“ Their foot shall slip in due time”
Duet 32:35 Vengeance is Mine, and recompense (required)
Their foot shall slip in due time,
For the day of their calamity is at hand, And the things to come hasten upon them,
In this verse God has threatened His vengeance on the wicked unbelieving Israelites, Who were God’s visible people, and who lived under the means of grace; but who, Notwithstanding all God’s wonderful works toward them, remained (as ver. 28) “void of counsel, Nor is there any understanding in them.” Under all the cultivations of heaven, they brought forth bitter and poisonous fruit, as in the two verses next preceding the text.The topic I have chosen, “Their foot shall slip in due time,” seems to imply the following, in regards to the punishment and destruction that these wicked Israelites were exposed to. That they were always exposed to destruction; just as he who walks or stands on slippery places is exposed to fall.
This is implied in the manner of their destruction coming upon them, being represented by their foot slipping. The same analogy is expressed in psalm 73:18 “Surely you set them in slippery places; You cast them down to destruction” This implies that they were always exposed to sudden and unexpected destruction.
Just as he who walks on slippery ground can easily slip and fall, he cannot foresee from one moment to the next whether he will stand or slip; and when he does fall, he falls without warning: As expressed in psalm 73:18-19 “Surely you set them in slippery places; You cast them down to destruction, Oh how they are brought to desolation as in a moment!”
Another thing that is implied here, is that they are liable to fall of themselves, without being thrown down by the hand of another, just like he doesn’t need anything but his own weight to throw him down when on slippery ground.
The reason why they are not fallen already, and don’t fall now, is only that Gods appointed time has not yet come. For it is said, that in due time, or when the appointed time comes, their foot shall slip. Then they shall be left to fall, as they are inclined to by their own weight. God will not hold them up in these slippery places any longer, but will let them go; and then at that very instant, they shall fall to their destruction, just as he who stands on slippery and descending ground, on the edge of a fiery pit, he cannot stand alone, when he is let go he immediately falls into destruction and is lost forever.
The observation I make from these words of scripture and now insist upon is this, “There is nothing that keeps the wicked, at any one moment, out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.”
By the mere pleasure of God I mean His sovereign pleasure, His arbitrary will, restrained by no obligation, hindered by no manner of difficulty, in any more than nothing else but Gods mere will had in the least degree, or in any respect whatsoever, has any hand in the preservation of the wicked for one moment.
The truth of this observation may be made more clear through the following considerations.
There is no want of power in God to cast the wicked into hell at any given moment. The hand of the wicked cannot be strong when God rises up. The strongest of the wicked have no power to resist Him, nor can any deliver themselves out of His hands. He is not only able to cast the wicked into hell, but He does it with ease.
Sometimes great rulers of the earth struggle to subdue a rebel of their kingdom, who has found the means to fortify himself, and has made himself strong by the number of his followers.
Kind of like Osama Binladen.
But this is not so with God. There is no fortress that has any defence from the power of God. Even though hand join in hand, and vast multitudes of Gods enemies join forces and unite, they are easily broken and cast to the ground in humility before the LORD.
They are like a heap of fresh cut grass before a tornado; or like handfuls of saw dust tossed into devouring flames. We find it easy to stomp on and crush a roach when we see one crawling on the ground; as it easy to cut off lose threads from our garments with out regard.
Just as easily, God when He pleases, can cast His enemies down into hell.
Who are we that we would even consider to stand before Him?
At His rebuke the earth trembles and the mountains are thrown down!The wicked deserve to be cast into hell; so that divine justice never stands in the way; it makes no objection against God using His power at any moment to destroy them. Yet, on the other side, justice calls out for an infinite punishment of their sins. Divine justice says of the tree that brings forth fruit of Sodom, “Cut it down, why does it use up the ground.” Luke 13:7
The sword of divine justice is at every moment raised just above their heads, and the only thing holding it back is the merciful hand of God and His mere will. They are already under the condemnation of eternity in hell. They not only justly deserve to be cast into the lake of fire, but by the sentence of the law of God, that immutable and eternal rule of righteousness that God has fixed between Himself and mankind, has gone out against them, and stands against them, so that they are already bound over to hell. John 3:18 “but he who does not believe is condemned already”
So that every unconverted soul is confined to hell, that is its’ proper place, from that place the soul is, John 8:23 And Jesus said “You are from beneath.” And to that place the soul of the wicked is bound, it’s the place that justice, and Gods word, the sentence of His unchangeable law assigns to the wicked.They are now the object of Gods’ anger and wrath, that are expressed in the torments of hell.
And what’s keeping them from going down to hell at any moment?
It’s not because God, in Whose power they are in, is any less angry with them, as He is with any of the miserable creatures who are now being tormented in hell, who are feeling and bearing the fierceness of His wrath.
No, God is a great deal more angry with the multitudes that are now here on Earth. Some who are reading this right now, doubtless are they, and even some may be at ease, not realizing that they to are now in the flames of hell.
And it’s not that God is unmindful of their wickedness, and does not resent it, that He does not let loose His hand and cut them off. God is not altogether such as themselves, though they may imagine Him to be.
No, Gods wrath burns against them, their damnation does not sleep, the pit of fire is prepared, the furnace is exceedingly hot, ready to receive them; the flames of hell rage and glow like the surface of the sun. The glittering sword is sharpened and held over them, and the abyss of hell opens up its’ burning mouth under them. The devil stands ready to snatch them, and seize them as his own, at which time God shall permit him. They belong to the devil; he has their souls in his possession and under his dominion.
The word of God represents them as his “goods“, (Luke 11:12)
The devils watch them; they are always beside them; at their left hand; they stand waiting for them, like greedy hungry lions that see their prey, and expect to have it, but for the time being, kept back; if God would withdraw His hand, by which they are restrained, they would, in the blink of an eye, fly upon their poor souls. The old serpent is opening wide his mouth, the pit of hell opens wide to receive them; and if God would permit it, they would be quickly swallowed up and lost.
There is in the souls of the wicked, those hellish principles reigning, that would presently ignite and burst forth with incinerating heat, if it were not for God’s restraints. There is laid in the very nature of the carnal human, a foundation for the torments of hell; there are those corrupt principles, with reigning power in them, and in full possession of them, they are the seeds of incineration.
These principals are active and powerful, and exceedingly violent in their nature, and if God’s restraining hand was not upon them, they would soon break out and burn up, just as the manner of their corruptions, as does the enmity in the hearts of damned souls and would produce the same torments in them as those already in hell.
The souls of the wicked in scripture are compared with a stormy sea, Is 57:20. For the present time God restrains their wickedness by His mighty power, as He does the raging waves of the turbulent sea, saying, “This far you may come but no further, And here your proud waves must stop” Job 38:11
But if God should withdraw His restraining power, it would soon carry all in front of it, like a tsunami. Sin is the ruin and misery of the soul of all mankind; it is destructive in it’s nature; and if God would leave it with out restraint, there would need be nothing else to make the soul perfectly miserable. The corruption of the heart of mankind is a thing that is free and boundless in it’s fury; and while the wicked live here, it is like an inferno held back by God, where as if it were let loose it would consume the course of nature; and sin fills the heart like a nuclear reactor, so, if sin were not restrained, it would immediately turn the soul into a atomic explosion of fire and destruction.
It is no security to the wicked for one moment, that there is no visible means of death at hand. There’s no security for them, that are now in good health, that they do not see any accident that could immediately take them out of this world; there is no visible danger in any aspect of their circumstances.
The multiple and continual experience of the world in times past and present, is that there is no evidence that they are not on the brink of eternity, and that their next step won’t be into another world. The unseen, unthought of ways and means by which they go suddenly out of the world are innumerable and inconceivable.
Unconverted souls walk over the pit of hell on a worn out covering, and there are numerous places on this covering that cannot bear their weight, and cannot be seen. The arrows of death fly from behind the sun; the sharpest sight can not discern them. God has so many different and unreachable ways of taking the wicked out of this world and sending them to hell, there is nothing to make it appear as if God had to use a miracle, or go out of the ordinary course of His providence, to destroy any wicked person, at any moment.
In all the ways that sinners are going out of this world into the hands of God, and are universally and absolutely subject to His power and His determination, that it doesn’t depend at all less on the mere will of God, whether sinners shall at any moment go to hell, than if any means by which they are taken be made use of or at all concerned in the case.
Mankind’s prudence and care to preserve their own lives, or the care of others to preserve them, does not secure them for a second. This divine providence and universal experience does also bear witness to it. There is this clear evidence that mankind’s own wisdom is of no security to them; then if it were other wise we would see some difference between the wise and polite people of this world, with regards to their liability to an early and unexpected death; but how is it in all reality? Eccles. 2:16,”And how does the wise man die? As the fool!”
All of their pains and schemes they come up with to escape hell, while they continue to reject Christ, and so remain wicked and unrepentant, doesn’t secure them from hell for one second. Almost every person that hears of hell, flatters themselves to think they shall escape it; they depend upon their own security; flattering themselves in what they have done, in what they are now doing, or what they intend to do. Everyone lays out matters in his or her own mind how they shall escape the eternal separation, and flatters themselves even more, that they have planned well for themselves, and that their schemes won’t fail.
They hear that wide is the road to hell and narrow is the gate to heaven, and the majority of those that have already died are now in hell; but each one imagines in their own minds that they have laid out matters better for themselves than those before them and will escape when others have not; they have no intensions of finding themselves in that place of torment; they say within themselves, I intend to get right with God before my time here is up and not to fail in doing so.
But the foolish children of this world, miserably deceive themselves with their own schemes and in the confidence of their own strength and wisdom; they trust in nothing but a shadow!
The bigger part of those in times past that have lived under the same means of grace, and are now dead, are without question perishing in hell; and it wasn’t because they were not as wise as those who are now alive today, or because they didn’t lay out matters as well for themselves as to secure their own escape.
If that were the case and we could now speak with those in hell and inquire of them, one by one, what they thought before they died, when they used to hear about hell, if any expected to be subject to such torment? We most definitely would hear them reply, ”No, I never intended to come here; I had planned otherwise in my mind, I thought better of myself; I figured my plans were good enough; I intended to get right with God, but death came upon me very unexpectedly; I didn’t foresee it at the time nor in the manner which it came, like a thief in the night; death outwitted me; and Gods wrath was to quick for me. Oh my cursed foolishness!! I was flattering myself, and pleasing myself with vain dreams of the after life, and while I thought life was peaceful and safe, sudden destruction came upon me!”
God has laid Himself under no obligation, or by any promise, to spare one wicked soul from hell, for even a moment. God has made no promise of eternal life either, or of any deliverance or preservation from eternal death, but by that which is contained in the covenant of grace, the promises that are given in Christ Jesus, in whom all promises are yes and amen.
But surely they have no interest in the promise of the covenant of grace, those that are not the children of the covenant, and that don’t believe in any of the promises of the covenant, and have no interest in the mediator of the covenant. So that whatever some have imagined and pretended about promises being made to natural mankind’s earnest seeking and knocking, it is plain to see that whatever mankind does in religion, whatever prayers they make, till they believe in Christ, God is under no obligation to keep them for one moment from eternal destruction.
So it is pictured, that natural men and women are in the hand of God hovering over the pit of hell; they indeed deserve the fiery pit, and are already sentenced to it; and God is extremely provoked, His anger burns towards them as it does toward those who are actually suffering the fierceness of His executions and wrath in hell, and they have done nothing in the least to appease or lessen that anger, neither is God bound by any promise to hold them up for a moment; the devil is waiting for them, hell is opening wide for them, the flames rise and flash about them, and would rejoice to lay hold of them, and swallow them up; the fire pent up in their own hearts is struggling to explode out of them; and they have no interest in any mediator, there is nothing within reach that can be of any security to them.
In short, they have no refuge, nothing to take hold of, all that preserves them each moment is the mere relenting will, and uncovenanted, unobligated patience of an incensed God.
The use of this message may be one of awakening to the unconverted persons reading this testimony. This message of wrath and destruction you have been blessed to read is the condition of everyone of you that are NOT in a personal committed relationship with Jesus Christ.
That world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone is extended abroad beneath you. There is the dreadful pit of glowing flames, the wrath of God; there is hells wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon, nor is there anything for you to take hold of, there is nothing between you and hell but thin air; it’s only the power and the mere pleasure of God that holds you up.
You probably aren’t aware of this, you think your safe from the fires of hell, and don’t see the hand of God in your life, but you choose to look at other things, like the good state of your health, the care you’ve taken with your own life, and the things you use for your own preservation.
However these things are of no use; if God would withdraw His hand, these things would in no way keep you from falling, than the air you breathe, to keep a person from falling. Your wickedness makes you as heavy as lead, to move downward with great weight and pressure towards the fire of hell; and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink with swift descent, plunge into the bottomless abyss, and your good health, and your own care and prudence, and best inventions, and all your righteousness, will have no more influence to uphold you and keep you from hell, than packed snow can withhold an avalanche.
Were it not for the sovereign pleasure of God, the earth would not bear you for a moment; for you are a burden to it; all of creation groans with you; the creatures of the earth are made subject to the bondage of your corruption, though not willingly; the sun doesn’t willingly shine upon you to give you light, to serve sin and Satan; the earth doesn’t willingly yield her increase to satisfy your lusts; nor is it willingly a stage for your wickedness to be acted upon; the air doesn’t willingly serve you with oxygen to maintain the flame of life in your hearts, while you spend your life in the service of God’s enemies.
God’s creatures are good, and were made for men to serve God with, and doesn’t willingly serve instrumentally to any other purpose, and groan when they are abused to the purposes directly contrary to their nature and end. And the world would spew you out if it were not for the sovereign hand of God who has subjected it in hope.
There are the black clouds of God’s wrath now hanging over your heads, full of the terrible storm, full of thunder and lightning; and if it were not for the restraining hand of God holding it back, the storm of wrath would burst forth upon you.
The sovereign pleasure of God, for the present, holds back His fiery wind; otherwise it would come with fury, and your destruction would come like a tornado, and you would be like the corn in the fields of Kansas before the storm. The wrath of God is like the waters that are held back by a great dam, the waters increase more and more, rising higher and higher, till they find an outlet, the longer the waters are held back, the more rapid and mighty is it’s overflow of power once it is let loose.
It’s true, that God’s judgement against your evil works has not yet been executed; the floods of God’s vengeance have been with held; however your guilt is constantly increasing, and you are everyday treasuring up more wrath for the day of wrath; the waters are continually rising and increasing with more and more might; and there is nothing but the mere pleasure of God that holds the waters back that are unwilling to be stopped, and press hard to go forward; if God would just withdraw His hand from the floodgate, it would immediately fly open, and would come upon you with omnipotent power; and if your strength were ten thousand times greater than it is; or ten thousand times greater than the strongest, sturdiest devil in hell, it would do nothing to withstand or endure the flood.
The bow of God’s wrath is bent, the arrow adheres to the string, and justice aims the arrow at your heart, the bow strains with anticipation, it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, an angry God, with out any promise or obligation, that holds back that arrow of death from being made drunk with your blood. This is the case for all those who have not experienced the great change of heart, that comes by the mighty Spirit of God upon your depraved soul; all that have never been born again, and been made new creatures, raised from death in sin, to a new life.
( However you may have reformed your life in many things, and may have had religious affections, and even keep up religion in your families and closets, and in the house of God, and may be strict in it.) you are now in the hands of an angry God; it is nothing but His mere pleasure that keeps you this very moment from being swallowed up in everlasting destruction!
However unconvinced you may be now of the truth that your reading, by and by you will be fully convinced of it. Those that have gone from being in similar circumstances with you, see that it was once so with them; for destruction came suddenly upon most of them, when they expected nothing of it, and when they were saying “Peace and Safety” : now they see, the things they depend upon for peace and safety, were nothing but thin air and empty shadows.
The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire, despises you, and is extremely provoked; His wrath towards you burns like fire; He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the lake of fire; He is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in His sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in His eyes than the most hateful venomous snake is in your sight. You have offended Him infinitely more than a stubborn child offends his father, and still it is nothing but His hand that holds you from falling into the fire; it is to be credited to no one else, that you didn’t go to hell last night; that you suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep; and there is no other reason to be given why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God’s hand has held you up; there is no other reason to be given why you haven’t been cast into hell since you started reading this, provoking His pure eyes with your exceedingly sinful and wicked manner; there is nothing else to be given as a reason why you don’t this very moment drop down into hell. You sinner!
Consider the danger you are in; the great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of God, whose wrath is provoked and kindled against you as much as against many of the damned in hell; you hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it to ashes, and you have no interest in any mediator?
You have nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you have ever done, nothing you can do, to induce God to spare you for a moment.
And consider here more particularly several things concerning that wrath that you are in such danger of.
First. Whose wrath is it?
It is the wrath of the infinite God. If it were only the wrath of man, even the wrath of Hitler or Constantine, it would be comparatively little to be regarded. The wrath of these men and others is to be dreaded, especially of absolute masochists, that have the possession and lives of their subjects wholly in their power, to be disposed of at their mere will. Prov. 20:2 “The wrath of a king is like the roaring of a lion; Whoever provokes him to anger sins against his own life.” The very subject that enrages a dictator to inflict torture, is liable to suffer the most extreme torments, that the human mind can invent or human power can inflict. But the greatest earthly ruler, in their greatest majesty and strength, when clothed in their greatest terrors, are but feeble despicable worms of the dust, in comparison of the great and almighty Creator and King of heaven and earth; there is little they can do, when most enraged, and when they have exerted the utmost of their fury.
All the rulers of the earth before God are as fleas, they are nothing and less than nothing; both their love and hatred is to be despised. The wrath of the most Holy God is much more terrifying than theirs, as His majesty is greater. Luke 12:4-5, “And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear; Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes I say to you, fear Him!”
Second. It is the fierceness of His wrath that you are exposed to.
We often read of the fury of God; as in Is. 59:18,”According to their deeds, accordingly He will repay, fury to His adversaries,” And Is. 66:15,”For behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with His chariots, like a whirlwind, To render His anger with fury, And His rebuke with flames of fire.” And so is the case in many other portions of scripture. So we also read of God’s fierceness. Rev. 19:15, here we read of “the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of the almighty God.” The words are exceedingly terrible; if it had only been said, ”the wrath of God,” the words would have implied that which is infinitely dreadful; this is not all that is said, but, “the fierceness and wrath of God,” the fury of God! The fierceness of Jehovah!
Oh how dreadful that must be!
Who can speak or conceive of what such an expression carries!
But it is not only said, “the fierceness and wrath of almighty God.” As if there would be a very great manifestation of His almighty power, in what the fierceness of His wrath should inflict, as though omnipotence as it should be were enraged, and exerted, as men who want to exert their strength in the fierceness of their wrath.
Oh! Then what will be the consequence!
What will become of the poor worm that will suffer it!
Whose hands can be strong?
And whose heart can endure?
To such a inconceivable, inexpressible and horrid depth of misery must the poor creature be sunk, who shall be the subject of this!
Consider this, you that are reding now, that remain in an unregenerate state. That God will execute the fierceness of His anger, implies that He will inflict wrath with out any pity; when God holds the unspeakable extremity of your case, and sees your torment to be so vastly disproportioned to your strength, and sees how your poor soul is crushed and sinks down into the abyss of hell, He will have no compassion on you, He will not forbear the executions of His wrath, or in the least lighten His hand; there shall be no moderation or mercy, nor will God with hold His tormenting winds; He will have no regard for your welfare, nor will He care if you suffer too much, in as much as you don’t suffer beyond what divine and strict justice requires; nothing will be withheld, because it’s to hard for you to bear. Ezek 8:18, “Therefore I will also act in fury. My eye will not spare nor ill I have pity; and though they cry in My ears with aloud voice, I will not hear them.”
Now God stands ready to pity you; this is a day of mercy; you can cry now with some encouragement of obtaining mercy; but once the day of mercy has past, your most heartfelt and sorrowful cries and shrieks of agony will all be in vain; you will be wholly lost and thrown away by God and He will have no regard for your welfare; God will have no other use for you, except for misery and suffering; you shall continue in being to no other end; for you shall be a vessel of wrath fitted to destruction; and there will be no other use of this vessel than to be filled with wrath; God will be so far from pitying you when you cry out to Him, that He will go as far as to laugh at you and mock you. Prov 1:25-32 How awful are these words, Is. 63:3, which are the words of God almighty, “For I have trodden them in My anger, And trampled them in my fury, Their blood is sprinkled upon My garments, And I have stained all My robes.”
It is perhaps impossible to conceive of words that carry in them greater manifestations of these three things; contempt, and hatred, and fierceness of indignation. If you cry to God to pity you, He will be so far from pitying you in your dismal case, or showing you the least regard or favor, that instead of pity, He’ll only tread you under foot; and even though He knows you can’t bear the weight of omnipotence treading upon you, He will have no regard of that fact, He will only crush you under His feet without mercy; He’ll squeeze out your blood and make it fly and splatter, and it shall be sprinkled on His garments, and stain all His robes. He will not hate you, but hold you in the utmost contempt; no other place shall be fit for you, but under His feet, to be trodden down like the grapes of the wine press.
Third. The misery you will be exposed to, that which God will inflict in the end, that He might show exactly what the wrath of Jehovah is.
God has had it on His heart to show the angels and mankind, both how excellent His love is, and how terrible His wrath is.
Sometimes in history earthly rulers have the mind to show how terrible their wrath is, by the extreme punishments they would inflict on those who provoke them. Nebuchadnezzar, that mighty and proud ruler of the Chaldean empire, was willing to show his wrath, when enraged with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; he accordingly gave the order to have the burning fiery furnace set seven times hotter than it was before; doubtless it was raised to the highest temperature of fierceness human means could raise it; but the great God of heaven is also willing to show His wrath, and magnify His awesome majesty and mighty power in the extreme sufferings of His enemies. Rom, 9:22, “What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?"
And seeing this is His design, and what He has determined, to show how terrible the unmixed, unrestrained wrath, the fury and fierceness of Jehovah is, He will do it to have an effect. There will be something accomplished and brought to pass, that will be formidable with a witness. When the great and angry God has risen up and unleashed His excellent vengeance on the poor sinner; and the wretch is actually suffering the infinite weight and power of His indignation, then will God call upon the whole universe to behold that awesome majesty, and mighty power that is to be seen in it. Is, 33:12-14, “And the people shall be like the burning of lime; Like thorns cut up they shall be burned in the fire. Hear, you who are afar off, what I have done; And you who are near, acknowledge My might. The sinners in Zion are afraid; Fearfulness has seized the hypocrites: Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?”
So it will be with you that are in an unconverted state, if you continue in it; the infinite might, and majesty and terribleness of the omnipotent God will be upon you, in the unspeakable strength of your torments: you shall be tormented in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb of God, and when your in this state of suffering, the glorious inhabitants of heaven will go out and look on the awful spectacle, that they might see what the wrath and fierceness of the Almighty is, and when they have seen it, they will fall down and adore His great power and majesty.
Is, 66:23-24, “And it shall come to pass, That from one new moon to another, And from one Sabbath to another, All flesh shall come to worship before Me, says the LORD. And they shall go forth and look, Upon the corpses of the men, Who have transgressed against Me, For their worm does not die, And their fire is not quenched. They shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”
Fourth. This everlasting wrath.
It would be dreadful to suffer the fierceness and wrath of the almighty God one moment; but you must suffer it for all eternity; there will be no end to His exquisite horrible misery; when you look ahead, and you see a long forever, a boundless duration before you, which will swallow up your thoughts, and amaze your soul; and you will absolutely despair of ever having any deliverance, any end, any mitigation, any rest at all; you will most certainly know that you must wear out long years, millions and millions of years, in wrestling and conflicting with this almighty merciless vengeance; and when you have been there millions of years, and the years continue on and on and on, and you have endured this long suffering, you will know that all is but a point to what remains. So that indeed your punishment will be infinite. Oh who can express what the state of a soul is in these circumstances!
All that we can possible say about it, gives but a feeble representation of it; it’s inconceivable and inexpressible: for, “who knows the power of God’s anger?” (Ps. 90:11) How horrifying is the state of those who are daily and hourly in danger of this great wrath, and infinite misery!
But this is the dismal case of every soul , that has not been born again, however moral and strict, sober and religious they may otherwise be. Oh that you would consider it, whether you are young or old. There is reason to think, that there are many reading this discourse, that will actually be the subjects of this very misery to all eternity.
We do not know who they are, or in what seats they sit, or what thoughts they now have; they could very well be at ease right now, and read all these things with out much disturbance, and are now flattering themselves that their not that person, and if it were any one of you or only one of you, what a terrible thing that would be to even think of!
If we knew who it was, what an awful sight it would be to see such a person! Oh how the rest of the Christians might lift up a sorrowful and bitter cry for him or her! But alas! Instead of one, how many is it?
That will be likely to remember this discourse in hell?
And it would be a wonder if some that are now present, will not be in hell in the near future, before the next year arrives. And it would be no wonder if someone who sits hear and is in good health, who’s quiet and secure, could be in hell tomorrow morning. Those of you who live many years in a natural condition, that have kept out of hell the longest, will be there in a short time!
Your damnation doesn’t sleep! It will come swiftly, and in all probability will come suddenly on many of you!
You should be thinking to yourselves, “why am I not in hell already?”
It is doubtless the case for those whom you knew once before they passed away that you have seen and know, have they never deserved hell more than you, and before they passed away they appeared as alive as you; their case is now passed all hope; they are crying in extreme misery and perfect despair; but here you are in the land of the living, with the opportunity to obtain salvation.
What would those poor damned and hopeless souls give for one day such as you now have before you to enjoy such an opportunity!
Right now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein Jesus has flung the doors of mercy wide open, standing in the door calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners; a day where many are flocking to Him, and pressing into the kingdom of God; many are daily repenting and coming from the east, west, north, and south; many that were recently in the same miserable condition that your now in, who are now in a happy state, with their hearts filled with love for Him who has loved them and washed them from their sins in His own blood, rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God. How awful is it to be left behind on such a day as this!
To see so many feasting, while your perishing and wasting away!
To see so many rejoicing and singing for joy of the heart restored, while all you have is cause to mourn for sorrow of heart, and howl for annoyance of spirit!
How can you rest one moment from such a condition?
Are not your souls as precious as those at the crusades?
Where they are flocking to Christ everyday!
How many of you have lived long in the world, and are not to this day born again, and are aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and have done nothing since birth, except to treasure up wrath for the day of wrath?
Oh you of little faith, your case is exceedingly dangerous, your guilt and hardness of heart is extremely great. Do you not see how many people are passed over and left behind, in this remarkable and wonderful age of God’s unending mercy’s?
You have need to consider yourselves fortunate, and wake up completely from this sleep, you cannot afford to bear the fierceness and wrath of the infinite God. Let everyone that is not in Christ, hanging over the pit of hell, whether they are old, or middle aged, or young adults, now respond to the loud calls of God’s Word and providence. This acceptable year of the LORD, that is a day of such great favor to some, and will doubtlessly be a day of great vengeance for others. Mankind’s hearts harden, and their guilt increases for such a day as this, if they neglect their souls; and never was there so great a danger as such persons being given to hardness of heart, and blindness of mind. God seems to now be quickly gathering in His elect in all parts of the world, and maybe the bigger part of adults that shall ever be saved, will be brought in now, in a short time, and it will be as it was on that great day of the out pouring of the Spirit upon the Jews in the days of the apostles’, the elect will obtain, and the rest will be blinded. If this is the case with you, you will eternally curse this day, and curse the day that you were born, to see such a season as this, and the out pouring of God’s Spirit; and will have wished that you died and gone to hell long before you had seen it.
Now undoubtedly as it were in the days of John the Baptist; the axe is laid at the foot of the trees, and every tree that does not bring forth good fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire. Therefore let every one who is not in Christ Jesus, awaken to the call and flee to the cross of Calvary, away from the wrath that is to come. The wrath of almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging over a great many; may every one of you fly out of Sodom and Gomorrah; “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay in this plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed.” (Gen. 19:17)
