“The burden of Dumah. He calleth to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? The watchman said, The morning cometh, and also the night: if ye will inquire, inquire ye; return, come.”―Isa. 21:11,1211The burden of Dumah. He calleth to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? 12The watchman said, The morning cometh, and also the night: if ye will inquire, inquire ye: return, come. (Isaiah 21:11‑12).
WATCHMAN, what of the night?
Watchman, what of the night?” This is the word of the scoffer, the sneer of the unbeliever, not the inquiring word of one desiring to know; and I find the counterpart of this scoffing question in the New Testament Scriptures, where Peter says, “There shall come in the last days scoffers,” walking, not in the faith of Christ, not in the hope of the Gospel, not in the love of God, not in the light of eternity, not in the light of the judgment-day, but walking, like you, who know not Christ, after their own lusts, after their own wills, saying, as you say, “Where is the promise of His coming? It is all very well for you preachers to talk of the coming of Christ, to say He is soon coming. Why, Paul talked of looking for Him, and the Thessalonians were turned from idols to wait for Him, and eighteen hundred years have rolled round since then, and all things continue just as they were; and you tell us of the Lord’s coming, but it is all a delusion; better spend your time on other subjects.”
Stop! though you may scoff, He is coming, ― “The morning cometh, and also the night.” He may be here ere you lay down this paper. He knows. Everything around only impresses more deeply than ever on my heart the solemn fact, ― “The coming of the Lord draweth nigh,”―gives certainty, overwhelming certainty, to the conviction that that day is at hand. These are the last times; you are in the last days, and the very fact of your scoffing does but add to the proof, for the word of God tells us in the last days scoffers shall come. But ere He comes what has an evangelist, what has a preacher of the Gospel, to bring out now? What must he tell you but that Jesus, the Holy One and the Just, came down, took that wondrous journey from the throne of God to the cross, to make a way of escape for you from the darkness of the coming night; that He died to make a way of escape for you; that He is willing to receive you, waiting to receive you― “If ye will inquire, inquire ye; return, come.”
But should these lines meet an anxious soul, an inquiring heart, I have “glad tidings” for that anxious one, good news for that inquiring one. “What are the glad tidings? What is the good news?” you ask.
Wherever I see an anxious soul, a Christ-seeking soul, I have this to tell him, that the Christ I speak of is a sinner-seeking Christ, ―a Christ who seeks sinners, a Christ who saves sinners, a Christ who receives, and who pardons, and who blesses sinners. And, ah! if you are an anxious Christ-seeking soul, I tell you of this sinner-seeking Christ; and who so suited to meet as a sinner-seeking Saviour, and a Saviour-seeking sinner? They are just the ones suited to each other. But if you are one of the class that Peter speaks of, a “scoffer,” not ready to meet God, not ready to face eternity, unprepared to stand before the judgment-seat, my solemn duty, dear reader, is to warn you to beware, ―to tell you solemnly, faithfully, “The morning cometh, and also the night.”
“Oh, but,” you say, “you have often talked about the coming of the Lord before, and we see no signs of it; things go on exactly the same as ever.” Mark what the watchman says. He says, for the comfort of the saved soul, “The morning comes!” Fellow-believer, there is a morning coming for you, a bright, a sunny morning,—a morning without clouds, a morning of unmingled joy and blessing, a morning when you shall rise to meet your beloved Lord in the air, when you shall gaze upon Him in all His beauty, the One whom you have never yet seen face to face. For the warning of the unsaved, the watchman adds, “and also the night.”
There are three distinct classes of people nowadays. Firstly, people who know and love Christ; secondly, people who profess to know Christ but who do not; and thirdly, people who do not care for Christ, do not want to know Him; and it is to this last class I speak now. To You who do not want Christ, I say, Christ wants you! CHRIST WANTS YOU! “I never thought of that,” you say.
True, for the thoughts of the unconverted are all wrong.
O dear unsaved soul, I want you to be converted to Him. It is your soul I am longing after. I want you to be saved now. I know how the word of grace meets some hearts, and the word of warning meets others, and, oh! I would tell out both to you, for there is a day coming, soon coming, when there shall be no more word of grace, no more word of warning, no more Gospel preaching for you, ―an hour coming when you shall have heard or read the Gospel for the last time. And oh! tell me, if that hour came this day, where would this last Gospel word find you and leave you? I ask you, as you must give account before the judgment seat, how does your soul stand before God? Are YOU ready to meet the Lord if He comes―if He comes tonight? He may come. Will you be glad to hear His voice? The heart that knows Him says, “Ah! yes, I shall be glad to hear that voice; I know His voice. It will be no strange voice to me. Do you tell me the morning comes? Joyful, happy news! It is the moment of deep, unbounded joy, when my eye shall light for the first time on that blessed Saviour.”
But, ah! if there is a morning of such unmingled joy to the Christian, what about you who know not Christ? Is there any charm for you in that morning? None whatever! There can be no charm for a worldly, Christless heart in that morning; there can be nothing but terror in that morning for you; for that is the morning when the wicked shall be like ashes under the soles of His feet; when “The Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings,” and “all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble.” He will arise, with healing in His wings, for those who in the long night of His absence have feared His name, have trusted Him, have fled to Him for shelter; but for you, Christless one, what has the Sun of Righteousness to do with you? Then one of His beams will blind you forever.
The soul that knows not Christ prefers the night, loves the night: “Every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light.” The darkness suits the sin-loving soul, the dark night of Jesus’s absence is the very atmosphere that suits the pleasure-loving soul, the Christless soul. The morning is the atmosphere that suits the soul that knows Christ, that is looking for Him, and waiting for Him; and “the morning cometh,” but ah! there is something more, “and also the night.”
He is coming, and coming quickly. He lingers, Peter tells us, because He is “long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” He is not slack concerning His promise, but He lingers, not willing that YOU should perish, but the moment is coming when He will delay no longer, when He will rise up and shut to the door, when the day of His grace will be over, the door will be shut, and, oh! what will it be to find yourself shut out then? You, who vainly think you will be a Christian some day; you who think you will go on with the world now, and turn to Christ someday, what will it be to you to find the door shut and yourself outside? No more offer of mercy, no more day of grace, no more gospel preaching, no more Christ for you. Oh, the bitter, dark agony! Oh, the terror of that day! to find the Master of the house has risen up and shut to the door and you are shut out. You, who meant to go in, but who put it off! O Christ-less, unsaved soul, I beseech you, in the light of that coming day of judgment, awake! awake! arise, be warned in time, flee this very moment to a living, loving Saviour. “Turn ye, turn ye.” “Return, Come.” Oh! “RETURN, COME.”
O scoffing soul, are you determined to go down into that awful place, that terrible pit, the abyss of hell? Still the door is open into the Father’s house. There are none too hardened for His grace to soften, none too far off for Him to meet, none too bad for Him to justify. Turn ye, turn ye to Jesus now. Why put it off a moment more? He is saving others, He will save you. He is saving many in these last days, and why? Because the time is near when the doors shall be shut. The Lord is sending out warning notes of grace before that hour comes, before the day of His long-suffering comes to a close.
What is the meaning of the great tide of blessing that has rolled on since 1858 over the world? The Lord has been working in a very special and marked manner; everywhere He has been stirring up men’s minds; the Gospel has been preached, not only by those in the pulpits, but faithful men everywhere have been going forth with the tidings of grace, and the warnings of judgment to come. Men of all ranks, men of high degree and low, have gone about proclaiming the Gospel, seeking to win souls. “What is the meaning of this great change, these vagaries?” you ask. This the night comes; the night draws near; and we see already shadows, dark shadows of the coming night, for side by side with this vast tide of blessing what has arisen? Another tide, deep and dark, is rolling its waters also over the world. Rationalism, Ritualism, and Spiritualism combined, are rampant now in a way hitherto unequaled; and all paving the way for the man of sin―Antichrist― the false Christ―soon about to appear.
From all this I am persuaded the Lord is at hand. The cry has gone forth, “Behold the Bridegroom cometh.” A few years ago little was heard about the Lord’s coming, it was a subject few thought of. Now it is spoken of on every hand, and the reason is, that the time is fast approaching. God’s testimony of grace too is heard on all hands, and many souls have believed the glad tidings and are saved. It is this urgency of the charity of God, and the universality of its manifestation, that tell me the Lord is near.
Beloved, unsaved reader, listen to me. I know that you are a lost soul―a LOST SOUL, and I know the night cometh. A night that has no morning, a long, long dark, endless night, into which no ray of light shall ever come. Oh! lost, lost soul, YOUR night has NO morning. The night of the Christian is illumined by the love of Jesus, and is terminated by a morning that has no evening, “for there shall be no night there.” Oh, think of that scene, that happy scene, “the city had no need of the sun, for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof;” and, “there shall be NO NIGHT there.” Now listen to me, “The morning cometh, but also the night.” Oh! what a night, Christless soul! You pass into eternity without Jesus, and what is it? All night! all night! Is there no morning? No, none; no morning to that fearful night! Oh, I appeal to you, I entreat you; for a few passing hours of pleasure here will you risk that night that has no morning? How very long one single night of sleeplessness and pain seems here! Possibly you may have known such a night, when you tossed restlessly on your bed. You could not sleep; in vain you tried this side and that, and in every way sought sleep. How long the night seemed, how slowly the minutes seemed to go by! The clock in your room strikes the half-hours, and a year seems to have gone by before the half-hour chimes; a perfect cycle follows, and then the clock strikes the hour; you could not have believed the night could be so long. How you watch for the first approach of morning. How gladly you welcome the first streak of light coming through a crack in the closed shutter, the day is coming at last, there is a morning to this long night. But, oh, what will it be to be chained to your bed in hell, in impenetrable gloom, forever? Is there no morning? None, none! No light coming? None!
In the terrible darkness of that awful scene, as another has vividly portrayed it, you may hear the eternal ticking of hell’s clock, as its long pendulum sways from side to side, seeming to say only the terrible words, ever―never, ever―never, EV―ER―NEV―ER, EV―ER―NEV―ER, EVER-LASTING―NEVERENDING, EVER-LASTING―NEVER-ENDING!
Oh, tell me, friend, will you risk this awful eternity, this never-ending hell? Will you risk it for some bit of pleasure here, some few hours of following your own will and way? Oh, return, return, come! Oh, wandering one, return now, come to Jesus, now. THAT NIGHT has not yet come; oh, return, you shall receive a welcome to the arms of that blessed Saviour. The voice of Jesus speaks, “Will you not come to me?” Oh, return, return! There is no guilt so great that the blood of Christ cannot cleanse it, no depth of wickedness that it cannot meet, ―you cannot be too bad for Christ.
Dear soul, are you arrested on the slippery road to hell? Do you say, “I have been trifling with eternity too long; I must turn, I cannot face this Christless eternity, I cannot bear the awful reality of it”? Oh, have you come to yourself, wandering one? Then I have good news for you, there is bread enough and to spare in your Father’s house. Have you said, “I will arise, I will go to God; I cannot bear to meet God in judgment, I cannot bear the thought of the night without a morning.” Lose no time then; the prodigal, in Luke 15, did not say, “I will arise another time,” but, “I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.”
Would you like to follow this prodigal home, and see how he is welcomed? “When he was yet a great way off” ―that is just where an anxious soul feels itself, “a great way off.” But do you think God does not see the turning in your heart, the desire to be Christ’s? The father “RAN” to meet the returning prodigal. God, as it were, runs to meet the returning soul. The sinner comes slowly along, saying, “How will He meet me? What will He say? Will He have me?” The father ran. Are you the one returning? The father ran, that is how God meets you. The prodigal comes along sad and slowly; he sees one on the road; “It is my father,” he says; a moment more, “He is coming to meet me;” another moment, “He runs;” a few steps farther he is on his neck, he kisses him!
The first thing the returning soul gets is a kiss, the kiss of peace. What does that kiss say? It says, God’s heart remains unchanged. That kiss tells that all is forgotten, that all is forgiven. Is there a hard word? Is there a question, “Why have you been so long? Where have you spent your time and your substance?” No! The returning soul has judged itself, it has brought the sledgehammer of self-judgment down on itself, “Father, I have sinned.” And does not God like to hear that confession, those softened words? He does! And what is the answer? “Bring forth the best robe,” that is Christ; bring the fatted calf, kept for some great occasion, bring it, kill it, “let us eat and be merry, for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found. AND THEY BEGAN TO BE MERRY.” This is the grace that meets the returning sinner. Oh, if you have never bowed before, will you not bow to Christ now? Shall it not be said of you, that the heart that had long fed itself with the husks the world can give, but was empty still, dissatisfied, having no rest, is filled to the brim, satisfied, at rest henceforth?
Oh, when I see Jesus in that bright morning, that coming morning, will You be there? In that blessed home, that scene of joy and rest, oh, tell me, will you be there, and I? I shall. I know that I shall, but will you be there? A little time, and the morning comes; no more sorrow then, no more pain for the heart that loves Him, but with Him, and like Him, forever!
What a future! We did not deserve it, but He gives it! Will you take from the loving hand of Jesus that free salvation Now? The Lord grant you may, so that, in the bright morning when He comes, you may be with Him, and with Him for aver. W. T. P. W.