His dealings, His character and presence, and, most markedly and
eminently of all, the gospel that is treasured in Jesus Christ and
proclaimed amongst us, have this twofold operation. God sent His Son to
be the Saviour of the world. It was meant that His mission and message
should only be for life, and that with ever-increasing abundance. But
God cannot save men by magic, nor by indiscriminate bestowment of
spiritual blessings. It is not in His power to force His salvation upon
any one, and whether the Gospel shall turn out to be a man's salvation
or his ruin depends on the man himself. The preaching of the gospel and
your contact with it, if you have ever come into contact with it really
and not by mere outward hearing, leaves no man as it found him. My poor
words--and God knows how poor I feel them to be--leave none of you as
they find you; and that is what makes our meeting together so solemn
and awful, and sometimes weighs one down as with a sense of
insufficiency for these things.
That twofold operation is seen first in the permanent effects of the
Gospel upon character. If it has been offered to me, and if I accept
it, then blessings beyond all enumeration, and which none but they who
have them fully know, follow in its wake. Received by simple faith in
Jesus Christ, God's sacrifice for a world's sin, it brings to us the
clear consciousness of pardon, the calm sense of communion, the joyful
spirit of adoption, righteousness rooted in our hearts and to be
manifested day by day in our lives; it brings all elevation and
strengthening and ennobling for the whole nature, and is the one power
that makes us really men as God would have us all to be.
Rejected or neglected or passed by apparently without our having done
anything in regard to it, what are the issues? What does it do? Well,
it does this for one thing, it turns unconscious worldliness into
conscious worldliness. If the offer has been clearly before your minds,
'Christ or the world?' and you have said 'I take the world!' you know
that you have made the choice, and the act will tell on your character.
Rejection strengthens all the evil motives for rejection, and adds to
the insensibility of the man who has rejected. The ice on our pavements
in the winter time, that melts on the surface in the day and freezes
again at night, becomes dense and slippery beyond all other. And a
heart, like that which beats in some of our bosoms, that has been
melted and then has frozen again, is harder than ever it was before.
Hammering that does not break solidifies and makes tougher the thing
that is struck. There are no men so hard to get at as men and women,
like multitudes of you, that have been hammered at by preaching ever
since they were children, and have not yielded their hearts to God. The
ark has done you hurt if it has not done you good.
I do not dwell upon the other solemn thought, of the harmful results of
contact with a gospel which we do not accept, as exemplified in the
increase of responsibility and the consequent increase of condemnation.
I only quote Christ's words, 'The servant that knew his Lord's will,
and did it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.'
My brother, Christ's gospel is never inert, one thing or other it does
for every soul that it reaches. Either it softens or it hardens. Either
it saves or it condemns. 'This Child is set for the rise or for the
fall of many.' Jesus Christ may be for me and for you the Rock on which
we build. If He is not, He is the Stone against which we stumble and
break our limbs. Jesus Christ may be for you and for me the Pillar that
gives light by night to those on the one side; He either is that, or He
is the Pillar that sheds darkness and dismay on those on the other.
Jesus Christ and His Gospel may be to each of us 'the savour of life
unto life'; He either is that, or He is 'the savour of death unto
death.' Oh! dear friends, if you have neglected, turned away, delayed
to receive Him or have forgotten impressions in the midst of the whirl
of daily life, do not do so any longer. Take Him for yours, your
Brother, Friend, Sacrifice, Inspirer, Lord, Aim, End, Reward, and very
Heaven of Heaven. Take Him for your own by simple trusting; and say to
Him, 'Arise! O Lord, into Thy rest, Thou and the Ark of Thy strength.'
So He will come into your hearts and smile His gladness as He whispers:
'Here will I dwell for ever; this is My rest, for I have desired it.'