February 5

For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be.—Psalms 37:10.

WHY should we fret ourselves because of evil doers, and be envious against the workers of iniquity? They shall fall like grass before the scythe of the mower, and wither as the green herb. A little while and he shall not be. Lest haply because I said, They that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the land, thou shouldest think that waiting to be of very long duration. Wait a little while, thou shalt receive without end what thou waitest for. A little while, a moderate space. Review the years from Adam's time up to this day; run through the Scriptures. It is almost yesterday that he fell from Paradise! So many ages have been measured out, and unrolled. Where now are the past ages? Even so, however, shall the few which remain, pass away also. Hadst thou been living throughout all that time, since Adam was banished from Paradise up to this present day, thou wouldst certainly see that the life, which had thus flown away, had not been of long duration. But how long is the duration of each individual's life? Add any number of years you please: prolong old age to its longest duration: what is it? Is it not but a morning breeze? Be it so, however, that the Day of Judgment is far off, when the reward of the righteous and of the unrighteous is to come: your last day at all events cannot be far off. Make thyself ready against this! For such as thou shall have departed from this life, shalt thou be restored to the other. At the close of that short life, you will not be, where the saints shall be, to whom it shall be said, Come, ye blessed of my Father: inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world. You will not be there? Who does not know that? But you may already be there, where that beggar, once covered with sores, was seen at a distance, at rest, by that proud and unfruitful rich man in the midst of his torments. Surely laid in that rest thou waltest in security for the Day of Judgment, when thou art to receive again a body, to be changed so as to be made equal to an angel. How long then is that, for which we are impatient, and are saying, "When will it come? Will it tarry long?" This our sons will say hereafter, and our sons' sons will say so too; and, though each one of these in succession will say the same thing, that little while, that is yet to be, passes away, as all that is already past hath passed away already! O thou sick one! Yet a little while and the sinner shall not be. Yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and thou shalt not find him.

He shows what he meant by, he shall not be—not that he shall cease to exist altogether, but that he shall not exist for any good end. For if he shall cease to exist altogether, he will not even be tortured. Then is security given to the sinner, so that he will say, "I will do what I will so long as I live; afterward I shall be no more!" Will he be no more in existence, that he may suffer pain, that he may be tormented? What then will become of, Depart into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels? "But perhaps they will not be consigned to that fire, and will be annihilated." Then it would not be said, Go ye into everlasting fire; for if they were not to be in existence, it would not be everlasting to them. And indeed what is in store for them there, whether absolute annihilation, or pain and torment, the Lord hath not kept back from us, saying, There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Now in what way shall they weep and gnash the teeth, if they shall cease to exist altogether? In what way is it here said, A little while and the sinner shall not be, except in the way in which he expounded his meaning in the following verse? Yea, thou shalt seek his place, and thou shalt not find it. What is meant by his place? His use. "Why? hath the sinner any use?" He hath. God uses him here to prove the righteous, even as he made use of the devil to prove Job; even as he made use of Judas to betray Christ. In this life, therefore, there is something that can be done with the sinner. Here, therefore, is the place for him, just as the place for the chaff is in the furnace of the goldsmith. The chaff burns, that the gold may be cleared of its dross; even so the ungodly rages, that the righteous man may be proved. But when the time of our probation shall have been completed, when there shall no longer be those requiring to be proved, there will no longer be those, by whom they must be proved. I pray you, because we said, "there will not be persons to be proved," does it follow the persons themselves shall "not be?" But because from henceforth there will not be need of sinners, as instruments for the probation of the righteous, therefore verily thou shalt seek his place, and thou shalt not find it. Seek the sinner's place now, and thou shalt find it. God hath made of the sinner a scourge. He hath even given him honor, nay, hath given him power also. For sometimes he does this: he gives power to the sinner; then the world is scourged, then the godly are corrected. To that sinner, that which is due shall be repaid; and yet he has been made an instrument for the improvement of the godly; an occasion for the falling away of the ungodly. Thou shalt seek his place; and thou shalt not find it.