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II. I conduct your thoughts to the second part of the subject, and show you the END of these things—as it is set forth in the solemn warning contained in the text. "Know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment." He who will hereafter be the judge—is now the witness of your conduct! God is everywhere present, and knows all things, "Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I stand up; You understand my thoughts from far away. You observe my travels and my rest; You are aware of all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, You know all about it, Lord. You have encircled me; You have placed Your hand on me. This extraordinary knowledge is beyond me. It is lofty; I am unable to reach it. Where can I go to escape Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, You are there. If I live at the eastern horizon or settle at the western limits, even there Your hand will lead me; Your right hand will hold on to me. If I say, 'Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light around me will become night'— even the darkness is not dark to You. The night shines like the day; darkness and light are alike to You!" (Psalm 139:1-12)
Such is the solemn description which the Scriptures give us of an everywhere and ever-present God. He is not far from any one of us, for in him we live and move and have our being. Yes, the Lord God is everywhere—not excepting even the haunts of vice. You may exclude your parents, your teachers, your ministers, from the scenes of your iniquity! You may shut out the sun—but you cannot shut out God! He is with you in the tavern, the brothel, the theatre! Are there not times and places, in which, if the form of your father were suddenly to appear before you, you would almost sink into the earth? But lift up your eyes, and see, behold, the Great Spirit is there! What! tremble at a father's glance—and yet not be terrified at the presence of a God, whose eyes are as a flame of fire, and who cannot look upon sin but with abhorrence? Will you swear, and drink, and commit lewdness when the holy and all-seeing Deity is there to take account of all, and preserves the record on pages more durable than brass? The Grecian philosopher thought it would be a sufficient check to sin, to admonish his disciples to act as they would do, if they knew the eye of Plato was upon them. And shall it be no control upon your passions, to remember, that God sees you! And for all He sees will bring you into judgment?
1. Reflect upon the CERTAINTY of judgment. It is not a cunningly devised fable—it is not a mere terrifying picture intended to embellish Scripture. You know that there is a judgment to come! The very heathen expect it, conscience foretells it, guilt forebodes it, reason proves it, Scripture declares it! "God has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he has ordained. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive the things which he has done in his body, according to what he has done, whether it be good or bad." You may unhappily forget the judgment—but you cannot disbelieve it.
2. This judgment will be PERSONAL. Know you, young man, that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. The subject concerns us all, and each one in particular. To everyone who shall read these pages, the admonition is individually addressed, "Rejoice, young man, while you are young, and let your heart be glad in the days of your youth. And walk in the ways of your heart and in the sights of your eyes; but know that for all of these things, God will bring you to judgment!" (Ecclesiastes 11:9) "For God will bring every act to judgment, including every hidden thing, whether good or evil." (Ecclesiastes 12:14) None are so high as to rise above this accountability to God; none so low as to be beneath it. John saw the dead, small and great, standing before God to be judged.
When men transgress the laws of their country, they are led on by the hope that they shall not be detected or brought to trial—they calculate the chances of escape, and indulge the expectation of impunity. But there is no room for such a hope, in reference to the judgment of the great God—this it will be impossible either to evade or resist. It is as certain that you will stand before the tribunal of Christ, and be tried for your life—as that you now exist! To that tribunal you will certainly be brought—whether willing or unwilling. Rocks and mountains will not hide you; no power on earth will shelter or detain you. God has declared that he will undertake this matter himself. Will you hide? Where will you go from God's presence? Go where you will—you will be surrounded still by God! Will you resist God's arrest? "Do you have an arm like God's?" The whole universe is represented as brought together to judgment, with the same ease as a shepherd collects a flock of timid sheep. No! No! Nothing can prevent your being placed at the tribunal of heaven!
Young men, bear me witness, I give you public warning of this event. In God's name, I serve you with notice of the trial. Prepare to meet your God! He is coming! He is coming—and you must meet him! O think of judgment to come—in the midst of all your sinful pleasures and criminal liberties—think of it! Will you drink the drunkard's cup; will you go to the brothel, to the gambling table, to the scene of riot and wickedness—knowing that for all these things God will bring you into judgment? With the terrible solemnities of the last day before your eyes—will you, can you, dare you—proceed in the career of vice? Conscience—O faithful monitor! O dreadful avenger! I charge you to whisper in the sinner's ear, when going to the scene of his unholy pleasures, "But know, that for all of these things, God will bring you to judgment! For God will bring every act to judgment, including every hidden thing, whether good or evil."
3. This judgment will be EXACT and IMPARTIAL. "But know, that for all of these things, God will bring you to judgment! For God will bring every act to judgment, including every hidden thing, whether good or evil." All that you have done shall be brought to light and reviewed. The standard by which actions will then be tried, will be the Word of God. This is the book which will then be opened, according to which people's characters will be decided, and the sentence pronounced. Men will not be allowed to compare themselves with each other. Nor will those 'false standards of morality' and 'accommodating rules of custom' which they have now adopted, be then admitted. The laws which 'fashionable or customary vices' have modified to suit themselves, will be all disallowed and swept away then!
Men may now sneer at the puritanical precision and austerity which attempt to bring them to the Bible as the standard of morals—but what will they do and say when God shall open this now neglected book—and judge them according to what is written therein. How will they be confounded when they find all their pleas for a different test of character and conduct overruled—and the Bible alone be admitted as the sole rule of conduct. Then will all you have done, young men, be brought to light! I will read a passage of Scripture that should make your ears tingle. "The Lord has sworn—Surely I will never forget any of their works." This is spoken in reference to the wicked. God has bound himself then by oath, not only to the salvation of the righteous—but to the condemnation of the wicked—none of all their evil works are to be forgotten.
You may now successfully attempt to conceal many of your evil ways from your parents, teachers, and ministers—and admire your skill in the art of deception! But remember there is ONE whom you cannot deceive, and from whom you can conceal nothing, "He will bring every secret thing into judgment!" The veil will be torn from every dark and unknown transaction. The curtain of secrecy will be drawn aside, and every scene of vice exposed—just as it occurred. Think of this, and think what will be your confusion and dismay, your reproach and anguish, when all those deeds which you wish to be buried in eternal oblivion shall be remembered against you! There is no such thing as 'oblivion' with God—nor shall you find the 'stream of forgetfulness' in the eternal world. You will be tried and sentenced according to the advantages which you have enjoyed for knowing and doing the will of God. Your Bible, your parents' instruction, your ministers' sermons, the advice you have received—the warnings you have heard, the stirrings of conscience you have felt, will all be taken into the account! Yes, and even this feeble though faithful effort to reclaim you, shall not be forgotten in the fearful reckoning.
4. The CONSEQUENCES of this judgment will be dreadful and eternal. The sentence which will then be pronounced upon the wicked you may even now read copied down from the lips of him who will be the Judge. Read it, and let your hearts meditate on the terrors of "Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels!" Every word is replete with horrifying ideas! It forms as a whole, the most appalling doom of which the mind can entertain any conception; and its execution upon the wicked shall constitute that hell of which the Word of God says so much—but of which multitudes, to their ruin, think so little. The sentence by which the law of the land deprives a man of his temporal life is terrible; but what is this to the doom which subjects the soul to the bitter pains of eternal death.
When the judge at our trials orders the convicted felon to be brought up for condemnation, puts on the black cap, and is about to pronounce the sentence, what a deadly silence pervades the court; you may almost hear the throb of palpitating hearts; terror sits on every brow; and it seems almost as if death in a visible form, had appeared to seize his victim; while the poor culprit himself sinks to the earth beneath the weight of the sentence, and departs in the silence of petrifying despair, or the outcries of frantic grief. And yet, may that poor creature, though properly denied mercy by the tribunal of human justice, obtain it from the throne of heavenly grace; and the judge, in the very act of excluding him from human mercy, prays that the Lord would have mercy on his soul.
What then must be the horror which in final the day of judgment, shall accompany the sentence of the wicked. No accent of mercy will be heard mitigating the horrors of that act of justice—that sentence dooms the soul to death—no other and higher tribunal shall be found, to which an appeal may be carried for pardon and life. The sentence of the wicked in that day will be final, irreversible, and eternal. There is nothing to follow it—but "the worm which never dies, and the fire which is never quenched; weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth." I cannot, if I would, describe the torments of lost souls in prison.
I say, I can neither disclose nor describe those scenes; but the Word of God declares that "upon the wicked he will rain snares, fire, and brimstone, and a horrible tempest; this shall be the portion of their cup." Young men, think what it must be to dwell forever in a world where all the evil passions of human nature will attain the full maturity of their strength, and will not have one moment's cessation or gratification; and where all their force will be concentrated, like the venom of an enraged scorpion, for the purpose of self torment.
5. The judgment may be NEAR at hand. The coming of the Lord draws near; the Judge stands at the door; the end of all things is at hand. The day of death is in one respect, as the day of judgment with us all, "Then the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it." This year you may die! Many as young, as healthy, as wicked, as careless as yourselves—have died the past year. Where are they? Before another year closes, you may follow them into eternity. A fever, a fall, an accident, a midnight revel, a fatal quarrel, the violent hands of wicked men, or the hand of vengeance from a holy God—may within this year—smite you to the earth, and send you to the grave without warning, and to judgment without preparation. "They sing to the tambourine and the lyre and rejoice to the sound of the pipe. They spend their days in prosperity, and in a moment go down to the grave. How oft is the candle of the wicked put out—and how oft comes their destruction upon them? They are as stubble before the wind, and as chaff that the storm carries away. One dies in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet."
In the CONCLUSION of my discourse, I divide the congregation into three classes.
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