Preached in Glendale on Sabbath, 6th February, 1955.
Psalm vii. 12 (first part).
The title of this psalm is “Shiggaoion of David, which he sang unto the Lord, concerning the words of Cush the Benjamite.” The word “Shiggaoion” is supposed by many interpreters of Scripture to be the same as “Shigionoth” in Habakkuk iii. 1, and is translated by them, “According to variable songs or tunes.” Cush the Benjamite may have been of the kindred of Saul, and, although no such person is mentioned in the historical records of the period, yet he seems to have been very actively engaged in slandering David to Saul. This slandering, and the persecution arising from it, brought the Psalmist so low that he was at his wits end as far as creature help was concerned, and, conscious of his innocence of what was laid to his charge, casts himself on the Lord as his only hope. This shows faith in living exercise, and causes him to say, “My defence is of God, which saveth the upright in heart.” He sees the safety of the righteous, and from that goes on to contemplate the dangerous condition of the wicked, with whom God is angry every day. In this connection he pens the words of our text, from which we may notice three things. I. The one spoken of. II. The way in which he walks. III. The result if he continues in that way.
I. The one spoken of—the wicked.
The words “the wicked” are not mentioned in the text, nor in the original in the preceding verse, but the context reveals clearly that the wicked are intended in the text.
(1) We see from the tenth psalm, in which we have been singing, that the besetting sin of the wicked is pride.
There it is stated that “the wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor.” We see this very often instanced in the dealings of men of the world with such as are weak and helpless. Advantage is often taken of those who are weak, mentally, to defraud them of their worldly substance, and especially, if no one is seen to champion their cause, while, if they complain of injustice, sport is made of them because of their weakness, or, if that does not succeed, threats are used, which, if made to men of ordinary mental powers, would soon be silenced, but which are serious enough in the estimation of those of a low mental capacity. What the Apostle says, in another connection, holds true in this also. “We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.” The persecution of the wicked also goes out against those who are unable to help themselves, because of bodily weakness, or being deprived of their natural guardians, or being in a low social condition where they cannot engage influential persons to protect them. The Psalmist could say of such, “They persecute him whom thou hast smitten; and they talk to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded.” Psalm lxxix. 26. They are represented as saying, “Goth hath forsaken him: persecute and take him; for there is none to deliver him.” Ps. lxxxi. 11. A reason given why the sins of the wicked should be before the Lord continually is, “Because that he remembered not to show mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man, that he might even slay the broken in heart.” Ps. cix. 16. It is against such that the Lord “ordaineth his arrows,” and especially when the Lord’s poor and weak ones are persecuted and defrauded. We read the Lord’s own exhortation concerning them: “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.” On the persecutors of such He shall assuredly take vengeance.
(2) The wicked encourages evil.
We read that he “boasteth of his heart’s desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom the Lord abhorreth.” Thus, he, first of all, encourages evil in himself by refusing to admit the shame and the sin of his heart’s desire and his covetousness. The natural man is under the delusion that if the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life, are confined to the heart and do not break out in outward actions, that they are not sins, forgetful of the Lord’s solemn reminder that “every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment: for by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” Many a one who may pass off as an orderly man and a good neighbour is an abomination in the sight of God, because of how he harbours sin in his heart, and denies that he has sinned, thus following the example of the adulteress spoken of by Solomon, “She eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness.” Prov. xxx. 20. As he encourages sin in himself, so he encourages it in others. In this there is a fearful reckoning before men who ought to set a good example before others. Magistrates are set up to be a terror to evil-doers and a praise to them that do well. When rulers disregard God’s law they are incurring, by their evil example, responsibility for the wickedness of those who are under them. In this connection the truth must be fulfilled, “The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted.” Rulers in the Church ought to be a pattern for the people and, in the way of righteousness, ought to go forth “as the he-goats before the flocks.” What can be thought of ministers, elders, and church members, who, as regards the vanities of this world, are everything but what their profession requires? Many are the leaders and promoters of all the vanities of the world set a-foot in their parishes, and imagine, for all that, that they are going to heaven when they die. Verily, for all their profession of religion, they can be classed among the wicked, who by their evil example, are leading others on the broad road to Hell. There will be a fearful account to be rendered when such ministers and office-bearers shall meet their congregations at the Judgment Seat of Christ. Again, it is the duty of parents to bring up their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, but, in our day, that duty is very much neglected. Parents, as a very general rule, pay only the same attention to their children which they do to the brute creation under their care; they attend to their temporal needs, and seem to think that their responsibilities end there. Having fulfilled what they regard as the end of their responsibilities, they think it no sin to lead those children, whom God has given them, to the vanities of the world, and to everything where there is a total disregard for the Law of God. Thus the wicked encourages others to wickedness.
(3) Of the wicked, it is said, that “through the pride of his countenance” he “will not seek after God.”
Between God and the wicked there is a great gulf fixed so that the wicked has no personal knowledge of God. The natural conscience warns the wicked that God will punish sin, and, therefore, the only knowledge he has of God is, as One who shows His displeasure by punishing the actions of those who transgress His Law. The wicked does not wish to retain that knowledge of God, and, therefore, he does his utmost to quench the strivings of that conscience which reminds him of the existence of the God whom he would ignore, and of the awfulness of that punishment which He meets out to the sinner. Such a knowledge of God, though by no means a saving knowledge, if cultivated, might keep the sinner from committing many sins which he does commit. This reminds us of what the Rev. Archibald Cook, Daviot, used to say to his congregation. “People of Strathnairn, if you will go to Hell, go there with as few sins as possible, for God will not punish you but for the sins which you do not commit.” As the wicked has no personal saving knowledge of God, he does not see his need of God. It is the Holy Spirit alone Who convinces the sinner of his needs, and when He does so, the sinner is brought down to the dust before God. Apart from this saving operation of the Spirit the wicked imagines that God is easily satisfied, and that he can bring all that is necessary, and bow with these before “the most high God.” He fails to see that his best offerings are polluted by sin, and therefore an abomination to the Lord. He comes far short of realising that only God can “provide a lamb” to atone for the sins of sinners, and therefore thinks that he himself can furnish all that is required in order to approach God. Sadly blinded, as to his need of God in Christ, is the wicked when, through pride of countenance, he will not seek after God. This blindness has overtaken him in a twofold manner. He has “the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.” It is also true of him that “the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” The wicked is ruled by a proud heart, unbroken by the Spirit of God. This was the case with Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, King of Judah. He scorned to walk in the ways of his godly father, but “made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, and to do worse than the heathen, whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel.” The same was true of Saul of Tarsus, who “made havoc of the church,” and who went on “breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord,” until God’s time came. In both instances we have an unrivalled example of the power of the Spirit of God in breaking the proud and hard hearts of the wicked, the one in the dungeon in Babylon and the other on the way to Damascus, and in both cases we have an instance of the love and condescension of God in raising up sinners to the view of succeeding ages to the end of the world as trophies of His all-conquering grace.
(4) God is not in all the thoughts of the wicked.
He does not think of God as the One who should be honoured. The Westminster Divines, in their answer to the first question in the Shorter Catechism, say that “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever.” Viewing the conduct of the wicked, one would think that man’s chief end was to eat, drink, and be merry, and his whole concern does not rise higher than, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “Wherewithal shall we be clothed?” It is in connection with such a dishonour done to God by the wicked, who professed to be His people, that God says, “A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear?” Mal. i. 6. We read of the people of the old world, that “they did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.” God did not find fault with them for engaging in these matters, which are lawful in themselves, but the fault was in the manner in which they went about these things, for in them God was not honoured. We have not far to look in order to see how God is dishonoured in these very things in our day. The wicked has not God in his thoughts as far as the day of reckoning is concerned. It is appointed unto all men once to die, but after death the judgment, is a doctrine that is plainly taught in Scripture, and there the Judgment Day and its solemn transactions are vividly described, yet men and women will put this day far from them, and seek to banish all thoughts of it from their minds. Many delude themselves with the idea that when man dies he will go out of existence, while others deny God’s power to gather man’s body after it has been resolved into its elements. In spite of all the cavils which men frame, and all the efforts of the wicked to blot out all thoughts of God, as a God who will reckon with them, God has appointed a day of account “for the manifestation of the glory of His mercy in the eternal salvation of the elect, and of His justice in the damnation of the reprobate, who are wicked and disobedient.”
II. The way in which the person spoken of walks.
That is implied in the words, “If he turn not.” He is represented as pursuing a journey, and a journey brings up before the mind a destination. All of us here this evening are pursuing a journey, and making for a destination. It is a solemn thought that, while it is true that some are in the way of life and have Heaven as their destination, others are in the way of death and have Hell as their destination if they continue in that way. It is to the latter class that the words of our text refer. The Word of God leaves us in no doubt as to their destination. “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.” It is, therefore, the way that leads to this destination which it is our purpose to consider at this time.
(1) That way may be traced in the heart even when there is nothing outwardly to show that a man or a woman is walking in the way of the wicked.
It is a way spoken of in the Scriptures as a “broad way,” and is thus described because the sinner finds no obstacles in it, with everything in it that is so pleasing to the dictates of fallen nature, and so much in accordance with the views, the desires, and the motives of a heart that is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things. The young man may be outwardly orderly, so much so, that in many places he may pass for one who fears the Lord, and yet, in his innermost soul, he may be walking in the ways of his heart, and in the sight of his eyes, forgetful of the solemn fact that, for all these things, God will bring him into judgment. Such, as much as the outwardly vicious, have need to take heed to the words of Scripture, “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to Thy Word.” Such may, for a time, refrain from active participation in the excesses to which others go, but, very often, this state of matters is only the forerunner of what may prove a very hasty descent to the depth of infamy and shame. The next step in this way is when the sinner begins to plan wicked devices, and puts them into practice. This step may be with a good deal of caution at first. “He deviseth mischief upon his bed; he setteth himself in a way that is not good; he abhorreth not evil.” At first, to a certain extent, there is secrecy but, sooner or later, he is emboldened to bring to the notice of a few associates the mischief which was conceived so secretly in his heart. That device which, originally, he had no thought of putting into practice, is brought into the open, perhaps in order to better that of a companion, whose plan is considered somewhat more clumsy. The success of it encourages him to be more venturesome, until at last he becomes an habitual criminal.
(2) This leads to open transgression of God’s Law, where men dare to defy God to His face and think that they can escape with impunity.
In our degenerate age, though the whole Law of God is flagrantly transgressed, yet there are certain commandments, the transgression of which is more prominent than the transgression of others, and the frequency with which these commandments are transgressed, are outstanding witnesses to the enormity of the way of the wicked. A child of God who has to associate with his fellow-creatures at his lawful calling, will testify to the profane language of this generation. Many have come to the stage that they cannot speak fluently unless they have three or four oaths and curses mixed up in every sentence. The name of God is so often on their lips that they utter it without noticing that they do so, showing how little regard they have for that thrice-holy name, at the mention of which the seraphim veil their faces. Such would do well to consider the solemn words of the Holy Spirit, “If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings : yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart.” Mal. ii. 2. They wantonly curse themselves, curse their fellow-creatures, and even curse the brute creation over which they have control, and it is very much to be feared, that on account of this sin alone, there will be, out of this generation, plenty of weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth in Hell, “for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” There is also, in the way of the wicked, the sin of Sabbath desecration. Our native land used to be famous, among other countries, for its observance of the Day of Rest, but now, from the highest in the land to the meanest of the Queen’s subjects, in all walks of life, a determined effort seems to be put forth to abolish the Sabbath out of our midst. Much unnecessary Sabbath labour is promoted in our public works, while the most of families, in their private capacity, treat that day as a holiday. The promises which God gave to the Children of Israel, conditional on their keeping holy the Sabbath, hold good for all nations to the end of time. “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day ; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable ; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words : then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord ; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father : for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” As He gives gracious promises to those who observe His Day holy, so He threatens with dire punishment those who transgress that day. “But if thou wilt not hearken unto me to hallow the Sabbath day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day ; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.” In this He brings before them a sin upon which He will assuredly be avenged. Another sin by which the holy law of God is flagrantly transgressed in our day is the sin of uncleanness, in its various and often unmentionable forms. These outward acts of uncleanness manifest that the heart of man is as a cage of every unclean bird, as the Saviour tells us, “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.” These are the members of the body of sin which we ought to crucify. “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth ; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatory; for which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience.” The Holy Ghost gives very vivid description of what is true of such as yield to temptations to commit such sins when He says, “He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks; till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life.” Prov. vii. 22, 23. Solemn indeed, and faithful, is the counsel which He gives to those who are thus tempted. “Hearken unto me now therefore. O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth. Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths, for she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.” Prov. vii. 24-27. There are many things which provoke poor young men and women to the sin of uncleanness, and which ought to be avoided like the very plague. Among such are the vanities of the world. Those who make a study of the downgrade in morals are well-nigh unanimous in their verdict that picture-houses, theatres, cinemas, and the dancehall, are prolific of moral evil. One often sees on posters advertising films, pictures and plays, titles which have a decidedly immoral bearing, and invariably one sees, judging by the queues, that these pictures and plays are well patronised, giving clear proof of the salacious bent of the minds of many, and reminding one of what the Lord says of Aholibah: “She doted upon the Assyrians her neighbours, captains and rulers clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, all of them desirable young men. . . . And as soon as she saw them with her eyes, she doted upon them.” Ez. xxiii. 12-16. Another prime factor in provoking to uncleanness is the sin of drunkenness. When licensed premises are opened in a district where there was no license for the sale of strong drink previously, it is the greatest curse that could come into that district. It is regarded as a novelty and becomes well-patronised, with the result that young men, and, I am sorry to have to add, young women, who might otherwise have lived sober lives, become addicted to drunkenness. Such go from the public-house to the dancing-hall, and, between the liquor consumed on the premises and what is carried out, when men and women meet each other on the dancing-floor, passions are inflamed, so that they become an easy prey to the Devil’s temptations. The fault, in this case, is not wholly that of the publican. He never comes out to the street, or the public road, to invite men and women to come in and get drunk. He puts up his sign, by the authority of the law of the land, and is out to make his money in the easiest possible manner. The easiest way is at the expense of fools for the old proverb holds true that “a fool and his money are soon parted.” Such are fools, not only from the point of view of losing their money, but also from the point of view of losing their health, ruining their homes, and injuring their posterity, and the fruit of their sin shall follow them to the grave. “His bones are full of the sin of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust.” Job xx. 11. “Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babblings? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.” Because of this the counsel is given, “Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.” Prov. xxiii. 29-32. I shall give one more prominent mark on the wicked, and that is, his addiction to the sin of lying. This is an alarming symptom among the rising generation, and it proves how destitute they are of the fear of God. Lacking the moral courage to confess a fault, many will tell scores of lies if thereby they can cover that fault from a fellow-creature, so that Isaiah’s confession of the sins of the Jews is applicable to our generation: “In transgressing and lying against the Lord, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.” Isaiah lix. 13. When a regard for the truth, between man and man goes, everything goes, and the character of such a people may be summed up in the words of Paul, “Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful.” Rom. i. 29-31.
(4) In the light of what has already been said of the way of the wicked with respect to God’s Law, it goes without saying that Christ is despised and rejected by him.
Though the wicked has sinned so heinously in transgressing God’s Law, yet sinners, whose sins are crimson and scarlet-dyed, are invited to come to a conference with God, and encouragement held out to them, yet the wicked reject such gracious invitations. Here we have sinners trampling the invitation under foot, counting the blood of the covenant an unholy thing, and doing despite to the Spirit of grace. How will it fare at death with sinners who have the Bible and ability to read it, who had the preaching of the Gospel and were exhorted to consider their ways, who had much labour bestowed on them, and who preferred to go through life in uncleanness, as drunkards and liars, forgetting the claims of God upon them and their accountability to Him, thinking little of the preciousness of time, and recklessly thinking not of what a solemn matter it is for a Christless sinner to go to eternity?
III. The result if the wicked continues in his way.
“If he turn not, he will whet his sword.”
(1) We are here brought face to face with how God will deal with the wicked.
It is with the sword of His Justice in order to punish. “If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me.” Deut. xxxii. 41. “Say, a sword, a sword is sharpened, and also furbished: it is sharpened to make a sore slaughter; it is furbished that it may glitter; should we then make mirth?” Ezek. xxi. 9-10. This glittering sword is seen in its most terrible aspect in the humiliation, sufferings, and death of the Son of God as the substitute of His people. He suffered all that Justice required and satisfied the claims of that Justice to the uttermost, so that the awakened sword became sheathed in the Person of the Son of God until it reached its Divinity, where it met with such infinite satisfaction that it has nothing more that it will require of the elect of God throughout eternity. But we are meantime dealing with the wicked.
(2) The Lord sometimes makes the wicked His sword to execute His just vengeance upon those who act wickedly.
The history of the Jews furnishes clear examples of this. They “were mingled among the heathen, and learned their works,” and God used these heathen as His sword to chastise them. In the one hundred and thirty-seventh psalm we have their painful groanings in the land of captivity, when He used the wicked Chaldeans as His sword to punish them for their apostacy. There is a repetition of God’s use of the wicked as His sword when He used the equally wicked Romans to bring about a dispersion of the Jews which has continued unto this day. “Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee : the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.” Ps. lxxvi. 10.
(3) Often the Lord makes use of the forces of nature, and the most insignificant creatures, as His sword, to bring down His proud enemies.
It was thus that He dealt with Pharaoh in Egypt. Pharaoh said, in the pride and wickedness of his heart, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the LORD, neither will I let Israel go. The LORD unsheathed His sword in the form of frogs, lice, flies, diseases on cattle, hail, locusts, and thick darkness, so that proud Pharaoh and the land of Egypt were greatly distressed, and even made the stubbornness and hardness of Pharaoh’s heart His sword, by which the King of Egypt and his host were drowned in the Red Sea, and thus fulfilled what He said, “And I will be honoured upon Pharaoh, and upon his host; that the Egyptians may know that I am the Lord.” In this way He often makes the sins of sinners His sword to destroy them, and that, even after many manifestations of His long suffering. Thus He says to Pharaoh, “Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.”
(4) Wicked companions are often made God’s sword to punish a sinner.
It is with great grief that one often sees a young man, who has many good qualities, being led away by foolish and wicked companions. He may be of a respectable family, had a good upbringing, and even had the example of true godliness, but, through weakness of character, and the fear of being laughed at, he falls into bad company, and at last becomes a slave to the crave for strong drink. He soon comes to the stage when counsel, given in tenderness and faithfulness, is wasted on him, and when those who would wish him well have to say with Jeremiah, “But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride.” Because he refused to obey the counsel tendered and follow the example given, the Lord gave him over to be a prey “to the wicked, which is thy sword.” Much as a young man may boast in his strength, when he refuses to obey the advice of the Holy Ghost, who says, “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not,” he shall soon find that “the Lord is known by the judgment which he executeth: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands,” and his wickedness becomes the whet-stone upon which the Lord whets His sword. Not only are wicked companions God’s sword in this world to destroy those who would not hearken to His counsels in a day of mercy, but they are also His sword to execute His just vengeance in eternity. The parable of the tares sown by the enemy teaches that the wicked shall be bound in bundles and cast into a furnace of fire, “where there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” Being “bound in bundles” teaches that those who were together in sin in this world will be together in eternity, and so wicked companions will have throughout eternity incessant reminders of how they lived in this world, and this will cause a continual gnawing in their consciences world without end. We fully believe that this was the reason why the rich man in the parable was so solicitous that Lazarus would be sent to his five brethren to warn them lest they would come into the place of torment. The presence of those who were his companions in sin in the world would, when acting the part of God’s sword, add to his torment in a lost eternity.
(5) That these torments were not small nor to be lightly esteemed is manifest from the consideration that they are the torments of Hell, and from the consideration of the fact that it was the Hell of His people which the Lord Jesus drank to its bitterest dregs in that suffering which He endured in this world, and which culminated on Calvary.
Dr. Duncan, after proposing the question, “What was in the cup which the Father gave to the Son to drink?” answered it himself by saying, “It was damnation; the damnation of His people. He took it willingly and drank it lovingly.” Without enlarging on this point let us view Him drinking this Hell, during the forty days and forty nights in the wilderness of temptations which were so unutterably repugnant to His holy soul; let us again view the drinking of this cup in the wrestling of soul and sweat of Gethsemane, and in the mysterious and awesome desertion of Calvary. Let us bear in mind that this was gone through by One who could bear it, for He was God manifest in the flesh, and at the same time let us remember that the Holy Sufferer said, “If they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry.” Sinner, consider that these sufferings were endured for those who will be saved with an everlasting salvation, and that if you despise Him who suffered, as the Substitute of His people, the sword of Divine Justice, which was awakened against Him, and found satisfaction in Him alone, shall be turned upon you, and shall continue to seek satisfaction throughout eternity. I cannot dismiss you, my dear fellow-sinners, without reminding you that this Saviour, who drank the Hell of His people, is still on a throne of mercy. In infinite condescension He is still stretching forth His hands “unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.” This does not at all mean that you can come to Christ by any efforts of your own, for that is an absolute impossibility. Your inability, however, does not excuse you, neither does it do away with your responsibility, and you are responsible to the Lord for what He has given you. It is for you, however unable you are to do it, to plead with the Lord for that power that would convince you of sin and enable you to come to Him as a sinner. Our duty is to warn you of your danger, to point out to you God’s provision in Christ Jesus, to remind you of what He has given you in the way of privileges and opportunities, and of how accountable you are to God for them, and to warn you, as Christ’s ambassadors, to flee from the wrath to come. This ends our duty towards our fellow-sinners, and our duty towards God is to pray for a rich and abiding blessing upon anything said that was consistent with the mind of His Spirit.