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‘The day is at hand.’
Rom_13:12
I. At the beginning of the life to come stands the great tribunal of question, the judgment-seat, where God will judge the world in righteousness, by the Christ Whom He hath ordained, and before that judgment-seat of Christ we must all appear. ‘Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men’; that is the urgent message which every Apostle pressed, and every ministering servant still repeats. There are various ways of treating this message. At Athens, some appeared to treat it as a fable, unworthy of philosophic attention; others decided to go into the matter seriously, but at another time. But others have, again, then and always, neither thrown it off nor put it off, but rather have been of a mind to say, ‘Spare Thy people, good Lord’ (Commination Service).
II. We are shut up to this alternative: one must either say there is no future at all, or one must think of it as a future of retribution, and the long-remitted dealing out of justice in a final court. At the bottom of every heart is an inextinguishable faculty of seeing after right and wrong. In spite of self-excuse and self-pretence, when we do wrong, we do not escape a suspicion that it is wrong; the voice cannot be quite silenced, but it will whisper at times; at some time it will speak so loudly, that people have been known to go and find out others patient to listen to their tale, as if the very rehearsal of the judgment were in itself relief.
III. A Christian will consider this matter reverently, and dwell on it prayerfully, and seek of God the heart’s awakening, that life may be in such holy communion of the Spirit, and such grace of Christ, that the day which is at hand may find us not unprepared, but humbly and in the strength of our Redeemer ready, as far as such beings may be, to meet our God.
Rev. Canon T. F. Crosse.
Illustration‘’Tis here; it is begun;—
Already is begun the grand assize,
In thee, in all: deputed conscience scales
The dread tribunal, and forestalls our doom:
Forestalls, and by forestalling proves it sure.
Why on himself should man void judgment pass?
Is idle nature laughing at her sons?
Who conscience sent, her sentence will approve,
And God above assert that God in man.’
‘Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.’
Rom_13:12
I. Cast away the works of darkness.—The things you have been doing in the dark, the things you have been revelling in, the nameless acts of shameless horror, cast them away! I do not say put on the clothes you had before, they are defiled and polluted beyond redemption. Cast away the works of darkness, there is nothing left for you but to get new clothes, your own are smurred and defiled, leave them, they are only fit for the burning. Cast away the works of darkness and put on something new, something quite new.
II. If man is to do so he wants an armour of light which is not his own, an armour of light that comes from above, a power and a strength and a capacity which it is beyond himself to obtain. The armour of light, you know what it is. The Apostle goes on to tell us, ‘Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.’ There are our clothes provided for us, if only we leave these old sin-stained vestments on one side; there is an armour of light awaiting us that we may put on and clothe ourselves with, a righteousness not our own, winning for ourself all the beauty and all the grace that belong to the one true light that lightens every man that is born into the world who will allow that light to shine upon him, and will take that light into the feeble lantern of his individual soul—the light of the Lord Jesus Christ. Ah! how we need it, and what difficulties we put in our way towards getting it, and how we try to stand aloof from Him.
—
Bishop Creighton.
Illustration‘St. Augustine, the great Bishop of Hippo, in Carthage, tells us in his Confessions the story of the way in which he was led to seek the Lord Jesus. This he said: “Thus was I, soul-sick and tormented, accusing myself, rolling and turning me in my chair. And Thou, O Lord, didst press upon me in my inward parts by a severe mercy, for I said within myself, ‘Be it done, be it done now,’ and as I spoke I all but did it; but I did it not, and I sunk back to my former state, but kept Him standing hard by, and took breath, and I tried again and wanted somewhat less of it; and have only touched and laid hold of it, and yet I came not at it, nor touched it, nor laid hold of it. I hesitated to die to death and to live to life; and the worst within me whereto I was accustomed prevailed more with me than the better, whereto I was unused. And the very moment wherein I was to become other than I am, the nearer it approached to me, the greater horror did it strike into me, yet did it not strike my being nor turn me away, but held me in suspense, and the very toys of toys and vanities of vanities. The ancient mysteries of my flesh still held me, they plucked my fleshly garments and whispered softly, ‘Dost thou cast us off? and from this moment shall we no more be with thee for ever? and from this moment shall not this or that be lawful for thee for ever?’ And what was it which they suggested to me that I said this or that—what did they suggest of my God? What defilements, what shame did they suggest? And now I less than half heard them, and not openly showing themselves and contradicting me, as I was departing but to look back on them. Yet they did retard me so that I hesitated to burst and shake myself free from them, and to spring over whereto I was called. A violent habit said to me, ‘Thinkest thou that thou canst live without me?’ But that habit spake faintly and yet more faintly. And it came to pass one day that solitude suggested to me, and I retired so far that I could not be seen, and I cast myself down, I know not how, under a certain fig-tree, giving vent to my tears, and the floods of mine eyes gushed out an acceptable sacrifice to Thee, and not in these words, but yet to this purpose, spake I unto Thee, and said, ‘O Lord, how long, how long? O Lord! wilt Thou be angry for ever? Remember not my former iniquities’; for I felt that I was held by them. And I offered up these sorrowful words, ‘How long, how long! to-morrow and to-morrow.’ Why not now? Why not in this hour an end to my uncleanness? So was I speaking and weeping in a most bitter contrition of my heart, when, lo! I heard from a neighbouring house a voice, as of a boy or girl, I know not, singing and oft repeating, ‘Take up and read, take up and read.’ And instantly my countenance altered, and I began to think intensely, interpreting it to be no other than a hand from God to open the book and read the first chapter I could find. Then I retired to the place where I had laid the volume of the Apostle. Then I caught it up, opened it, and read in silence the place on which my eye first fell, ‘Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and in wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof.’ And no further would I read, nor needed I further. Instantly, at the end of this sentence, a light, as it were, of confidence and security had streamed into my heart, and all the darkness of my doubts vanished.” ’