Faith and Duty: Sermons on Free Texts, with Reference to the Church-YearBuchheimer, L. B. (Louis Balthaser)
Religion
Faith and Duty: Sermons on Free Texts, with Reference to the Church-Year
Buchheimer, L. B. (Louis Balthaser)
Church year sermons; Lutheran Church -- Sermons; Sermons, American
One more plea would we regard, that is health. How many, when
aroused to the importance of attending to matters spiritual, will
seek to soothe the clamors of conscience by the reflection: It is
true, I must be renewed and holy, or I will perish. I cannot go
to heaven as I am, but I hope to be better before I die. I will
look after these things when I get sick; then I shall have leisure
for reflection. With nothing else to do then, I will repent and
make my peace with God. Oh! the folly and the wickedness of such
reasoning! Not only does it reflect on God's religion, as if it
were a tyranny and a grievous yoke that one puts off as long as it
is possible, not only is it God-dishonoring, giving unto the devil
and to the world, the Lord's foremost rivals, the best fruits of
one's days, and turning over to Him the stubble and the dregs left
in the cup of life, but who knows the time of his death, the time
appointed when he shall go hence, and whether occasion shall be
left for any reflection? Like a lightning flash it may summon us
into the presence of the Almighty. And even granted that everything
shall be propitious in that respect, have you ever seen persons on
a sick- or death-bed? Their pulse feverish and their body weak;
their senses so impaired that they seem utterly unable to collect
their thoughts; and this is the time that people want to select for
religious reflection? Then, too, when does the Bible say that a man
can convert himself at any time that he chooses? The Bible speaks of
only one solitary case of death-bed, or eleventh-hour repentance,
and that is the instance of the dying thief on the cross. And there
is a tremendously wide difference between him and the people who
offer up that plea. The dying malefactor had never deferred his
conversion to his dying day; he had never put religion off until
then. So his case does not belong under consideration at all, though
it is always quoted by such delinquents. No, there is only one
convenient season, and there is only one course to pursue in view of
it. That one convenient season is now, and the only one course to
pursue in view of it is to seize hold upon and attend to its demands.
We have all seen mottoes on the walls of business offices: "Do it
now," "Never put off until to-morrow what can be done to-day," "Now
or never," "Make hay while the sun shines." And as you see them at
their worldly interests, they follow those mottoes; they are up
and about, straining every nerve, using every moment to gain an
advantage. Yes, as you study the whole working creation of God,
you will discover that everything is on time: The birds know when
to fly southward; the stars of heaven meet all their appointments;
the earth is believed to make a circuit of five hundred millions
of miles and back again at the winter and spring solstice on the
second, yes, on the millionth part of a second. There is only one
who wastes time, and that in the most important matter, and that
creature is _man_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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