A Message For The Present Time
A Message for the Present Time
We plead with you, young men and women, and tenderly remind you that you are at this hour acting unjustly and unkindly towards your God. He made you, and you do not serve Him; He has kept you alive, and you are not obedient to Him. He has sent the word of His gospel to you, and you have not received it; He has sent His only begotten Son, and you have despised Him. This injustice is a thing of the present; and the appeal we make to you about it is, that in all reason such conduct should come to an end. Oh, may God's Holy Spirit help you to end it! If I feel that I have done any man an injustice, I am eager to set it right; I would not wait till to-morrow, I wish to make him amends at once. Yes, and even when I have forgotten to render assistance to some needy widow, I chide myself, and feel uneasy till I have attended to the matter. Do you not feel the same? Would you wilfully wrong or neglect another? I feel sure you would not. How is it, then, that you can be content to be unjust to God, cruel to the dear Lover of the souls of men, and antagonistic to the loving pleadings of the Holy Spirit? That first chapter of Isaiah—how striking it is! Why, if men had hearts that were at all tender it would break them. "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth. I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know; My people doth not consider." It is the wail of God Himself over man's unkindness to his Maker! Young man of honour, young man of integrity, does nothing speak to your conscience in this? "Will a man rob God?" You would not rob your employer. You would not like to be thought unfaithful or dishonest towards man; and yet your God, your God, your God—is He to be treated so basely, notwithstanding all His goodness? As Jesus said, "For which of these works do you stone Me?" so does Jehovah say, "I have made you; I have kept the breath in your nostrils; I have fed you all your life long; and for which of all these good things do you live without Me, and neglect Me, and perhaps curse My name, and sin with a high hand against My sacred law?" Now, can you think it right to remain in so wantonly unjust a course of life as this? Can it be right to continue to wrong your God and grieve His matchless love? Provoke Him no more, I pray you. Let conscience lead you to feel that you have dealt ill with the Lord, and come ye to Him for forgiveness and change of heart. O Spirit of God, make this appeal to be felt by all our beloved youths and maidens!
Again, our message has to do with the present, for we would affectionately remind you that you are now at enmity with your best Friend—the Friend to whose love you owe everything. You have grieved Him, and are, without cause, His enemy; can you bear this thought? I know a little child who had done something wrong, and her kind father talked to her, and at last, as a punishment, he said to her in a very sad voice, "I cannot kiss you to-night, for you have grieved me very much." That broke her little heart. Though not a stroke had been laid upon her, she saw sorrow in her dear father's face, and she could not endure it. She pleaded and wept, and pleaded again to be forgiven. It was thought wise to withhold the kiss, and she was sent to bed, for she had done very wrong; but there was no sleep for those weeping eyes, and when the mother went up to that little one's chamber she heard frequent sobs and sighs, and a sorrowful little voice said, "I was very, very naughty, but pray forgive me, and ask dear father to give me a kiss." She loved her father, and she could not bear that he should be grieved. Child of mercy, erring child of the great Father of spirits, canst thou bear to live for ever at enmity with the loving Father? "Would He forgive me?" say you. What makes you ask the question? Is it that you do not know how good He is? Has He not pourtrayed Himself as meeting His prodigal son and falling upon his neck and kissing him? Before the child had reached the father, the father had reached the child. The father was eager to forgive, and therefore, when the son was yet a great way off his father saw him, and ran, and had compassion. Say no longer that we are talking of things of a far-off time. It is not so. I am speaking of that which I pray may be true of you now, that you may not remain enemies to God even another hour, but now may become His dear repenting children, and fly into your tender Father's arms.
I have to remind you, however, of much more than this—namely, that you are in danger. On account of your treatment of God, and your remaining an enemy to Him, He will surely visit you in justice and punish you for your transgressions. He is a just God, and every sin committed is noted in His book; and there it stands recorded against His judgment day. The danger you are in is that you may this moment go down into the pit; you may bow your head in death and appear before your Maker in an instant, to receive the just reward of your sins.
We tell you that there is immediate pardon for all the sins of those who will believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that if you will believe in Jesus, your sins, which are many, are all forgiven you. Know ye not the story (ye have heard it many a time) that the Lord Jesus took upon Himself the sins of all who trust Him, and suffered, in their room and stead, the penalty due to their sins? He was our substitute, and as such He died, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God. He laid down His life for us, that "whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Will you refuse the salvation so dearly purchased but so freely presented? Will you not accept it here, and now? Can you bear the burden of your sins? Are you content to abide for a single hour in peril of eternal punishment? Can you bear to be slipping down into the open jaws of hell as you now are? Remember God's patience will not last for ever; long enough have you provoked Him. All things are weary of you. The very earth on which you stand groans beneath the indignity of bearing a sinner upon its surface. So long as you are an enemy to God, the stones of the field are against you, and all creation threatens you. It is a wonder that you do not sink at once to destruction. For this cause we would have you pardoned now and made free from Divine wrath now. The peril is immediate, the Lord grant that so the rescue may be! Do I hear you say, "But may pardon be had at once? Is Jesus Christ a present Saviour? We thought that we might perhaps find Him when we came to die, or might obtain a hope of mercy after living a long life of seeking." It is not so. Free grace proclaims immediate salvation from sin and misery. Whosoever looks to Jesus at this very moment shall have his sins forgiven. At the instant he believes in the Lord Jesus, the sinner shall cease to be in danger of the fires of hell. The moment a man turns his eye of faith to Jesus Christ he is saved from the wrath to come. It is present salvation that we preach to you, and the present comfort of that present salvation, too.
Many other reasons tend to make this weighty matter exceedingly pressing; and among them is this, that there is a disease in your heart, the disease of sin, and it needs immediate cure. I do not hear persons say, if they discover an incipient disease in their systems, that they will wait a while till the evil is more fully developed, and will then resort to a physician. The most of us have sense enough to try to check disease at once. Young man, thou hast a leprosy upon thee. Young woman, thou hast a dreadful malady within thy heart. Dost thou not desire to be healed now? Jesus can give thee immediate healing if thou believest in Him. Wilt thou hesitate to be made whole? Dost thou love thy mortal malady? Is hideous sin so dear to thee? O that thou wouldst cry to be saved immediately, then will Jesus hear thee. His Spirit will descend upon thee, and cleanse thee, give thee a new heart, and a right spirit—yea, and make thee whole from this time henceforth and for ever; canst thou wish to have so great a blessing postponed? Surely a sick man can never be cured too soon? The gospel will also bring you present blessings. In addition to present pardon and present justification, it will give you present regeneration, present adoption, present sanctification, present access to God, present peace through believing, and present help in time of trouble, and it will make you even for this life doubly happy. It will be wisdom for your way, strength for your conflict, and comfort for your sorrow. If I had to die like a dog I would still wish to be a Christian. If there were no hereafter—though the supposition is not to be tolerated—yet still let me live for and with Jesus, my beloved Lord. Balaam chose the righteous man's death, I choose it too; but quite as much do I choose his life, for to have the love of God in the heart, to have peace with God, to be able to look up to Heaven with confidence, and talk to my Heavenly Father in childlike trustfulness, is a present joy and comfort worth more than worlds. Young men and women, in preaching to you the gospel, we are preaching that which is good for this life as well as for the life to come. If you believe in Jesus you will be saved now, this moment, and you will now enjoy the unchanging favour of God, so that you will go your way henceforth not to live as others do, but as the chosen of God, beloved with special love, enriched with special blessings, to rejoice every day till you are taken up to dwell where Jesus is. Present salva-tion is the burden of the Lord's message to you, and therefore it is not true, but infamously false, that the vision is for many days to come, and the prophecy for times that are far off. Is there not reason in my pleadings? If so, yield to them. Can you answer these arguments? If not, I pray you cease delaying. Again would I implore the Holy Spirit to lead you to immediate decision!