August 9

"Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darkness." Jeremiah 13:16.

THE removal of the gospel is darkness. The gospel will never be removed from the world, but it may be withdrawn from a particular place or people. And this has been done. The Jews are an eminent example. The kingdom of God was taken from them. And when we consider the miracles, the institutions, the privileges by which they were distinguished, and see how they were all laid waste, well may the apostle say, Behold the severity of God; and if he spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Where now are the seven churches in Asia? Where is the famous church of Rome, whose faith was spoken of throughout the whole world? At present, you have the inestimable benefit. Be not as the swine, who knows not the value of the pearl, and therefore tramples it under foot. What wonder if the manna should be taken away, when you despise it as light food? The Scriptures may be continued, and the preaching of the gospel be removed; and thus the word may be precious, because there is no open vision. What a blessing to see our teachers, and to hear a word behind us saying, This is the way, walk ye in it. Faith cometh by hearing. And what if the Lord should send a famine in the land—not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord—and we shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it? Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darkness.

Impenitence is darkness. A man may be surrounded with food, yet he dies, if he cannot use and digest it, as much as if the aliment was wanting. The means of grace may remain, and we become incapable of deriving benefit from them. It is an awful fact, that God punishes one sin by another, and judicially blinds those who provoke him. Because they like not to retain him in their knowledge, he gives them up to a reprobate mind. Because they receive not the love of the truth, that they may be saved, he sends them strong delusion to believe a lie. They are joined to idols, and he lets them alone. They delight in error, and they find it. They seek objections to the faith once delivered to the saints, and they are overcome by them. They trifle with the gospel, and at length they cannot seriously regard it, or feel any impression under it. Thus is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith. By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive. Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darkness.

Public calamity is darkness. Was not the Babylonish bondage darkness to the Jews, when their country, the glory of all lands, was desolated, and they carried away captives, and oppressed as slaves, and insulted as a proverb and a by-word? And would not national distress be darkness to us? Some effects of this we have experienced; but how inconsiderable have they yet been, compared with the sufferings of other countries, or with our own deserts. And is there no danger of greater? If God has a controversy with us, it is in vain to argue—we must submit. If he is provoked and determined to punish, vain is the authority of rulers, the wisdom of statesmen, the courage of warriors. "But he has a people among us." He has, and he will take care of his own; but he can secure them, and destroy others. Or even they themselves may help forward, or even occasion the calamity, for no sins offend him like those of his own people. And they may be chastened of the Lord, that they may not be condemned with the world. When the ship sailed from Joppa, there was only one good man on board; and the storm was for his sake, and the sea could only be calmed by his being cast into it. Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darkness.

The loss of reason is darkness. And how soon may the understanding be eclipsed! How easily may the slender and mysterious basis on which intellect rests be destroyed! See Nebuchadnezzar eating grass like an ox. See the philosopher, moping in drivelling idiotcy. Religion can only operate through the medium of thought; and therefore, while you have your mental powers, employ them, lest darkness come upon you.

The loss of health is darkness. Is it nothing to be made to possess months of vanity, or to have wearisome nights appointed us? To be chastened also with pain upon our bed, and the multitude of our bones with strong pain; so that our life abhorreth bread, and our soul dainty meat; and our bones, that were not seen, stick out? Yet, on this season many suspend an attention to the concerns of religion. When thought is broken to pieces, and every avenue to the soul is occupied with the anguish of disease and the anxieties of recovery, surely sufficient for that day is the evil thereof. Use your health while you have it, lest darkness come upon you. The same applies to age. Then desire fails; the grasshopper is a burden: sight and hearing and memory and judgment decline. "Remember," therefore says Solomon, "now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them."

Death is darkness. Then you must give up your employments, however interesting; your possessions, however valued; your connections, however endeared; your religious advantages, however important; and stripped and silent, retire into the gloom of the grave. This darkness is certain. It cannot be remote. It may be close at hand. There may be but a step between me and death—"before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness, and the shadow of death; a land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness."

Hell is darkness—outer darkness; where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. The dreadfulness of this state it is impossible either to describe or imagine. But we know that it is possible to escape it. We also know, that the present is the only opportunity. Behold, now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation. Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darkness.

Blessed be God for his long-suffering goodness, and his warning mercy. He might justly have spared his words, and come instantly to blows. But he speaks before he strikes, and he threatens that he may not destroy. May the kind alarm awaken our fear, and may our fear produce flight; and may we flee for refuge to the hope set before us, even Jesus, who delivers from the wrath to come.