THERE probably never was a time in the history of the world when men were more averse than now to all authority.
Anarchists want no government, that they may do as they please. Children rebel against parental rule, and schoolmasters must not lift the hand against a vicious pupil.
In the same way, God may send His rain upon the fields to bless man; He may shower upon him all manner of good; He may provide a lovely heaven to receive him when he has wasted his life in sin; but He must not speak of judgment, He must not think of His own holiness, nor of that eternal justice which marks all His doings. Above all, He must not speak of the fire that is not quenched, nor of the worm that never dies.
Reader, you will find plenty of men nowadays who profess to speak for God, who will talk to you in that way. If you love to be deceived, go and hear them, and try and comfort yourself with the comfort of fools; but you might just as well go and hear a man preach that robbing and killing your neighbor will have no bad end: you will find yourself, if guilty of such crimes, just the same in the hands of justice, and condemned and executed as a criminal. The judge will not listen to the nonsense to which you have listened; he is the minister of justice, and justice will have its course.
If there is one thing spoken of more plainly than another in Scripture it is about the justice of God, and its unflinching course towards all offenders. Nor will He ask you, or any man, in the day when He judges, what is the just measure of penalty which is to be inflicted. He has said it, and, depend upon it, He will not change it: “These shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.” (Matt. 25:4646And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal. (Matthew 25:46).) Men may twist and turn to get away from it, and dismiss it from their minds; but there it stands, and only fools run against the just decrees of the God of heaven.
Reader, when God had to give up the Son of His love to atone for sin by the death of the cross, it meant that the consequences of sin are no trifle with God. If they should be with you, he assured that when you and God meet together, you will not be the one who will prevail. It were wiser far to believe God now as to the punishment which awaits sinners. Then turn to the Saviour for deliverance from it while it is yet the day of grace. The death of Christ proves the awful end of sin, and is what removes its penalty from every repenting and believing sinner.
Contributed by H. A. M.