Do Not Fear Disasters -- C. H. Spurgeon

Do Not Fear Disasters
(Originally titled: What Are the Clouds?)

August 19, 1855
by
C. H. SPURGEON
(1834-1892)

“Clouds are the dust of his feet.”—Nahum 1:3

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It is possible for a man to read too many books. We will not despise learning, we will book undervalue education, such achievements are very desirable; and, when his talents are sanctified to God, the man of learning frequently becomes, in the hands of the Spirit, far more useful than the ignorant and the uneducated; but at the same time, if a man acquires his knowledge entirely from books, he will not find himself to be a very wise man. There is such a thing as packing so many books in your brains that they cannot work—pouring in piles of type, and letters, and manuscripts, and papers, and pamphlets, and volumes, and books in your head, that your brains are absolutely buried and cannot move at all. I believe that many of us, even as we have sought to learn by books, have neglected those great volumes which God has given us; we have neglected to study this great book, the Bible!

Moreover, perhaps, we have not been careful enough students of the great volume of nature, and we have forgotten that other great book, the human heart. For my own part, I desire to be somewhat a student of the heart; and I think I have learned far more from conversation with my fellowmen than I ever did from reading, and the examination of my own experience, and the workings of my own heart, have taught me far more of humanity than all the intellectually challenging and abstract books I have ever perused. I like to read the book of my fellow creatures; nothing delights me so much as when I see a multitude of them gathered together, or when I have the opportunity of having their hearts poured into mine, and mine into theirs. He will not be a wise man who does not study the human heart, and does not seek to know something of his fellow creatures and of himself. But if there is one book I love to read above all others, next to the book of God, it is the volume of nature.

I don’t care what letters they are that I read, whether they are the golden spellings of the name of God up above in the stars, or whether I read, in rougher lines, his name printed on the raging floods, or see it written in the beauty and awesomeness of the huge mountains, the rushing waterfall, or the quiet forest. Wherever I look in nature I love to discern my Father's name spelled out in living characters; and when I can find any really green fields, I would do as Isaac did, go into the fields in the evening and muse and meditate upon the God of nature. I thought in the cool of last evening. I would reflect on my God, by his Holy Spirit, and see what message he would give me. There I sat and watched the clouds, and learned a lesson in the great hall of Nature's college. The first thought that struck me was this, as I saw the white clouds rolling in the sky—that I will soon see my Savior mounted on a great white throne, riding on the clouds of heaven, to call men to judgment. My imagination could easily picture the scene, when the living and the dead would stand before his Great White Throne, and would hear his voice pronounce their eternal destiny. I remembered, moreover, that text in Ecclesiastics , “Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap” [Ecclesiastes 11:4]. I thought how many times that I and my brother ministers have paid attention to the clouds. We have listened to the voice of prudence and of caution when we have stared at the clouds. We have stopped when we ought to have been sowing because we were afraid of the multitude, or we refused to reap and take in the people into our churches, because some good brother thought we were too quick about the matter. I rose up and thought to myself, I will pay no attention to the clouds nor the winds, but when the wind blows a hurricane I will throw the seed with my hands, if then the hurricane becomes even stronger, and the clouds even darker, still I will reap, and rest assured that God will preserve his own wheat, whether I gather it under the clouds of a hurricane or in the sunshine. And then, when I sat there considering God, thoughts struck me as the clouds rushed along through the skies, thoughts which I must give to you this morning. I trust they were somewhat for my own instruction, and possibly they may be for yours too. “The clouds are the dust of his feet.”

I. Well, the first remark I make on this subject will be—the way of God is generally hidden.

This we gather from the text, by noting the connection, “The Lord has his way is in the whirlwind [Greek: “hurricane”] and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet” [Nahum 1:3]. When God works his wonders he always conceals himself. Even the motion of his feet causes clouds to arise; and if these; clouds are but the dust of his feet,” how deep must be that dense darkness which veils the Eternal God. If the small dust which he causes is of equal magnitude with our clouds—if we can find no other figure to image “the dust of his feet” than the clouds of heaven, then, how obscure must be the motions of the Eternal One, how hidden and how shrouded in darkness! This great truth suggested by the text, is well borne out by facts. The ways of God are hidden ones. Cowper was correct when he sang,—

“He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.”

His footsteps cannot be seen, for, planted on the sea, the next wave washes them away; and placed in the storm, turbulent and chaotic as the air is then, every impression of his chariot wheels is soon erased. Look at God, and at whatever he has purposed to do, and you will always see him to have been a hidden God. He has concealed himself, and all his ways have been veiled in the strictest mystery. Consider his works of salvation. How did he hide himself when he determined to save mankind? He did not clearly reveal himself to our forefathers. He gave them simply one dim lamp of prophecy which shone in words like these “The offspring [seed] of the woman will crush the serpent’s head [Genesis 3:15];” and for four thousand years God concealed his Son in mystery, and no one understood what the Son of God was to be. The smoking incense clouded their eyes, and while it showed something of Jesus, it hid far more. The burning victim sent its smoke up towards the sky, and it was only through the dim mists of the sacrifice that the pious Jew could see the Savior. Angels themselves, we are told, desired to look into the mysteries of redemption, yet though they stood with their eyes intently fixed upon it, until the hour when redemption developed itself on Cavalry, not a single angel could understand it. The profoundest scholar might have sought to find out how God could be just and yet the justifier of the ungodly; but he would have failed in his investigations. The most intensely pious man might meditate, with the help of that portion of God's Spirit which was then given to the prophets, on this mighty subject, and he could not have discovered what the mystery of godliness was—”God manifest in the flesh.” God marched in clouds, “He walked in the whirlwinds [hurricanes];” he did not tell the world what he was about to do; for it is his plan to surround himself in darkness, and “the clouds are the dust of his feet.” Ah! and so it has always been in Providence as well as grace. God never condescends to make things very plain to his creatures. He always does what is right and just; and therefore, he wants his people always to believe by faith that he only does what is right and just. But if he showed them that he did so, there would be no room for their faith.

Turn your eye along the page of history, and see how mysterious God’s dealings have been. Who would conceive that Joseph sold into Egypt would be the means of redeeming a whole people from famine? Who would suppose that when an enemy would invade the land, it would be the means of bringing glory to God? Who could imagine that a harlot’s blood should mingle with the genealogy from which came the great Messiah, the King of Israel? Who could have guessed much less could have understood the mighty plan of God? Providence has always been a hidden thing.

“Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill,
He treasures up his bright designs,
And works his sovereign will.”

And yet, beloved, you and I always want to know what God is doing. There is a great war taking place somewhere on the earth. We have experienced some great disasters, and we are reading the accounts in the news and saying, “What is God doing there?” What did he do in the last war? What was the benefit of it? We see that even Napoleon was the means of doing good, for he broke down the aristocracy and made all subsequent monarchs respect the power, and the rights of the people. We see what the result was even of that dreaded hurricane, that it swept away a pestilence which would have devoured many more than the storm did. But we ask, “What is God doing with this world?” We want to know what will be the consequences. Suppose we should humble Russia, where would it end? Can Turkey be maintained as a separate kingdom? And ten thousand other questions arise. Beloved, I always think of what the prophet Isaiah tell us in 45:9, that mankind is nothing but clay pots—and as a good old friend of mine says—let them crack themselves, too, if they like. We will not interfere. If the clay pots want to smash one another, well, then they must. We pray that our country may come off the safest of them all. But we are not much concerned to know the result. We believe that war, as well as everything else, will have a beneficial tendency. We cannot see in history that this world ever went a step backwards. God is ever moving it in its orbit; and it has always progressed even when it seemed to be moving backward.

Or, perhaps, you are not troubled about Providence in a nation, you believe that there God does hide himself; but then there are matters that concern you, which you long to see explained. When I was in Glasgow. I visited an immense foundry, one of the largest in Scotland, and there I saw a very powerful steam engine which worked all the machinery in the entire building. I saw in that foundry a countless number of wheels spinning around, some one way and some in another, I could not make out what on earth they were doing. But, I daresay, if my head had been a little wiser, and I had been taught a little more of mechanics, I might have understood what every wheel was doing, though really they seemed only a mass of wheels very busy spinning around and doing nothing. They were all, however, working at something; and if I had stopped and asked “What is that wheel doing?” A mechanic may have said, “It turns another wheel.” “Well, and what is that wheel doing?” “There is another wheel dependent upon that, and that again is dependent on another.” Then, at last, he would have taken me and said, “This is what the whole machinery is doing.” Some heavy bar of iron, perhaps, being grooved and cut, shaped and polished— “this is what all the wheels are effecting: but I cannot tell separately what each wheel is doing.”

All things are working together for good; but what each individual thing is doing, would be impossible to explain. Yet, you child of Adam, with your finite intellect, are continually stopping to ask, “Why is this?” The infant lies dead in its crib. Why was infancy snatched away? Oh, ruthless death, could you not gather ripe corn; why snatch the rosebud? Wouldn’t a wreath of withered leaves suit you better than these tender blossoms? Or, you are asking of Providence, why have you taken away my property? Was I not left, by my parents, a wonderful inheritance, and now it has all been swept away! It is all gone; why is this, O God? Why not punish the unjust? Why should the innocent be allowed to suffer this way? Why am I to be stripped of everything I own? Another says, “I launched into a business that was fair and honorable; I intended, if God had prospered me, to devote my wealth to him. I am poor, my business never prospers. Lord, why is this?” And another says, “Here I am working hard from morning till night; and no matter how hard I try I cannot free myself from my business, which takes away so much of my time from religion. I would happily live on less if I had more time to serve my God.” Ah! finite one! do you ask God to explain these things to you? I tell you, God will not do it, and God cannot do it—for this reason: you are not capable of understanding it. Should the ant ask the eagle why it flies in the skies? Will the great sea monster—the Leviathan be questioned by a minnow? These creatures might explain their actions to other creatures; but the Omnipotent Creator, the uncreated Eternal God, cannot explain himself to mortals whom he has created. We cannot understand him. It is enough for us to know that his way always must be in darkness, and that we must never expect to see and understand much in this world.

II. This second thought is—GREAT THINGS WITH US ARE LITTLE THINGS WITH GOD.

What great things clouds are to us! There we see them moving through the skies! Then they rapidly increase till the whole sky turns black and a dark shadow is cast upon the world; we foresee the coming storm, and we tremble at the mountains of cloud, for they are great. Are they truly great things? No, they are only the dust of God’s feet. The greatest cloud that ever swept the face of the sky, was but one single particle of dust stirred up by the feet of the Almighty Jehovah. When clouds roll over clouds and the storm is very terrible, it is but the chariot of God, as it speeds along the heavens, raising a little dust around him! “The clouds are the dust of his feet.” Oh! can you grasp this idea my friends, or had I words in which to put it into your souls, I am sure you would sit down in solemn awe of that great God who is our Father, or who will be our Judge. Consider that the greatest things with man are little things with God. We call the mountains great, but what are they? They are but “the dust on the scales” [Isaiah 40:15].

We call the nations great, and we speak of mighty empires, but before God the nations are nothing but “a drop in a bucket.” We call the islands great and boast of them—yet God’s Word declares that “He weighs the islands as though they were fine dust” [Isaiah 40:15]. We speak of great and mighty men and yet God says—“The people of the earth [in his sight] are like grasshoppers” [Isaiah 40:22]. We talk of huge planets in motion millions of miles from us—in God’s sight they are like little atoms dancing up and down in the sunbeam of existence.

Compared with God there is nothing great. True, there are some things which are little with man that are great with God. Such are our sins which we call little, but which are great with him; and his mercies, which we sometimes think are little, he knows are very great mercies towards such great sinners as we are. Things which we consider great are very little with God. If you knew what God thought of our talk sometimes, you would be surprised at yourselves. We have some great trouble enter our lives—we become so burdened with it, saying, “O Lord God! what a great trouble I am weighed down with.” Why, I think, God might smile at us, as we do sometimes at a little child who tries to pick up something that is too heavy for it (but which you could hold between your fingers), the child staggers, and says, “Father, what a heavy weight I am carrying.” So there are people who stagger under the great trouble which they think they are bearing. Great, beloved! There are no great troubles at all: “the clouds are the dust of his feet.” If you would only consider them so, the greatest things with you are but little things with God.

Suppose, now, that you had all the troubles of all the people in the world, that they all came pouring down on your head: what are these torrents of trouble to God?—“Drops in a bucket.” What are whole mountains of grief to him? Why, “He weighed the mountains on the scales,” as if they were dust. [Isaiah 40:12]. And he can easily remove your trials. So, in your weariness, don’t sit down and say, “My troubles are too great.” Listen to the voice of mercy, which says, “Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall” [Psalm 55:22].

You often will hear two Christians talk. One of them will say, “O my troubles, and trials, and sorrows, they are so great I can hardly sustain them; I don’t know how to bear my afflictions from day to day.” The other says, “Ah! my troubles and trials are not less severe, but, nevertheless, they have been less than nothing. I can laugh at impossibilities, and say they will be done.” What is the cause of the difference between these men? The secret is that one of them carried his troubles, and the other did not. It doesn’t matter to a porter how heavy a load may be, if he can find another to carry it all for him. But if he is to carry it all himself, of course he does not like a heavy load. So one man bears his troubles himself and gets his back nearly broken; but the other cast his troubles on the Lord. Ah! it doesn’t matter how heavy troubles are if you can cast them on the Lord. The heavier they are so much the better, for the more you have gotten rid of, then the more there is laid upon the Rock of our salvation. Never be afraid of troubles. However heavy they are, God's eternal shoulders can bear them. He, whose omnipotence is testified by the revolving planets, and systems of enormous galaxies, can well sustain you. Is his arm too short, that he cannot save, or is he weary, that he cannot hold you tightly? Your troubles are nothing to God, for the very “clouds are the dust of his feet.”

And this encourages me, I assure you, in the work of the ministry; for any man who has his eyes open to the world at large, will acknowledge that there are many clouds brooding over England, and over the world. I recently received a letter from a gentleman, in which he tells me that he sympathizes with my views concerning the condition of the church at large. I don’t know whether Christendom was ever worse off than it is now. At any rate, I pray to God it may never be. Read the account of the condition of the Suffolk churches where the gospel is somewhat flourishing, and you will be surprised to find that they have had scarcely any increase at all this year. So you may go from church to church, and find scarcely any that are growing. Here and there a chapel is filled with people; here and there you find an earnest minister; here and there an increasing church; here and there a good prayer-meeting; but these are only like green spots. Wherever I have gone through England, I have been always grieved to see how the glory of the Church is under a cloud; how the precious saints of the Church, comparable to fine gold have become like clay pots, the work of a potter’s hands. It is not for me to set myself up as universal judge of the church, but I must be honest and say, that spiritual life, and fire, and zeal, and holiness, seemed to be absent in ten thousand instances. We have abundance of organizations, we have good methods and systems but the church, now-a-days is very much like a large steam engine, without any fire, without any hot water in the boiler, without any steam. There is everything but steam, everything but life. England is veiled in clouds. Not clouds of unfaithfulness. I don’t care one bit for all the infidels in England, and I don’t think it worth Mr. Grant's trouble to go after them. Nor am I afraid of Roman Catholicism for old England. I don’t think she will go back to that—I am sure she never will. But, I am afraid of this deadness, this sloth, this indifference, that has come over our churches.

The church needs shaking, like the man on the mountain-top does when the cold numbs him into a deadly slumber. The churches have gone to sleep for the lack of zeal, for the lack of fire. Even those who hold sound doctrine are beginning to slumber. Oh may God stir the church up! One great black cloud, only broken here and there by a few rays of sunlight, seems to be hanging over our happy country. But, beloved, there is comfort, “for the clouds are the dust of his feet.” He can scatter them in a moment. He can raise up his chosen servants, who have only to put their mouth to the trumpet, and one blast will awaken the sleeping sentinels, and startle the sleeping camp. God has only to send out again some evangelist, some flying angel, and the churches will start up once more, and she who has been clothed in sackcloth, will shed her garments of mourning and put on a garment of praise, instead of the spirit of heaviness. The day is coming, I hope, when the Church will sit, not without her diadem, crownless; but with her crown on her head, she will grasp her banner, take up her shield, and, like that heroic maiden of old who roused a whole nation, will go forth conquering and to conquer. We have a great hope, because “the clouds are the dust of his feet.”

Yes, and what clouds rest on the world at large! What black clouds of Catholic superstition, Mohammedanism, and idolatry. But what are all these things? We don’t care about them at all, brethren. Some say that I am getting very enthusiastic about the latter-day glory, and the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ. Well, I don't know. I get all the happier the more enthusiastic I am, so I hope I will keep at it, for I believe there is nothing that so comforts a servant of God as to believe that his Master is coming. I hope to see him. I would not be surprised to see Jesus Christ tomorrow morning. He may come then. “Because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you don’t expect him” [Matthew 24:44].

He who learns to watch for Christ, will never be surprised when he comes. Blessed will that servant be, whom, when his Lord comes, he will find busy about his duty. But some say he cannot come yet; there are so many clouds, and so much darkness in the sky, it cannot be expected that the sun will rise yet. Is that a good reason? Do the clouds ever impede the sun? The sun moves on despite all the mists; and Jesus Christ can come clouds or no clouds. We do not need light before he appears; he will come and give us light, afterwards, scattering the darkness with the glory of his own eyes. But you say, “How are these idolatrous systems to be destroyed?” God could do it in an hour if he pleased. Religion never moves by years and weeks. Even false religions grow like mushrooms. False religions attained colossal proportion in a very few years. Take the case of Mohammedanism—the new-born faith of Islam became the religion of millions in an incredible short period and if a false religion could spread so quickly, will not a true one run along like fire amidst the stubble, when God will speak the word? Clouds are but “dust of his feet.”

A little while ago some of us were fretting about Mormonism, and we said, “It will never be broken up.” Some stupid fellows in America began to kill the poor Mormonites, and so make them into saints, which was the very way to establish them. Christians trembled, and said, “What can this be? We will have Sodom over again.” But did you read the Times newspaper of last Thursday? You will there see a wonderful instance of how God can scatter the clouds and make them dust of his feet. He has caused to come out of the ground, near Salt Lake, at Utah, thousands of crickets, and all kinds of noxious insects, that devour the crops; creatures that have not been seen in Utah before, with swarms of locusts, have made their appearance; and the people, being so far from civilized nations, cannot of course carry much corn across the desert, so that they will be condemned to starve or else separate and break up. It seems to all appearance that the whole settlement of the Mormonites must entirely be broken up, and that by an army of caterpillars, crickets, and locusts.

III. Now, one more remark. “The clouds are the dust of his feet.” Then we learn from that, that THE MOST TERRIBLE THINGS IN NATURE HAVE NO TERROR TO A CHILD OF GOD.

Sometimes clouds are very fearful things to sailors; they expect a storm when they see the clouds and darkness gathering. A cloud to many of us, when it foretells an approaching storm is a very unpleasant thing. But let me read my text, and you will see what I mean by my remark that the most terrible things in nature are not terrible to the saints. The clouds are the dust of HIS feet,”—of God's feet. Don’t you see what I mean? There is nothing terrible now, because it is only the dust of my Father's feet. Did you ever know a child who was afraid of the dust of his father's feet? No; if the child sees the dust of his father's feet in the distance, what does he do? He rejoices because it is his father, and runs to meet him. So the most awful things in nature, even the clouds, have lost all their terror to a child of God, because he knows they are but the dust of his Father's feet. If we stand in the midst of the lightning storm, a flash strikes the cedar in the field, or splits the oak of the forest; another flash succeeds, and then another, till the whole sky becomes a sea of flame. We don’t fear, for they are only the flashes of our Father's sword as he waves it in the sky. Listen to the thunder as it shakes the earth and exposes the forests; we don’t shake at the sound.

“The God that rules on high,
And thunders when he please,
That rides upon the stormy sky,
And manages the seas.

“This awful God is ours,
Our Father and our love.”

We are not afraid, for we hear our Father's voice. And what favored child ever quaked at his Father's speech. We love to hear that voice; although it is deep, low, loud, yet we love its matchless melody, for it issues from the depths of affection. Put me to sea, and let the ship be driven along, that wind is my Father's breath let the clouds gather, they are the dust of my Father's feet; let the waterspout appear from heaven, it is my Father dipping his hand in the water. The child of God fears nothing. All things are his Father’s; and divested now of everything that is terrible, he can look upon them with complacency, for he says, “The clouds are the dust of his feet.”

“He drives his chariot through the sky,
Beneath his feet his thunders roar;
He shakes the earth, he veils the sky,
My soul, my soul, this God adore—
He is your Father, and your love.”

Fall down before his feet and worship him, for he has loved you by his grace. You know there are many fearful events which may happen to us; but we are never afraid of them, if we are saints, because they are the dust of his feet. Deadly disease may ravage this fair city once again; and thousands may die, and the funeral procession may be constantly seen in our streets. Do we fear it? No, the pestilence is but one of our Father’s servants, and we are not afraid of it, although it walks in darkness. There may be no wheat, the flocks may be cut off from the herd and the stall; nevertheless, famine and distress are our Father’s doings, and what our Father does we will not view with alarm. There is a man there with a sword in his hand—he is an enemy, and I fear him, yet my father has a sword, and I don’t fear him; I rather love to see him have a sword, because I know he will only use it for my protection.

But there is to come a sight more grand, more terrific, more sublime, and more disastrous than anything earth has yet witnessed; there is to come a fire before which Sodom's fire will pale to nothingness; and the inferno of continents will sink into less than nothing and vanity. In a few more years, my friends, Scripture assures us, this earth and all that is in it, is to be burned up. That deep molten mass which now lies in the bosom of our mother earth is to burst up—the solid matter is be melted down into one vast globe of fire; the wicked—shrieking, wailing, and cursing, will become a prey to these flames that will blaze upward from the breast of earth; comets will shoot their fires from heaven; all the lightnings will launch their bolts upon this poor earth, and it will become a mass of fire. But does the Christian fear it? No. Scripture tell us we will be caught up together with the Lord in the air, and will be forever with the Lord.

IV. To conclude. The fourth observation is, ALL THINGS IN NATURE ARE CALCULATED TO TERRIFY THE UNGODLY MAN.

I now speak to all the ungodly men and women now present in this place of worship, it is a very solemn fact that you are at enmity with God—you are hostile to God; that having sinned against God, God is angry with you—not angry with you today, but angry with you every day, angry with you every hour and every moment. It is, moreover, a most sad and solemn fact that there is a day coming, when this anger of God will burst out, and when God will utterly destroy and devour you. Now listen to me for a moment, while I try to make all nature preach to you a solemn warning, and the wide world itself a great high priest, holding up its finger and calling you to flee for mercy to Jesus Christ, the King of kings.

Sinner, have you ever seen the clouds as they roll along the sky? Those clouds are the dust of the feet of Jehovah. If these clouds are but the dust, what is he himself? And then, I ask you, are you not extremely foolish to be at war with such a God as this? If “the clouds are the dust of his feet, how foolish you are to be his enemy. Do you think you can stand before his majesty? I tell you, he will snap your spear as if it were nothing but a reed. Will you hide yourself in the mountains? They will be melted at his presence; and though you cry to the rocks to hide you, they would fail to give you any concealment before his burning eyes. O, do but consider, my dear fellow creatures, you who are at war with God, wouldn’t it be folly if you were to oppose an angel? Would it not be the utmost stupidity if you were to commence a war even with her majesty the Queen? I know it would, because you have no power to stand against them; but consider how much more mighty is the Eternal God. Why, he could put his finger upon you at this moment and crush you as I could an insect. Yet this God is your enemy; you are hating him, you are at war with him!

Moreover, consider, unsaved man and unsaved woman, that you have grievously rebelled against him; that you have incensed his soul, and he is angry, and jealous, and furious against every sinner. Consider what you will do in that great day of wrath, when God will fall upon you. Some of you believe in a god that has no anger, and no hatred towards the wicked. Such a god is not the God of Scripture? He is a God who punishes the ungodly. Let me ask you sinner: Can you stand before his indignation? Can you endure the fierceness of his anger? When his fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him, will it be a good thing to be in the hands of the Almighty, who will tear you apart? Will you think it easy to lie down in hell with the breath of the Eternal fanning the flames? Will you delight yourself to think that God will create new torments for you, sinner, to make your doom most cursed if you do not repent and turn to him? What, wicked man and wicked woman, are the terrors of Jehovah nothing to you? Don’t you tremble and shake before the fierceness of his fury? Ah! you may laugh now; you may go away, my listener, and smile at what I have said; but the day will declare it: the hour is coming—and it may be soon—when the iron hand of the Almighty will be upon you; when all your senses will be the gates of misery, your body the house of weeping, and your soul the epitome of woe. Then you will not laugh and despise God.

But now to finish up, let me just give you one word more; for, beloved, why do we use these threats; why do we speak of them? It is only the words of the angel, who, grabbing Lot by the shoulder, said, “Flee for your lives! Don't look back, and don't stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!” [Genesis 19:17], and then pointing to the fire behind, said, Run! run! lest the fire overtakes you, and the hail of the Eternal will overwhelm you! We only mentioned that fire behind, that the Spirit might make you flee to the mountain lest you should be consumed. Do you ask where that mountain is? We tell you there is a cleft in the Rock of Ages where the chief of sinners may yet hide himself—Jesus Christ came down from heaven for us men and women, in order to provide salvation for us; and whoever here this morning is an unsaved sinner, we now invite to come to Christ. You Pharisees who don’t believe you need a savior, I preach no gospel to you; you self-righteous, self-sufficient ones, I have nothing whatever to say to you, except what I have said—the voice of threatening. But, whoever will confess themselves a sinner, has the warrant this morning to come to Jesus Christ. Knowing that you are a sinner in need of a Savior is the gate to salvation. If you acknowledge yourselves to be sinners, Christ died for you. And if you put your trust in him, and believed that he died for you, you may rely upon him, and say, “Lord, I will be saved by your grace.” Your own “good works” are good for nothing; you can get no benefit by them. Your own work is useless; you error like the man in the prison working the treadmill—you never get anything by it—grinding oyster shells without any benefit to yourself. Come to Jesus Christ. Believe in him; and after you have believed in him, he will set you working—working a new work. He will give you works, if you will have but faith—even faith is his gift to you. O may he give it to you now, my listeners, for; “He gives generously to all without finding fault” [James 1:5]. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and be baptized, and you will be saved.”

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "Spurgeon Collection" by:

Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
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Online since 1986