(Abridged from)
An Address delivered by Dr. Heyman Wreford, at the Victoria Hall. Exeter. Sunday Evening. December 4th 1892.
(Hitherto Unpublished.)
IF we pass from the twilight into the light we do not notice the difference so much as if, out of absolute darkness, we pass immediately into full and glorious light; and I was thinking as I read the verse I have taken for my text, how God said: “Let there be light,” and of the darkness flying at His voice, and Eden being at once irradiated by His glory. When the breath of life was breathed into man, and he stood in the image of God, he could walk up and down the beautiful aisles of Eden and gaze without fear, upon his Maker. But as soon as sin entered the world by disobedience, it fell like an eclipse on the creation. In a moment the light of God’s presence was withdrawn, and man, trying to hide his shame, only got into deeper darkness still. One sin canopied Eden with gloom, and when the second Adam suffered on the Cross, the Son of God broke His loving heart for what man had done.
That sin of disobedience rests upon you tonight—that shadow rests North, and South, and East, and West, on every continent and on every sea. And how soon the shadow of that sin of Adam’s disobedience was followed by the awful shadow of the sin of murder, and as Abel was murdered by Cain, so Christ was murdered on the hill of Calvary. You know, reading the Old Testament, how terribly the sins of the world increased till God in His fierce anger swept man away, and rained fire upon the cities of the plain.
When we were in the East our guide took us to the shores of the Dead Sea, and I could not help thinking vividly of the terrible judgment that overtook those guilty cities. Their inhabitants could not believe the peril in which they stood till the dark skies opened and they learned too late that God could be mocked no longer. Men and women may go on defying God for a time, but the shadow of sin follows them till the day of repentance is past, and out of the dark shadow of wrath resting on them the thunderbolt suddenly falls. And death is not the end — if so, how many would like to die, to lay their weary heads down on the pillow of oblivion and wake no more! But there is the judgment after death. Many a man has said: “Cursed be the hour that I was born and a living soul given me.”
The world is full of those shadowed lives. Full of rich men going to bed with their coffers full of gold, and men envying them for their splendid houses and their servants and their great position in life, but all their riches will not avert their day of doom. The rich man dies, with the shadow of his sins resting on him and “in hell he lift up his eyes” for all his gold is powerless to purchase him an entrance into the peace and joy of Heaven. We may listen to the golden words of a man of intellect and wonder at his knowledge, but he may be a fool for all that.
“The world by wisdom knew not God,” and if, with all his wisdom, a man never learns that he must come to Christ, and if his name, however great in the eyes of men, is not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, he is still a fool in the greatest thing of all. The angels, looking down from heaven, must see some strange and sad sights — wives clad in the glory of redemption, and husbands with the shadow of God’s wrath resting on them, in the same home; or the husband saved and the wife unsaved. To all the world they may seem alike, but the eye of God sees them differently. There may be a husband and wife here tonight, the one in the light of Christ and the other in the shadow of unbelief. It reminds me of a wreck we saw when we got to Victoria, Vancouver Island, a large steamer with her funnels sticking up out of the water. So there are men and women wrecked, whose lives are useless either to God or man. God’s purpose in creating you was that you should live for His glory. Those who built that steamer expected that it would travel across the waters in safety and fulfill its work, but the time of wreck came, and so it is with the lives of men and women.
Have you ever seen an eagle in a cage, an eagle that was made to soar upwards towards heaven and gaze upon the sun? Yet there it is, powerless to fly, and an unconverted man is like the eagle in the cage: there is the whole world to work in, but the devil has him in a cage. He likes to keep the best men captive so that they cannot work for the living God. God has given you great powers of intellect perhaps, great talents of one kind or another, but they cannot be used for Him unless you are a Christian.
Have you ever seen a harp without strings? There is the form and the framework of the harp, but it is useless; no music can be got out of the instrument by the very best musician, and not even an angel’s hand can get any melody out of your life till you are converted to Christ. Till then you are like a statue without life. I helped to unpack one the other day which was considered to be a very beautiful work of art, but there was no sight in its eyes or hearing in its ears. You are like that statue if, with all the open doors of salvation, and all the glorious promises shining before you, you have never listened to the voice of God or the blessed accents of a Saviour’s love. Oh! if your lips have been closed, and you have never lifted up a voice of entreaty to the Most High asking for pardon and salvation, you had better have been a statue. If you are deaf and blind in spirit and your hands and feet are useless to your Maker, what are you but a lifeless statue in God’s world?
When we were in the Holy Land we went to Bethlehem and we saw a field supposed to be the same field where the shepherds saw the angel and heard the multitude of the heavenly host, it is called “the Field of the Shepherds” now, and we saw the field where it is said David used to keep his father’s sheep, and I thought of the shadow resting on the Lord when He lay in the village inn. The heaven of heavens could not contain Him, yet there was no room for Him in the village inn, and they put the Lord of Glory in a stable. We saw the place where it is said Christ was born. I thought, as I stood there, of Him Who was content to be the “Babe of Bethlehem” for my sake, and for yours, We stayed a fortnight in the quiet village where He spent His first days on earth, and there was the same well from which Mary the Mother of Jesus used to draw water, and to tills day women go to that well, as they have done for thousands of years, and as I watched them doing evening after evening. I cannot tell you what memories crowded on me there. I looked on the very hill over which they wished to thrust Him, for He was hated and homeless through His long journeyings till He got to the Garden of Gethsemane, and how dark a shadow rested on him there! Oh, blessed be God that He suffered this for you and me. Think what sin must be to cause the Lord of Life to suffer thus. We encamped one night upon the Mount of Olives and saw the moon shining down upon Jerusalem, and there I walked in an Olive garden which might have been Gethsemane, and I could not help but think of the mighty agony that rested on His soul nineteen centuries ago, when He Who knew no sin Himself was made sin for us. I would not have missed those quiet hours of communion with Him Who loved me for any mortal consideration. Has the tale of His sorrow never stirred your hearts? As I looked on those trees, and gazed on the city He wept over, my eyes were filled with tears. I thought of the city full of men and women He came to save stretching out their hands to thrust Him from them — haughty Pharisees, Roman soldiers and the rest, and that solitary woman leaving the city and going to the brook Kedron in the Valley of Jehoshaphat—where I have often been — it was all brought so vividly before my eyes. There were the priests plotting against the Saviour’s life; there was the man who would betray Him for thirty pieces of silver, and lead them across Kedron to the garden where Jesus was agonizing, and give Him the traitor’s kiss. Have you ever kissed Christ with the kiss of a traitor; used Him for your own ends? Judas used Jesus to get those thirty pieces; have you or I ever used Christ to get money or fame? Let us see to it, for there are people betraying Him every day, selling Him for any paltry advantage this poor world can give. So Judas betrayed Him, and He was taken to the hall of judgment and condemned to death, and then taken again outside the city walls, and crucified. Oh, that shadowed life, shadowed for you and me. There we saw the place, a few hundred yards outside the Damascus Gate, within sight of the city wall so that those who passed by could wag their heads. When Mr. Moody was there he preached on the crucifixion upon the very spot where the Cross was supposed to have stood, and as I stood there it seemed to me as if I was close by the Cross of Jesus, and upon holy ground, and I want you to feel each one of you that what went on there was for you. I want you to feel He bore your sins in His Own Body there upon the tree. Blessed be God, the door of mercy is open still, and the beams of glory are shining through. I want you to go to the cross and to ask for pardon now, before the door is shut.
“Behold, Now is the accepted time. Behold, Now is the day of Salvation.