A MAN’S conduct in the sight of God is truly a serious matter, since the day is fixed for bringing every secret thing to light, and every wicked work to judgment. But it is by no means the only grave feature of His case. “Where art thou?” was the first sentence that fell from the lips of God upon the ear of fallen man. And “Where art thou?” is a truly momentous question still. Many think it is only a question of outward behavior, and that if by comparison with others they can, with self-satisfaction, put a balance of merit to their own account; they will therefore in the end be worthy of a place in heaven. As though God had thrown open the chance of heaven to mere human competition, and had allowed man to be his own umpire as to whether he merited it or not; as though He had never said, “By grace are ye saved through faith... not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8, 98For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2:8‑9)).
Now the fact is that there are two positions that man in this world can occupy. He may stand on the ground of his own history and supposed personal merits, and face the searching scrutiny of the day of judgment, or he may, through grace, renounce that ground as hopeless—as it surely is (Psa. 143:22And enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified. (Psalm 143:2))―flee for refuge to Jesus, and, standing on the merits of One who bore the judgment for him, may know on the authority of God’s Word that he is forever beyond the reach of that judgment. Take a simple illustration by way of suggesting the truth of these two positions.
In the extensive slate quarries near Bangor they have a fixed time for the blasting of the rocks. The writer happened to be walking through these quarries about this particular hour, when suddenly he was called upon by one of the workmen to halt. “Don’t you understand what the ringing of that large bell means?” he inquired.
Upon the writer acknowledging his ignorance, he added, “Then come here, and I will show you,” and thereupon he took me to the ledge of a rock where no harm could happen to us, and from whence we could see all that was going on below. “If you look across there,” he said, “in the direction from whence the sound of the bell is heard, you will see that a large flag is hoisted on a high pole. This is the double signal that the fuses are about to be lighted and the blasting to commence.” “But what is the sound of the trumpet that I hear?” “Oh, that is for those who are too far down to hear the bell, or see the flag.”
Soon I saw that the warning had not been given in vain. Hundreds of men and boys could now be seen hastening to the caverns or clefts in the rock, or to other places of shelter, to hide themselves. One man seemed later than the rest, but he cleverly let himself down by means of a hanging rope, evidently placed there for the purpose, and then ran towards the place of refuge; and well for him that he did run, for he had only just reached the refuge when the first explosion was heard. And then crash, crash, crash, startled the ear from every side; now to the right, now above, now from unseen depths beneath; then a chorus of explosions together, till the mountainsides echoed and re-echoed with their terrible thunder, and I felt that the workman who had arrested my steps had been a real friend to me, and deserved my heartiest thanks.
“But how is it,” I said to my friend, “that when God warns sinners to flee from the wrath to come, and offers them a perfect shelter, that they heed it not, while not a single workman, young or old, in these Penryn slate quarries but took warning and fled for safety as soon as they heard or saw the signal?” To this the man had no satisfactory answer. What a tale it tells of man’s hardened unbelief.
Are you still exposed, my reader, or have you fled for refuge? God has given assurance of an appointed day of judgment by raising His beloved Son from among the dead, and placing Him at His own right hand in glory. From thence comes the warning, “See that ye refuse not Him thus speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused Him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven: whose voice then shook the earth: but now He hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven” (Heb. 12:25, 2625See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: 26Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. (Hebrews 12:25‑26)). And not only so, but God’s “trumpet” of gospel testimony is still sounding here below. You have “obeyed” that gospel and fled to Christ, or you have “refused.” Which? You stand as a child of Adam on your own merit, or, believing that judgment must be the lot of all who are found out of Christ, you have fled for refuge to Him who went into the place of judgment for you, and who gives to all who believe a place of security in Himself, beyond the reach of judgment, and beyond it forever.
To go back to our figure. The best man in the Penryn slate quarries, if not sheltered, was in danger; while the worst man sheltered was safe.
Reader, where art thou? You cannot say you have never been warned. Your last gospel opportunity will come. How will you make use of it? How will you stand when the sound of your last warning has died on your ear?
“Haste, haste, haste,
Delay not from death to flee.
Oh, wherefore the moments in madness waste
While Jesus is calling thee!”