Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vols. 13–63

Verse 1. There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.To my mind one of the sweetest words of that verse is that little word now. "There is, therefore, now no condemnation—at this very moment! Walking under the power of the Spirit of God in Christ Jesus, there is, therefore, now no condemnation to Believers! It is a logical conclusion, too, from something that went before. You and I are not absolved from sin apart from the Truth of God, but there is a great truth at the back of it which necessitates it. "There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

2. For the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the Law of sin and death Sin and death cannot govern me—cannot condemn me—cannot destroy me. Another Law has come in. The Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has brought me into another kingdom wherein I cannot be affected, so as to condemn me, by the Law of sin and death.

3, 4. For what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit The Law of God was a good Law, a just and holy Law. It was weak, not in itself, for, verily, if righteousness could have been by any Law, it would have been by the Law of God! But it was weak through our flesh. We could not keep it. We could not fulfill the conditions of life laid down under it. Therefore, what the Law could not do, God has now done for us! He has found a way of making us righteous through the righteousness of His own dear Son, whom He has sent in the likeness of sinful flesh. He has found out a way of condemning sin, without condemning us! He condemned sin in the flesh, but we escaped. And He has found a way of making us practically righteous, too, through the abundance of His Grace, enabling us to walk no longer after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Blessed be God for this, for when we had broken His Law, He might justly have left us to take the consequences, but He has stepped aside—He has gone beyond all that might have been expected of Him—and brought in a Law by which a remedy is applied to all our ills. Glory be to His name!

5. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh. They live to eat and drink. They live for self-aggrandizement. They live for the world and its pleasures. It is according to their nature. Everything acts according to its nature. The wolf devours—the sheep patiently feeds. They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh.

5. But they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit God has given us, then, the Spirit to dwell in us and now I trust we can say that we desire holiness, righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, for these things are the things of the Spirit!

6, 7. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be. It is so deeply vitiated, so thoroughly depraved, that so long as the fleshly mind exists, it will be in rebellion against God. "You must be born-again," for that which is born of the flesh is flesh—and only that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Unless we are renewed, then, by the Spirit of God, we never shall be subject to the Law of God—neither, indeed, can we be.

8, 9. So then, they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if, indeed, the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none ofHis. Christ does not acknowledge any that are not indwelt by His Spirit. They may wear the Christian name. They may perform some acts which look like Christian acts—but all this means nothing. You must have the Spirit of God within you, or else you are none of His! And what a thing it is to be "none of His." "Verily," says Christ, "I never knew you." "But, Lord, we ate and drank with You! You preached in our streets." But He says, "I never knew you." They are none of His. Oh, dear Friends, the highest point to which human nature can reach of itself falls short of being in Christ! There must be the Spirit of God dwelling in us or else we are none of His!

10. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin. Therefore, it suffers disease and pain, for the soul is regenerated, but not the body. If I may so speak, the Regeneration of the body happens at the Resurrection. It is then that it will receive its full share of the blessed work of Christ! "The body is dead because of sin."

10, 11. But the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwells in you.So there is a complete deliverance provided for body, soul and spirit! As Moses said to Pharaoh when he agreed to let the people of Israel go, but said that they must leave behind their flocks, "Not a hoof shall be left behind," so no particle of our real manhood shall be left under the thralldom of sin and death! The soul is already emancipated and the body shall be—by the Spirit which dwells in you!

12. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For we owe the flesh nothing by way of gratitude or service. The flesh has dragged us down. The flesh has ruined us. We owe it nothing except mastery of it. We are not debtors to it, to live after it.

13. For if you live after the flesh, you shall die. It will die and so will you who make it your master!

13. But if you, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live. "Mortify," kill, put to death.

14. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. There may be a great many weaknesses and infirmities about them, but if they follow the Divine Leadership of the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God!

15. For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the Spirit of Adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father Is this true of you? "You have received the Spirit of Adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." Dear Friends, hearing these words, can you respond to them? Are they true of you?

16. The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God. Many of you make a profession of being the children of God. Can your own spirit say that it is true? And is there, in addition to this, the witness of the Spirit within you that it is true? If not, unless there is a witness to our testimony, it avails nothing. Our Lord Jesus Christ said, "If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true." And if He chooses to put Himself on a level, as it were, with the rest of humanity in that respect, we cannot expect that our witness will stand for anything if it stands alone! No, there must be the Spirit, Himself, bearing witness with our spirit that we are the children of God!

17. And if children, then heirs: heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ Oh that if—"ifchildren." There are some that get over all that. They believe in a universal fatherhood—which is not worth the words in which they describe it. This is a different fatherhood altogether!

17. If indeed we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together. Oh, this blessed co-partnership—this fellowship! Joint-heirs with Christ! Taking part in the whole heritage—as well the heritage of suffering as the heritage of glory. "It shall bruise Your heel, but You shall bruise his head." There is to be the heel-bruising for the Christ, as well as for us, but there is to be the head-crushing of sin and Satan for Him and for us, too!

18. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Glory in us? Only think of that! You know the Revelation that is in the Book—but how grand will be the revelation that is in the man! "The glory which shall be revealed in us." We shall be full of glory! And a part of God's Glory, which otherwise must have lain concealed, will be revealed in His people to His own praise forever and ever—but also to our own eternal joy.

19. For the earnest expectation of the creation waits for the manifestation of the sons of God. There is something that the whole creation is waiting for and it cannot come till God's children are manifested—till the glory is revealed in them!

20. 22. For the creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who has subjected the same in hope. Because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. "The whole creation." It is the same word all through—so I have used the same word. The whole world is in its pangs and birth throes, and there can never come its complete deliverance into the new heavens and the new earth, except there shall also be the manifestation of the children of God and their deliverance from all that now hampers and hinders the Divine Life that is within them!

23. And not only they, but ourselves, also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. This is what we are looking for! Our manhood is not all soul—it is body, too! And here, as yet, this poor body seems to lie outside the gate, like Lazarus, while the soul rejoices in God. But its time of glorifying is coming! The trumpet of the archangel shall proclaim it!

24. For we are saved by hope. As yet we are saved by hope.

24-26. But hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man sees, why does he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities. That is a grand thing! We have got the first fruits of the Spirit to be the pledge of all the glorious harvest. The very fact that the Spirit dwells in us is the conclusive proof that our bodies shall be raised from the dead! Meanwhile, the Spirit of God is helping us, as we groan and labor, towards the complete perfection. "The Spirit helps our infirmities."

27. And He that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.Nor is it only the Holy Spirit who is thus helping us onward towards the grand finale!

28, 29. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the calledac-cording to His purpose. For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren. And you know that He is the First-Born in this sense—not only as the greatest, but that as the First-Begotten from among the dead, He has risen from the dead! He has risen from the dead and in this He leads the way for us all. "That he might be the first-born among many brethren."

30. Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified.No slips, no gaps or chasms by the way. The foreknown are predestinated. The predestinated are the called. The called are justified. The justified are glorified!

31. What shall we say, then, to these things.?Shall we succumb under the sufferings of the body? Shall we yield to doubt because of all our heavy feelings and the dullness that comes of the flesh? By no means!

31. If God is for us, who can be against us?We can get through all these difficulties if God is with us!

"There shall be a resurrection both for the just and the unjust." Acts 24:15.

THE heathen had, somehow or other, spelled out the Truth of God that the soul of man is immortal. Almost all their religions implied this and some of their sages plainly taught it. But never had they imagined that this immortality might belong also to the body!

The Doctrine of the Resurrection from the Dead was peculiar to Christianity. It was so novel and it seemed, at first, to be so absurd that when men heard the Apostles speak of such a resurrection they mocked and laughed them to scorn as fools. They called Paul, "a babbler," because of this. They believed he must be mad. Had they not seen the body sicken and die? Had they not marked it in various stages of decay? Did they not know that it was frequently dissolved into small dust, scattered to the manifold winds of Heaven, or that its fragments mingled with the waves of the sea, or that its various members were torn by wild beasts and could they, therefore, imagine it to be credible that any sane person could believe that the human body would rise again from the dead? Yet Paul believed this and this he preached—that there would be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust, not that the just and the unjust would merely live as to their souls, but that their bodieswould be restored from the grave and that a resurrection, as well as an immortality, would be the future of every man of woman born, whatever his character might be!

Now, this is the great Doctrine of the Christian faith which we do not doubt, but joyously accept! Our Lord's Body, that same Body in real identity which was nailed to the tree and laid in the tomb for three days—that same Body came to life again, with the nail prints visible—into which Thomas was invited to put his finger—with the mark of the spear into which the same doubting Apostle was asked to thrust his hand! Christ proved Himself to be not merely a spirit, but a solid, tangible, corporeal existence, for He said, "Handle Me, and see; a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see I have." And although He appeared in the room, the doors being shut, and thus proved that His body had lost some of the properties of coarse matter, yet, at the same time, He took a piece of flesh and of honeycomb and did eat before them—and let them see that it was His very Self who had hung upon the Cross and died there at Calvary! And so shall it be with us! Though by death our bodies shall lose some of their qualities which we shall all be only too glad to lose, though their corruptions and weaknesses shall all be laid aside, yet my body and yours in definite identity, each for itself, shall rise up from its bed of dust and silent clay, and enter into the rest that remains where Jesus dwells before the Throne of God! Behold at this present, "the whole creation groans and travails in pain together, until now, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body."

My great purpose tonight, Beloved, is to speak on the majestic fact that the just and the unjust are to live on in a resurrection state. I am not going to debate, discuss, argue as to the fact of it, but, assuming your belief in God's Inspired Word, declare a few thoughts which that sublime Truth seems to raise in one's mind. I shall treat the Truth as though it were a lantern—and shall look at some of the rays of Divine Light that stream from it on all sides. And, first of all—

Observe the effect it has, first of all, given our bodies. Paul elsewhere calls the body, "this vile body," and so it is in comparison with what it is to be, by-and-by! But yet if this body has been redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, and if the Holy Spirit dwells in our bodies, as we are taught in Scripture—and if these bodies are to be partakers of a pure and sinless immortality—then what noble things these otherwise vile bodies become! So noble, my Brothers and

Sisters, that it becomes us to guard them sacredly, as sacred things! Now, our bodies may be defiled, but shall they be defiled after being washed in pure water and after being given up to Christ? You know how they may be defiled. The Apostle speaks very plainly concerning certain carnal lusts whereby members of Christ may be made members of all manner of iniquity. From these things we fly—they should not be so much as named among you, as becomes saints. Our bodies may be defiled by eating and drinking, unless in the eating and the drinking we glorify God. We may by excess in either way bring ourselves into conditions in which the mind will not act and I believe, mark you, that gluttony is as much a sin in the sight of God as drunkenness, and that, in fact, any eating or drinking which makes us unfit for communion with God becomes sinful at once! Any passing beyond that boundary, whatever it may be, whether in eating or in drinking, becomes sinful! The body is clogged and defiled and who would have it so when it has been purchased by Christ's precious blood and is to dwell with Him forever?

The body, too, may be defiled by outward adornments, for the Holy Spirit has expressly warned Christian men and women against these. There is a holy adornment that we speak of—that of a meek and a quiet spirit—but when men and women hang upon themselves their jewels and their ornaments of an ungodly profession, they sin against the plain precepts of the Word of God and they really defile the bodies that belong to Christ! So every bowing of the knee to that to which I ought not to bow, every yielding of this body of mine to write what is not true, every motion of my tongue to speak that which is not upright and according to the fear of God, every movement of these feet to take me where it is not good for me to be—defiles the body! So there are ten thousand ways in which the Temple of God may be defiled, but I say again that with the thought that this body is to live forever and ever, we ought to guard with sacred care these members of Christ! The body that has been bought with His blood—that is to sleep on His bosom, that is to be awakened in His likeness, that is to dwell with Him forever, molded after His own Image—take care of that body and keep it consecrated unto the Lord!

And while this ennobles the body, let me say that it also ennobles the entire man. If man is a creature. If he is only first among animals, though the most highly organized of all the vertebrate creatures. And if, when he dies, that is the end of him, as that might be of a sheep or a dog, then, looking up to the stars and thinking of man as a mere beast, you need not say with David, "Lord, what is man?" You know what he is! You have got your answer—and a gloomy and a melancholy answer it is. But if man is to live forever and ever, what a noble creature he becomes! And, mark you, men are ready enough to admit this of some of their fellow creatures—kings, queens, princes, senators and men who have heaped up their gold—but when it comes to this, that the beggar, being immortal, is to be honored, they do not like it! I would that men would remember that the same Bible that says, "Honor the king," also says, "Honor all men"—that is, be they what they may! But men must honor people's coats—not the men! Or they honor their carriages, or they honor their sovereigns, but they do not honor the men! And yet, in truth, seeing that man is to live forever, that his existence in the future is coeval with the life of God, every man becomes a strange and wondrous thing! If you could pile up a mountain of gold, a huge pyramid of it, and then by the side of it a pyramid of precious stones, yet all these put together could not be valued with the soul of the pauper's child that has been in the workhouse from its very birth! Despise not, then, despise not a man made in the image of God—a man redeemed with the blood of Christ, a man immortal, a man a mystery if he is immortal—a mystery of mysteries!

As I begin to look at him in the light of my text, which is far above all the fictitious surroundings to which men attach so much weight, he appears to me now to be a greater being than stars or suns, for these may die out and their brightness become extinct—but here is a star that shall shine on forever! A sun that shall flash its beams throughout eternity! We must not, therefore, if we are poor, broken, despised—at once go into sin as though we were too mean to be capable of excellence! We must not begin to say, "I cannot be saved—I am so illiterate, I am so obscure." Why not? If you are not saved, you will have to live forever in misery! Can you understand that? You are endowed with an immortality from which it is impossible for you to escape! In that respect, by that wondrous gift, God has put you on an elevated position and I pray that you may look at it as such—may, by His Grace, not fling yourselves away, nor trifle with yourselves, nor do the devil's bidding—but seek Him who has promised in His Word that they that seek Him shall find Him!

Thus much on that one thought. And now a second one. If there is another state, as you know there is, for body and soul—

How little it makes it! How great it makes it! How little! Well, if I suffer, today. If my life should be made weary through weakness of body, or if it should be bitter through heart-toil, or if it should be severe through stern poverty, yet you know how we sing—

These light afflictions, which are but for a moment, are not worthy to be compared with the weight of glory which shall be revealed in us! Looking at the trials of this present life and comparing and contrasting them with the splendor, glory, and eternity of the life to come, they are not worth a thought! They disappear and we sing as we wade through the midst of them, knowing that it is so written that through much tribulation we must inherit the Kingdom of God. When we look back from the hilltops of Heaven, I suppose life itself will seem to be infinitesimal. Those great troubles of ours will look like pin's pricks and we shall almost laugh to think that we should have weighed those burdens and thought them so heavy when they were, after all, light as feathers. I think we shall, as Watts says—

"With transporting joys recount

The labors of our feet."

We shall say, one to another, "How could we have been so unbelieving?" What was there, after all, in our trials to depress us so much? Our sufferings were not worth a thought when once compared with those of our Master. "His way was much rougher and darker than mine. Did Christ my Lord suffer, and did I repine?" Why was it that with such blessed help, such rich promises, such Covenant blessings and with the everlasting arms underneath us, yet nevertheless we were faint and ready to die? Oh, Brothers and Sisters, this world seems so little when we think of the world to come! Now, you who have been envious of the rich, you little think how soon they will be as poor as you! You who have sometimes thought how richly you were favored—think how fame is nothing but a breath—and how soon it is gone! Princes will sleep side by side with the slave. The great conqueror will not be distinguished from the victims of his ambition. The greatest millionaire will be no richer than you! Both alike, you came naked into this world—and naked you return to the dust. So must it be. Oh, it is all little! "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." The big round world becomes a bubble and it vanishes—and as a puff of smoke, the glory of the world departs!

And yet in this respect, I say, how great this present life becomes! You know how our poet puts its—

"Great God! On what a slender thread

This life is the mother of the life to come. There is a resurrection for the just, and all the glory which the just shall inherit will be but the outcome of that immortal life which they received here! There is a resurrection for the unjust, and the worm undying and the fire that shall never be quenched! And all these will be just the development and open revealing of the character which they acquired here on earth. Living in sin is the germ of living forever in Hell! Believing in Jesus is the root of rejoicing forever in glorious immortality! Now, Sirs, see you not that life is not a thing to be played with, not a heap of counters that a child may toss to and fro, not the mere spray on the great sea of eternity? You must not joke and talk about it as though it were a thing to be despised—but come up and look at it with all its solemn possibilities and results—and live the life of sober men, live the life of men who have peered beyond the veil and seen some of the momentous issues of this fleeting existence! Henceforth, live while you live, earnestly, as in the sight of God, the Judge of the quick and the dead! Yes, let the light of the Resurrection stream over the whole of your present life to make its great things for the present to become little—to make those things which otherwise might be little, which have a reference to eternity—become great in your esteem. But I will not tarry on this and, therefore, pass on to the thought—

To think that there is a resurrection and another life! What? Were it worth our while to toil here in the service of Christ, often unrewarded and very frequently misrepresented and persecuted for what we do, if there were not a place where the reward of Divine Grace would be given and where the mistakes of earth would all be set right? "Therefore," says the Apostle, "beloved brethren, be you steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." It might be in vain here, but forasmuch as there is a resurrection, your labor is not in vain in the Lord! If we win souls for Christ, it often happens that some of those whom we thought were saved, go back into perdition—many of those who are really saved walk disorderly—others are ungrateful to their spiritual parents and turn aside to crooked ways. But if our record is on high and we do not look to our success for our reward, but to our Master—then we may be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in work! You who are doing something for Jesus Christ in the school, or in any other department of labor, if you look upon your rewards as the result, you may, perhaps, have very few conversions and you may go toiling on very heavily. But if you will look beyond all present results to the great Taskmaster's blessed smile and think you hear Him say, "Well done, good and faithful servant"— when you see Him reward you not according to your success, but according to the measure of Grace which you use faithfully in His service—when you see that, you will pluck up courage, you will not be of heavy heart, you will be instant in season, out of season!

The same thing is an encouragement under suffering. For this the martyrs cheerfully gave themselves up to their tormentors, not accepting deliverance because they looked for a better resurrection. This it was that made them brave to meet the lions in the amphitheater, or to lie and silently rot in the dismal dungeons of the Roman Emperors. This it was that made Smithfield glorious, as the saints in their chariots of fire clapped their hands and ascended to the skies! They were, of all men, most miserable if, in this life only, they had hope. They were, of all men, most insane to fling away their lives if this world were all! But because there is another and a better land, to die for Jesus became a glorious thing and they did it, being not amazed, not trembling, but dying with greater grandeur about them than that with which most men have learned to surround their living! And now, you that today are poor, or today are scoffed at. You who, though trying to follow Christ, find it a hard path. You who at home have little to encourage you and comfort you—remember this worldis not your rest! If you were to have 50 years of your present trouble, well, it will be as nothing compared with the eternal weight of Glory! Have patience. Ask your Master to give you His patience. Pray of the Holy Spirit to work in you holy virtue, that after you have endured awhile, you may inherit the promise. Remember that there must first be the service before there can be the reward—and even under the economy of Grace—in which we are not saved by works, but saved by the merit of Jesus, yet the Lord will have His servants, first of all, be made perfect through suffering before He admits them to their everlasting rest. Be of good courage, then! He will strengthen your heart. This is not your rest, but it remains for you, and you shall inherit it, by-and-by. Passing on again, for I only dwell for a moment upon each thought—this fact of our rising again and living forever suggests to us—

What shall this be for the saint—what for the sinner? If I am to live again as a child of God. If my salvation is accomplished. If my sin is blotted out and I am really saved, then let me serve my God with all my might, seeing what a blessed immortality He has prepared for me! Slaves work when they hear the whip crack, but the children of God are not slaves—they are not under bondage—they work from a very different motive. They have no fear of Hell, no fear of losing Heaven. When their faith is constantly fixed upon the merits of their Savior, they know that their warfare is accomplished, that their iniquity is pardoned, that their salvation is secure beyond all risks through the Everlasting Covenant, the inimitable purpose and the Divine promise of the Father in Christ Jesus! Because their salvation is secure and because it leads to such a blessed immortality, they burn with fervent love and passionate gratitude towards Him who has done so much for them! Gratitude in the heart ought to be, and I believe it is, the most powerful force in human motive. Love— what shall equal it? Its wheels move until the axles grow hot with speed. Love has an impetuous force about it. Many waters cannot quench it, neither can the floods drown it. What love we owe to Him who died, that when we die we may live again, who rose that we might rise and made a pathway to the skies that we might follow Him, even to His Throne!

"He lives, the great Redeemer lives," and beckons us to come and live with Him! When our bodies must, for awhile, see corruption, His voice, which shall be the trumpet sound, shall call us from the beds wherein we slumber to abide with Him forever! Let us love Him, then! Let us be up and doing to find the lost ones that are His sheep, to find His pieces of money that are now in the dust, to discover our prodigal brethren that are still going astray! Shall we ask for rest when rest remains? Shall we escape from toil when toil is the only exposition of our love? Shall we bemoan our sufferings when sufferings give us opportunities of proving our affection to Him? If the saint in Heaven could wish himself back again, he almost might—if he could win a soul by tarrying here a little longer! If any one of yonder white-robed hosts could wish to be on earth, surely it might be to occupy the place of an earnest Evangelist, or of a fervent Sunday school teacher, or of any other who is a soul-winner for Jesus! I must confess I do not envy Gabriel his crown when God gives me souls! I have then thought that I would rather be here to talk with you and point you to my Master's Cross, than be up there and cast my crown at His feet—for surely there can be no joy in Heaven greater than the joy of doing the Master's will in winning souls for Him! Do not let us throw away our opportunities for doing this. Some of you do not, perhaps, think of using them. In your business, in the acquaintances that Providence puts in your way—you have opportunities in all these things of bearing your witness for your Master. I pray you to see them and seize them! They will soon pass, and in the silent chamber, when you are about to enter into another world, if regret shall mingle with the holy peace that then shall gild your brow, it will be this regret, "I wish I had served Him better, whom I am so soon to see. I wish I had more to take to Him who gave Himself up for me." Surely you will bid "good-bye" to friends with reluctance, if you have never warned them to escape from the wrath to come! And those dear children—it will bring hotter tears into your eyes to leave them—if you leave them unsaved because you did not plead and wrestle with them for their salvation. So live, dear Friends, that when you come to die, there shall be nothing left undone and you may go and feel that through Grace you have been what you are, and unto God be the praise—that you have not neglected the lifework which your Master gave you!

Now, I said that this text should make the unforgiven sinner think—and so it should, and very earnestly, too, because there will be a resurrection of the unjust as well as of the just. If you who are now living in sin were really to die and perish like horses, there might be some sort of excuse found for choosing the pleasures of this life as being all-in-all. After all, if there is no other world, I do not know but what the Epicurean philosophy is the right one—"Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." If we are only to live in this world, it is the part of wisdom to enjoy one's self as much as possible. I do not know but that even then a man would be justified in running into vice—because that does not bring enjoyment—it is sure to guarantee, even in this life, the most serious results. But still, at the bottom, that old Greek philosopher had hit upon the true philosophy of life if this life were all—"Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." But if there is a life to come, as there is, then what a fool Epicurus was! And what nonsense his philosophy becomes! Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we do not die, or if we do, yet we live again—and in the light of living again, why, eating and drinking seems such dreadful trumpery, such driveling idiocy that a man cannot tolerate it either from philosopher or from a fool! Oh, if you are to live forever, you who are living without thinking of your God, what sort of life must the next one be for you? You to whom, even now, to think of God is an irksome burden, what will the next world be for you? You believe that Book, you dare not doubt it! And that Book tells you that "except you repent of your sin, you shall all likewise perish." Moreover, it tells you that there is no salvation out of Christ, but "He that believes in Him shall be saved; but He that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed on the Son of God." According to this Book of God's perfectly revealed mind, there is reserved for you, if you remain impenitent, a "fearful-looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation." Fear not him who can destroy the body—only fear Him who can cast both soul and body into Hell!

Why do you give so much attention to this world that is so soon to be left—and the eternal things are quite forgotten or despised by you? I do not feel as if I could plead this with you with any sort of force or eager earnestness because it is really so plain that you, in your sins, must see it for yourselves! You surely, surely, as sober-minded men and women— and I know there are some here who are accustomed to think—you must feel that the living throughout millions of ages ought to be of greater concern than living from week to week, or even year to year! We think a man is very foolish that lives from hand to mouth, and never cares to make any provision for a rainy day. But what a fool that man must be who makes no provision for that rainy day when the tempest of Heaven's retribution shall beat upon his naked soul—and he shall have no shelter and no way of escape! And if a man has grown old and yet neglects eternity, if his constitution is being gradually undermined and yet the everlasting things are despised. If he has had solemn warnings that he must soon depart. If he has seen old companions, one by one, taken to the grave—and he still trifles away his time, lingering upon the brink of fate—what folly is this and in what words can I describe it?

Blessed Spirit, take away this folly and make men wise that they may be saved! Let this be our one great concern— with holy care to make our calling and election sure, that when the Master comes we may not be found castaways—but may be gathered with His people! And now for the last point. I do not know whether you will set much store by this last thought, but it is this—considering that our friends whom we talk with everyday, with whom we go up and down to the market, and to the place of worship—considering that they are to live forever—

V. SHOULD WE NOT ALTER A GREAT DEAL OF OUR PRESENT BEHAVIOR UNDER THE POWER OF THIS TRUTH?

What kind of behavior does this majestic fact inculcate towards our fellow men and women? Well, I think that Christian people ought always to act to one another as immortal beings. Now I know some who belong to one denomination who will scarcely speak to those of another section of Christ's one Church. Well, well, well—if you both ever get to Heaven, you will have to dwell together! Yet it seems as though you cannot live together on earth without bickering! Why can't you make up your minds to differ from each other, but always in a Christian spirit? I think, if I knew I had to live with a man, forever, one thing I would like to do would be to tell him perfectly honestly, with sincere love, all the Truths of God I knew—and I ought to be willing to hear from him all the Truth he thought he knew. I would not like him to say to me, "Now, you must not hold your views strongly—you must not speak of them, or try to propagate them." That would be as bad as telling me I must sin against God by restraining the light which He had given me! Neither ought I to say to him, "You shall not be free to hold and disseminate your views," for that would be to take upon myself a responsibility which does not belong to me!

But each holding our separate views and contending earnestly for what we believe to be "the faith once for all delivered to the saints," might we not thus exercise an honesty which we shall look back upon in Heaven with joy—and at the same time, a brotherly kindness which will be a sweet reflection even beyond the stars? If any two of you have fallen out, even about the faith, go your way and agree tonight! You have got to live together forever—do not quarrel! You who are relatives, especially, let not the sun go down upon your wrath, but as you are birds in the same nest, children of one family, and one with God, do not fall out! And if you have, make it up at once and let holy Christian forgiveness reign and rule! You see, God will not put a partition between you in Heaven. I do not believe they will practice any kind of strict communion up there. I do not believe there will be any separate bench for any who would like to have that kind of thing, but that the whole company of saints will have communion with each other and with their common Lord, their glorious risen Head! And that it will be their delight, all washed from all their imperfections and infirmities, to eat bread together in the Kingdom of God, world without end! Well, let us have large hearts and brotherly kindness—not keeping back our views, for that would be to sin—but holding with a firm hand everything which we have received from the Holy Spirit, and yet loving the whole household of faith. If we were to die, and there were no life to come, then we might be foolish and unchristian enough to be forever squabbling and bickering! But if, after death, we are to live forever in the same place of Glory, let us so behave to one another that we shall not be ashamed or embarrassed to meet each other there.

And so with regard to the unconverted. Oh, Christian people, try to think of all the unconverted people with whom you have to meet as immortal souls. Your servant girl that nurses and loves your child—you may, perhaps, never have thought of but as a servant girl—but she is an immortal soul as much as the Queen on the throne! Or it may be the man who comes to do odd jobs about the house and who blacks your shoes—you never thought of him, probably—but as a worker, yet he—even he—shall outlast the stars! And all those working men and women, and girls who come streaming into your yard or factory, who weave at your looms, toil in your workrooms, stand at your printing press or at the bookbinding, or in your builder's shop—all these and the myriads engaged in commercial and professional life you may hitherto, perhaps, have only thought of them as two-legged machines to earn so many shillings for you and draw so many less from you every week! Yes, but now just think again. They are living for immortality as well as yourselves! Will you try to act with them that if their funeral knell were heard and they were gone, the voice of conscience might not have to torment you with this suggestion, "You neglected their souls! You did not do to them what you ought to have done to them! You kept back from their immortal part that which, alone, could make them blessed in this life and in the life to come." 'Tis but a simple thought, and yet if I leave it with you, and God the Holy Spirit blesses it, it may be a very blessed thought to some whom you know not of today! Remember that all you see in the streets, and all you see in the house, and all you see here tonight are all immortal and shall live again! And so treat them as such, looking forward to the time when you will have to give an account whether you have abused or used graciously the opportunities which your Master placed in your way.

And now may the good Lord keep our thoughts Heavenward and bless us in them, for His name's sake. Amen.