the chaff which the wind driveth away."

I. First, then, you have here A FEARFUL NEGATIVE. The vulgate Latin version, the Arabic and Septuagint, read this first sentence thus:—"Not so the ungodly, not so;" for according to their version there is a double negative here—"Not so the ungodly, not so." Now in order to understand what is meant by this negative you must read the third verse. The righteous man is said to be "like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper;"—"Not so the ungodly, not so."

To explore the negative, we must take each clause of this sentence. The ungodly are not like a tree planted. If they may be compared to a tree at all, they are as trees "twice dead plucked up by the roots;" or if they are to be compared to anything that hath life, then are they like the tree in the desert which is planted there by a chance hand, which hath nought to nourish it. It is the peculiar characteristic of the Christian man, that he is like "a tree planted." That is to say, there is a special providence exercised in his position and in his culture. You all know the difference between a tree that is planted and a tree that is self-sown. The tree that is planted in the garden is visited by the husbandman. He digs about it; he dungs it; he trims it, prunes it, and looks for its fruit. It is an object of property and of special care. The wild tree in the forest, the tree which is self-sown upon the plain, no one owns, no one watches over it; no heart will sigh if the lightning flash shall shiver it; no tear will be wept if the blast should light upon it and all its leaves should wither. It is no man's property. It shelters no man's roof. No man careth for it. Let it die, why doth it stand there to suck nourishment from the soil and yield none again.

The ungodly are, it is true, the subjects of a universal providence, even as everything is ordered of God; but the righteous have a special providence over them. They are trees planted. Everything which takes place works together for their good. The Lord their God is their guardian. He watches the earth that it should bring forth for them its fruit. The precious things of the heavens, the dew, and the deep that coucheth beneath, and the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and the precious things put forth by the moon—these are their heritage. He watcheth everything round about them. If pestilence stalk through the land, he permitteth not one of its shafts to hit, unless he seeth it is for good. If war ariseth, behold he stretches his aegis over his children; and if famine comes, they shall be fed, and in the days of scarcity they shall be satisfied. Is it not a glorious thing for the Christian to know that the very hairs of his head are all numbered, that the angels of God keep watch and ward over him; that the Lord is his shepherd, and therefore, he shall not want? I know this is a doctrine that often comforts me. Let what will happen, if I can but fall back upon the thought that there is a providence in everything, what do I need? A providence in the great and in the little there assuredly is to every child of God. It may be said of every tree of the Lord's right hand planting—"I the Lord do keep it, and will water it every moment; lest any hurt it I will watch it night and day." Upon the righteous there are not only ten eyes, but there are all the eyes of the Omniscient ever fixed both by night and day. The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous. They are like the planted tree. Not so, ye that are ungodly, not so ye; there is no special providence for you. To whom will ye carry your troubles? Where is your shelter in the day of wrath? Where is your shield in the hour of battle? Who shall be your sun when darkness shall gather about you? Who shall comfort you when your troubles shall encompass you round? You have no eternal arm to lean upon. You have no compassionate heart to beat for you. You have no loving eye to watch you. You are left alone! alone! alone! like the heath in the desert, or like the forest tree which no man regardeth, until the time comes when the sharpened axe shall be lifted up, and the tree must fall. "Not so," then "the ungodly, not so." 'Tis a fearful negative the ungodly man is not the object of the special providence of God.

But we must proceed. The righteous man is like a tree planted by the rivers of water. Now, a tree that is planted by the rivers of water sends out its roots, and they soon draw sufficient nourishment. The tree that is planted far away upon the arid desert hath its times of drought, it depends upon the casual thunder-cloud that sweeps over it, and distils the scanty drops of rain. But this tree planted by rivers of water hath a perennial supply. It knows no drought, no time of scarcity. Its roots have but to suck up the nourishment which pours itself lavishly there. "Not so the ungodly, not so." They have no such rivers from which to suck their joy, their comfort, and their life. As for the believer, come what may, he can any—if earth shall fail him, then will he look to heaven. If man forsake him, then he looks to the divine man Christ Jesus. If the world should shake, his inheritance is on high. If everything should pass away, he hath a portion that can never be dissolved. He is planted not by brooks that may be dried up, far less in a desert, which only hath a scanty share, but by the rivers of water. Oh, my beloved brethren, you and I know something about what this means. We know what it is to suck up the promises, to drink of the rivers of Christ's fullness. We know what it is to partake and satisfy ourselves as with marrow and fatness. Well may we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, for our storehouse is inexhaustible, our riches can never be spent. We have wealth that cannot be counted a treasury that never can be drained. This is our glory, that we have a something to rely upon which can never fail us. We are trees planted by the rivers of water. Ah! but not so you that are ungodly, not so. Your days of drought shall come. You may rejoice now, but what will you do upon the bed of sickness, when fever shall make you toss from side-to-side, when head and heart shall be racked with anguish, when death shall stare upon you, and shall glaze your eyes? What will ye do when ye come into the swellings of Jordan? You have joys to-day, but where will be your joys then? You have wells now, but what will you do when these are all stopped up, when these shall all fail, when your skin-bottles are dried when your broken cisterns have emptied themselves of their last drop—what will ye do then, ye ungodly? Surely, this negative is full of awful threatenings to you. You may have a little mirth and merriment now, you may enjoy a little excitement at present, but what will ye do when the hot wind comes upon you—the wind of tribulation? And above all, what will you do when the chilling blast of death shall freeze your blood? Ah, where, oh, where will you then look? You will look no longer to friends, nor to the comforts of home. You cannot find in the hour of death consolation on the bosom of the most loving wife, you will be quite unable then to find peace in all your riches or your treasures. As for your past life, however good it may seem, if you are ungodly, you will find no comfort in the retrospect; and as for the future, you will find no comfort in the prospect, for there will be for you nothing but "a fearful looking for of judgment and of fiery indignation." Oh, my ungodly friends, I beseech you, think upon this matter, for if there were nothing worse, the first sentence of my text sounds like the trumpets of doom, and hath in it bitterness like the vials of the Revelation.

Again we must go forward. It is said of the righteous man, that he "bringeth forth his fruit in his season." "Not so the ungodly, not so,"—they bring forth no fruit; or if there be here and there a shrivelled grape upon the vine, it is brought forth in the wrong season when the genial heat of the sun cannot ripen it, and therefore it is sear and worthless. Many people imagine that if they do not commit positive sin they are all right. Now let me give you a little sermon in the midst of my sermon. Here is the text: "Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty." First, what has Meroz done? Nothing. Secondly, is Meroz cursed? Yes; cursed bitterly. What for?—for doing nothing. Yes, for doing nothing. "Curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof," for what they did not do, "because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty." Did Meroz fight against God? No. Did Meroz put on a buckler and lay bold on shield and spear and go forth against the Most High? No. What did Meroz do? Nothing. And is it cursed? Yes, cursed bitterly, with the inhabitants thereof "because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty." Preach that sermon to yourselves when you get home. Draw it out at length, and perhaps while you are sitting down you will say, "Meroz! why that is myself. I don't fight against God, I am no enemy to Christ, I do not persecute his people, in fact I even love his ministers, I love to go up and hear the Word preached. I should not be happy if I spent my Sunday anywhere but in God's house. But still that must mean me, for I do not go up 'to the help of the Lord against the mighty.' I do nothing. I am an idle do-nothing. I am a fruitless tree." Ah, then remember you are cursed, and cursed bitterly too. Not for what you do, but for what you don't do. So here it is one of the sad curses of the ungodly—that they bring forth no fruit in their season. Why look at many of you. What is the good of you in this world? With regard to your families, you are their main-stay and prop. God bless you in your work, and may you train up your children well. But as to the church, what good are you? You occupy a seat, you have had it these years; how do you know but that you have been occupying a seat which might have been the place where some other sinner would have been converted had he been there? It is true you sit and hear the sermon; yes but what of that, if that sermon shall add to your condemnation? It is true that you make one among many, but what if you should be a black sheep In the midst of the flock! What are you doing for Christ? Of what value are you? Have you added one stone to his spiritual temple? Have you done as much as the poor woman who broke the alabaster box upon his head? You have done nothing for him. He has nourished you and brought you up, and you have done nothing for him. "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib," but you do not know, you do not consider. Behold, the Lord hath a controversy with you this day, not for what you have done, but for what you have not done. He has sent you the ministry; you are invited every Sabbath-day. With the tears running down my cheeks have l warned you and invited you. You are hearing the Word continually; you are enjoying privileges. God is feeding you in his providence, clothing you in his compassion, and you are doing nothing for him. You are a cumberer of the ground, bringing forth no fruit at all. O my dear hearer, I beseech thee lay this to heart, for this is a curse as well as a sign to you. It is not only a bad trait in thy character, but it is a curse from God. Thou art ungodly, and therefore fruitless. Thou lovest him not, therefore thou art useless. Thou trustest not in Christ, and therefore thou art not like the tree which "bringeth forth his fruit in his season."

Pass on to the description. His leaf also shall not wither. Not so the ungodly, not so." The ungodly man's leaf shall wither. I see before me this day many proofs that God's promise is verified to his people. Look round, and behold what a large number of gray-headed men assemble every Lord's day to hear the Word. There are many of them who loved Christ in their youth. Then they had "a joy unspeakable and full of glory" in making a profession of his dear name; and now they have come into what men call the sear and yellow leaf of life, but they do not find it so, for they still bring forth fruit in old age, they are still fat and flourishing to show that the Lord is upright. Their leaf has not withered, they are just as active in the cause of Christ as ever they were, and perhaps ten times more happy. Instead of bringing forth no fruit, they bring forth richer and more luscious clusters than ever they did before. Walking in the midst of the younger ones they shine as lights in the midst of the world; or to return to the simile, they are like trees whose branches hang down by reason of the abundance of their fruit, even as their heads bow down by reason of the abundance of their years. What a mercy it is, dear brethren, to have Christ for your portion in youth, and such a Christ too as will last us all our life long. To see good old Rowland Hill preaching when he was tottering on the borders of the grave and talking of the faithfulness of Christ—what a glorious sight! There was a proof! That leaf did not wither. Was there ever a tree like this that would maintain its greenness eighty years and yet not wither? Was there ever a religion like this that would make the old men youthful and make their tottering feet leap for joy? And yet this is the religion of Christ. Our leaf withers not. But oh, "Not so the ungodly, not so." Your leaf shall wither; at least when they that look out of the windows are darkened, when the grinders fail because they are few, when your days of old age shall come upon you, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, if not before, shall your leaf wither. But how many there are whose leaves do wither! There comes a blight from God and the tree which looked once green becomes brown and dead, and at last it blackens and has to be removed. We have seen such in our lives. Men that seemed to be getting on in this world, rich and happy, and respected by almost everybody, but they had no solid background, they had no rock to stand on, no God to trust to. I have seen them spreading themselves like a green bay tree, and I have often envied them as the Psalmist did, but "I looked and lo they were not," I passed by and lo there was not so much as a stump of them left, God had cursed their habitation; as a dream when one awaketh, their image had been despised, as the wax before the fire, they had melted away; like the fat of rams had they been consumed; into smoke did they consume away. "Not so the ungodly, not so," says the text, and surely experience proves it, the ungodly man's leaf must and shall wither. And then it is added concerning the righteous man," whatsoever he doeth, shall prosper." Godly men, it is true have many tribulations, but I am not sure that they have more than the wicked. I do think that when a man is converted he will find it to be true that religion's "ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace," and he has a better hope of even worldly prosperity when he becomes a Christian, than the ungodly man has. Christian habits are the best business habits, if men would but believe it. When a man mixes his religion with his business and allows every act of his life to be guided by it, he stands the best chance in this world, it I may be allowed such a secular expression, for "Honesty is the best policy " after all, and Christianity is the best honesty. The sharp cutting competition of the times may be called honesty—it is only called so down here, it is not called so up there, for there is a good deal of cheating in it. Honesty in the highest sense—Christian honesty—will be found after all to be the best policy in everything, and there will ordinarily be a prosperity, even worldly prosperity, attending a good man in the patient industrious pursuit of his calling. But if he does not have that success he craves, still there is one thing he knows, he would have it if it were best for him. I often know Christian men talk in this fashion, "Well, I do but very little business," says one, "but I have enough coming in to live upon comfortably and happy. I never cared much for push and competition; I never felt that I was fit for it, and I sometimes thank God that I never thrust myself out into the rough stream, but that I was content to keep along shore." And I have marked this one thing, and as a matter of fact I know it cannot be disproved, that many such humble-minded men are the very best of Christians, they live the happiest lives, and whatsoever they do certainly does prosper, for they get what they expected though they did not expect much, and they get what they want though their wants are not very large. They are not going in for anything very great, and therefore they do not come out plucked and empty handed, but they just hold on their way, looking to Providence constantly, for their supplies, and they have all they require; and whatsoever they do, prospers. But they can say too, rusts. If he spends it, it does him little service. The man that hath no God, hath no prosperity. Is he fat—he fattens for the slaughter! Is he in adversity—behold the first drops of the fated storm have begun to fall on him. To the ungodly man there is nothing good in this life. The sweet that he tasteth is the sweetness of poison. That which looketh fair is but as paint upon the harlot's face, beneath there is loathsomeness and disease. There may be a greenness and a verdure upon the mound, but within there lies the rotting carcase, the loathsomeness of corruption. Whatsoever the believer doth, it shall prosper. "Not so the ungodly, not so." Surely this first part of my text is quite bad enough—to have the gate of blessedness shut against you, to have the promises denied you, to be without the blessing which is given to the godly—this punishment of the lost surely were enough to make us start in dismay.

II. Now very briefly upon the second point. Listen awhile to THE TERRIBLE COMPARISON. "The ungodly are like the chaff." They are not like the wild tree, for that hath life, and they are dead in sin. They are not compared here even to the dead tree plucked up by the roots, for that may be of some service. Floating down the stream, the hand of poverty may recall it from the water, and kindle its fire and relieve its cold. They are not even like the heath in the desert, for it hath some uses, and tends to cheer the arid waste. They are like nothing that hath life, nothing that is of any value. They are here said to be like chaff which the wind driveth away. Now you will at once see how terrible is this figure, if you look at it a moment. They are like chaff. Chaff envelopes good corn, but when the wheat is cut down and carried into the barn, the corn alone is useful, the grain alone is looked at, and that chaff which has grown side by side with the good living wheat, is now become utterly useless, and is to be separated and driven away. And the wicked are compared to chaff—think for a moment, of two or three reasons. First, because they are sapless and fruitless. Chaff hath no sap of life in itself. It is of no use, of no service. Men do but desire to get rid of it. They take the fan into their hands that they may thoroughly purge their floor. They cast up the wheat before the wind with the winnowing shovel, that the breath of the air may blow away the chaff, and leave the wheat pure. All that they care for the chaff is that they may get rid of it, that it may be blown away to waste, for it is sapless and fruitless. Then again you notice that it is light and unstable. The wind sweeps through the wheat, the wheat remains unmoved, the chaff flies away. When cast up in the shovel, the wheat soon finds its place, and returns to the spot from which it has been lifted up; but the chaff is light, it has no stability. Every eddying wind, every breath moves it and carries it away. So are the ungodly. They have nothing stable; they are light, they are but as the froth upon the water; they are but as a bubble on the breaker, seen to day and gone, here and there, and then carried away for ever. Again, the wicked are compared to chaff because it is base and worthless. Who will buy it? Who cares for it? In the East at least it is of no good, no use whatever can be made of it. They are content to burn it up and get rid of it, and the sooner they are rid of it, the better pleased are they. So is it with the wicked. They are good for nothing, useless in this world, useless in the world to come. They are the dross, the offal of all creation. The man who is ungodly, however much he may value himself, is as nothing in the estimation of God. Put a gold chain round his neck, put a star upon his breast, put a crown upon his head, and what is he but a crowned heap of dust, useless, perhaps worse than useless. Base in God's sight, he tramples them beneath his feet. The potter's vessel hath some service, and even the broken potsherd might be used. Some Job might scrape himself with it. But what shall be done with the chaff? It is of no use anywhere, and no one careth for it.

See, then, your value, my hearers, if you fear not God. Cast up your accounts and look at yourselves in the right light. You think, perhaps, that you are good for much, but God saith you are good for nothing. You are "like the chaff which the wind driveth away." I linger no more upon this comparison, but choose, rather to dwell upon the third head, which was this:—

III. THE AWFUL PROPHECY contained in the Verse—"They are like the chaff which the wind driveth away." How near the chaff is to the grain! It is, in fact, its envelope; they grow together. My hearers, I wish to speak now very pointedly and personally. How nearly related are the ungodly to the righteous! One of you, it may be, now present, an ungodly man, is the father of a godly child. You have been to that child what the chaff is to the wheat; you have nourished the child—cherished it in your bosom; you have been wrapt about it like the chaff about the grain. Is it not an awful thing for you to think that you should have been in such close relationship to a child of God, but that in the great day of division you must be separated from it? The chaff cannot be taken into heaven with the wheat. I point to another. You are the son of a godly mother; you have grown up at her knee. She taught you, when you were but a little one, to say your little prayer, and to sing the little hymn,

"Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, look upon a little child."

That mother looked upon you as her joy and her comfort. She is gone now. But you were once to her what the chaff is to the wheat. You grew, as it were, upon the same stock, you were of the same family, and her heart was wholly wrapt up in you. You were her joy and her comfort here below. Does it not cause you one pang of regret that, dying as you are, you must everlastingly be separated from her? Where she is you can never come. Mayhap, too, I have here a mother who has lost several infants; she has been to those infants what the chaff is to the wheat—wrapt up in her bosom for a little while she fondled them; and they, God's good wheat, have been gathered into the garner, and there they are now in Jesu's floor. There are their little spirits rejoicing before the throne of the Most High. The mother who is left thinks not of it, but she is the mother of angels, and, perhaps, herself a child of hell. Ah, mother! what think you of this? Is this' separation from your child eternal? Will you be content to be found at God's great winnowing-day, the chaff, and will you be driven from your children? Shall you see them in heaven—them in heaven, and yourselves then cast out for ever? Can you bear the thought? Hath your heart become brutish? Is your soul harder than a nether mill-stone? Surely, if it be not, the thought of your present intimate connection with God's people, and of your sure separation, will make you tremble. And oh! my hearers here are some of you sitting side by side with the godly. You sing as they sing, you hear as they hear. Perhaps you assist the outward wants of the church. You are to the church just what the chaff is to the wheat. You are the outward husk, the congregation which surrounds the inner living nucleus of the church. And must it be—must you be separated from us? Are you content to go from the songs of the saints to the shrieks of the doomed? Will you go from the great convocation of the righteous to the last general assembly of the destroyed and cursed in hell? The thought checks my voice. I must speak slowly on this matter for awhile. Well, dear brethren, well I know that this thought used to be dreadful to me. My mother said to me once, after she had long prayed for me, and had come to the conviction that I was hopeless, "Ah," said she "My son, if at the last great day you are condemned, remember your mother will say Amen to your condemnation." That stung me to the quick. Must the mother that brought me forth and that loved me say "Amen" to my being condemned at last? Yet such things must be. Doth not the wheat say Amen to the chaff being blown away? Is it not in fact the very prayer of the wheat that it may be separated from the chaff? and surely when that prayer is heard, and awfully answered, the wheat must say Amen to the chaff being blown away into fire unquenchable. Think, my dear hearers, think again. And must it be—must I bid farewell to her I love, who served the Lord in spirit. Must I see her body committed to the grave, and as I stand there must I bid her a last, a final farewell? Must I be for ever separated from her, because I fear not God, neither regard him, and therefore cannot have a portion amongst the Lord's chosen ones? What, have you lost your relatives for ever? Are your pious fathers and mothers buried in a "sure and certain hope" to which you are strangers? Will you never sing the song of rejoicing with them in heaven? Is there never to be another salutation? Is death a gulf that cannot be bridged to you? Oh, I hope it is the joy of some of us to know we shall meet many of our kindred above, and as we have lost one after another this has been our sweet consolation they are gone and we shall soon follow them; they are not lost but gone before; they are buried as to their flesh, but their souls are in Paradise, and we shall be there also; and, when we have seen our Saviour's face and have rejoiced in that glorious vision, then shall we see them also, and have deeper and purer fellowship with them than we ever had before in all the days of our lives. Well, here is a sad prophecy! The wicked are "like the chaff which the wind driveth away."

But you will remark that the awful character of my text does not appear upon the surface. They "are like the chaff which the wind driveth away." Where—where—where? Where are they driven? The man is in health; the sun shines, the sky is calm, the world is still about him. Suddenly there is seen a little cloud the size of a man's hand. A little signal overtakes him. The hurricane begins to rise but first it is but a faint breath. The wicked man feels the cold air blowing on him, but he screens it with the physician, and he thinks that surely he shall live. The storm is on. God hath decreed it, and man cannot stay it. The breath becomes a gale, the gale a wind, the wind a storm, the storm a howling hurricane. His soul is swept away. To go to heaven on angels' wings is a glorious thing; but to be swept out of this world with the wicked is an awful thing—to be carried, not on wings of cherubs, but on the eagle wings of the wind; to be borne, not by yon songsters up to their celestial seats, but to be carried away in the midst of a howling tempest by grim fiends. The wicked are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Do you not catch the thought? I do not know how to bring out the fullness of its poetry—the great storm sweeping man from the place on which he stands. He is driven away. And now cannot your thoughts go further on while I again repeat the question, Whither is he driven? Ah! Whither is he driven? I see him driven from the solid shore of life. He is carried away. But—

"In vain my fancy strives to paint the moment after death."

I cannot tell you into what state that soul at once enters, that is to say, I cannot tell you by any guess of my own—that were frivolous, and were to play with a solemn matter; but I can tell you one thing, Jesus Christ himself hath said it—"He shall burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." You die, but you die not. You depart, but you depart to fire that never shall be quenched. I will not dwell upon the topic. I return again to ask the question—"Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" Who here is prepared to make his bed in hell? Who shall lie down and rest for ever in that lake of fire? You must, my hearers, if you are ungodly, except you repent. Are there none of you behind me there, who have been living without Christ, and without hope in the world? Are there none of you? Surely there are some such. I beseech you, think of your destiny—death, and after death the judgment. The wind, and after the wind the whirlwind, and after the whirlwind the fire, and after the fire nothing—for ever for ever, for ever lost, cast away, where ray of hope can never come; where eye of mercy can never look upon you, and hand of grace can never reach you. I beseech you, oh, I beseech you by the living God, before whom you stand this day, tremble and repent. "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little." "Tophet is ordained of old, yea, for the king it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large; the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it." "Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die O house of Israel?" "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon."

Oh, I pray God the Holy Spirit to touch some ungodly hearts now, and make you think. And remember my dear hearers, if there be in your bosoms this morning one desire towards Christ, cherish it, blow the little spark till it comes to a flame. If your heart melts ever so little this morning, I beseech you resist not, quench not the heavenly influence. Yield up yourselves and remember the sweet text of last Sunday morning, "whosoever will, let him come and take the water of life freely." I thunder at you, but it is to bring you to Christ. Oh that you would but come to him! Oh poor hearts would that ye did but feel! Oh, that ye knew how to weep for yourselves as I could weep for you now. Oh, that ye knew what a fearful thing it will be to be cast away for ever! Why will ye die? Is there anything pleasing in destruction? Is sin so luscious to you that you will burn in hell for ever for it? What, is Christ so hard a master that you will not love him? Is his cross so ugly that ye will not look towards it? Oh, I beseech you by him whose heart is love, the crucified Redeemer, who now speaks through me this morning, and in me weeps over you, I beseech you look to him and be saved, for he came into the world to seek and to save that which was lost, and him that cometh to him he will in nowise cast out, for "he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him."

To-day, O Spirit bring sinners to thyself. I exhort you, sinners, lay hold on Christ. Touch the hem of his garment now. Behold, he hangs before you on the cross. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. even so is Jesus lifted up. Look, I beseech you, look and live. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. As though God did beseech you by me, I pray you in Christ's stead be ye reconciled to God. And O may the Spirit make my appeal effectual! May angels rejoice this day over sinners saved and brought to know the Lord.

https://www.biblebb.com/files/spurgeon/0280.htm