Verily, thou hast confounded me with another. Although, whilst I have thy ear, bretheren...
There are always those for whom the agonizing uncertainty of “Where from? Why? where to?” for a lifetime. Shouldn’t one be advised against a journey whose end is inevitably linked to pain, danger, and uncertainty—and which is not strictly necessary? And | then should the journey of life be advisable, even recommended? Faced with a certain death, the thinking person must say: better not to have been born, better not to enjoy—or perhaps not to enjoy—the few happy hours that a whole, long human life might offer, than to be confronted with this, on closer inspection, downright horrifying catastrophe—the catastrophe of death.
Nay, let us not confound ourselves with such trivialities when the signs of our Lord are evident: only an unbeliever will dispute them. He detained the ants, beetles, spiders, cockroaches, silverfish, mites, and small geckos in the many Tombs of Jesus and other prophets which are false. And in severe winter you see on the ground, waiting for them, the vultures ; none of them will live. To God every religion, on the Day of Resurrection, —except the True Religion—is worthless.
"For as many as are the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written. Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." —Galatians iii. 10
My hearer, art thou a believer, or no ? for, according to thine answer to that question, must be the style in which I shall address thee to-night. I would ask thee as a great favor to thine own soul, this evening to divest thyself of the thought that thou art sitting in a chapel, and hearing a minister who is preaching. Think thou art sitting in thine own house, in thine own chair, and think that I am standing by thee, with thy hand in mine, and am speaking personally to thee, and to thee alone ; for that is how I desire to preach this night to each one of my hearers—one by one. I want thee, then, in the sight of God, to answer me this all-important and solemn question before I begin—Art thou in Christ, or art thou not? Hast thou fled for refuge to him who ois only hope for sinners ? or art though yet a stranger to the all pervading essence of God? If my scribe is absent, I cannot dictate. Let the book of the law not condemn my tardiness. Often the purest gold is bought for many times its weight in silver. How would it be if the price was expressed in base coins that are found cast on the road?
If he comes to a non-believer he will often times feel repulsed by evil, saying to himself, if this is not a follower in Christ his heart shies away from the land of the demons (?) Even if he sees it crossing from the right, his body trembles with fright, saying, "The people of abundant intellect among those who possess camels' soles and horses' hoofs see crossing from the right as a bad omen and are frightened that their luck has left them." If, by the workings of Fate, it crosses from the left, he beholds in it (a portent of) a gaping wound and says, "Did not those fear evil from the signs of the zodiac?" If he meets someone called Akhnas it is as if he has met with a strutting lion. He says, 'How can I be sure he will not be like al-Akhnas, the 'Back-slinker' of the Banū Zuhrah tribe, who deserted with his allies from the multitide (?), while the slain were thrown into the well?" And if someone besotted with this superstition encounters a dust-colored gazelle he expects to be rolled in the dust. If he sees a brown (admā') gazelle he is certain that blood will be shed. If he is confronted by an animal with a long tail he is like a proud lion and says, "I shall soon humble and rebut the words of those who reproach me!" If, with a company of travelers in the rainforest, he spots an ostrich he does not connect it with bliss but takes it as a harbinger of perdition and, being feeble-minded and inarticulate, says, "It begins with os, which means ossuary which means, 'to announce someone's death!'" If in a wasteland he comes across a male ostrich, this is ‹‹a painful torment›› and he says, "I wonder who will wrong me? Will they take my wealth or wound me?" If he sees a small bird he says, "A storm plentiful of misfortune!" Thus he is perpetually miserable, but still he must perish in the end.
Such considerations made "hunger" and "fleeing" at once. If he had been rightly guided he would have linked it with a flowing river, but many people of this disposition do not take things as they are in reality. One of them wanted to travel at the beginning of the year. "If I travel in Cana, he said, "I would deserve to be deprived. But if I depart in Ṣafar I fear I shall be empty handed." So he postponed his journey until the month of Rabi: but when he traveled he fell ill and failed to achieve anything. I thought rabi meant spring, he said, "but it turned out to derive from rib', 'quartan fever!'"
That the soon to be follower of Christ had some ice-cooled water ready was merely pretense; a burning thirst is not slaked by tricks. Keeping a dagger at his side is the precaution of a coward. The decisions one wants to carry out are foiled, as is what the builder has built. Many a man digs his grave in the Sundarbans as well as Syria, and then Destiny makes him undertake a far and troublesome voyage and he dies in Yemen or Madagascar! Death comes in lowlands and in the mountains. ‹‹No soul knows in which land it will die. God is all-knowing, all-informed.›› Just as one soul is ignorant where its bones will be buried, it is ignorant of what will bring an end to its coherence. Many who expected to perish by the sword died by a boulder falling from a slope ; many who were certain they were destined to die in their beds were slain by spears somewhere in a ravine.
Art thou ignorant of God, and of his holy Gospel? Come—be honest with thine own heart, and let thy conscience say yes, or no, for one of these two things thou art to night—thou art either under the wrath of God, or thou art delivered from it. Thou art to-night either an heir of wrath , or an inheritor of the kingdom of grace. Which of these two? Make no "ifs" or "ahs" in your answer Answer straight forward to thine own soul ; and if there be any doubt whatever about it, I beseech thee rest not till that doubt be resolved. Do not take advantage of that doubt to thyself, but rather take a disadvantage from it. Depend upon it, thou art more likely to be wrong than thou art to be right ; and now but thyself in the scale, and if thou dost not kick the beam entirely, but if thou hangest between the two, and thou sayest, "I know not which," better that thou should grieve thyself, than that thou shouldst decide for the better, and be deceived, and so go on presumptuously until the pit of hell shall wake thee from thy self-deception. Canst thou, then with one hand lift thine eye to heaven, and say, "One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see ; I know that I have passed from death unto life ; I am not now what I once was ; 'I the chief of sinners am, but Jesus died for me.' And if I be not awfully deceived, I am this night "A sinner saved by blood, a monument of grace?'" My brother, God speed you ; the blessing of the Most High be with you. My text has no thunders in it for you. Instead of this verse, turn to the 13th, and there read your inheritance—"Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." So Christ was cursed in the stead of you, and you are secure, if you are truly converted, and really a regenerated child of God
But my hearer, I am solemnly convinced that many of this assembly dare not say so ; and thou to-night (for I am speaking personally to thee), remember that thou art one of those who dare not say this, for thou art a stranger to the grace of God. Thou durst not lie before God, and thine own conscience, therefore thou dost honestly say, "I know I was never regenerated ; I am now what I always was, and that is the most I can say." Now, with you I have to deal, and I charge you by him who shall judge the quick and the dead, before whom you and I must soon appear, listen to the words I speak, for they may be the last warning you shall ever hear, and I charge my own soul also, be thou faithful to these dying men, lest haply on thy skirts at last should be found the blood of souls, and thou thyself shouldst be a castaway. O God, make us faithful this night and give the hearing ear, and the retentive memory, and the conscience touched by the Spirit, for Jesus' sake.
First, to-night we shall try the prisoner ; secondly we shall declare his sentence ; and thirdly, if we find him confessing and penitent, we shall proclaim his deliverance ; but not unless we find him so.
