Terrible is the sentence of God in Deuteronomy: _If I whet My glittering sword, and Mine hand take hold of judgment; I will render vengeance to Mine enemies._ (Deut. xxxii. 41.) And where will God whet His glittering sword? Where are blades usually whetted? Let us look. Surely on a whirling circular stone. And on what stone will God whet His sword? I reply, on that stony heart of the sinner, which is ever revolving, never at rest. Watch the grindstone a little while. See how it plunges down into a trough of turbid, foul, and muddy water. O stone, stone! why rush down into this filth? Rise up, rise up from this uncleanness. I put my hand to it, I set the stone in motion. How easily is it made to revolve! It moves—it leaves that sink of filth—it mounts upwards. In vain! It whirls round, and with a rush seeks again its bed of pollution. Heart of sinner, hard and stony! why dost thou not emerge from the corruption in which thou wallowest? ‘I will emerge,’ thou repliest. Why dost thou not leave thy enmities, thy passions, thy shameful uncleanness? ‘I will leave them,’ is thy answer. And yet nothing comes of these fine promises. Always on the move like the grindstone, you never remove from the trough of slime; always leaving sin, that with fresh relish you may plunge into it again. Know, you sinners who are so full of good resolutions which come to nought, so full of promises of amendment which end in relapse, that it is on whirling grindstones such as you that _the glittering sword_ of Divine vengeance is whetted. _If I whet My glittering sword, … I will render vengeance to Mine enemies._ To whom, I ask, will He render vengeance? To His enemies; to those such as you who have such excellent purposes, but who have never accomplished one good purpose. Then when that sword is whetted, too late will you exclaim with the lost, ‘We have erred, we have erred, we have taken nothing!’ Wretched sinners! do you hear these threats, these warnings, these words of God calling you to repentance? You hear, and yet you stop your ears as the deaf adder; you despise, you laugh, you mock, you harden into stone! Well, then, be hard as stone, have your laugh out, despise as you will, stop your ears! you are at liberty so to do! Yet, mark me, the time will assuredly come when the laugh will be turned against you. _Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out My hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all My counsel, and would none of My reproof_: awful is that which follows! _I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh._ (Prov. i. 24-26.) O good God! O goodness immeasurable, dost Thou laugh at the destruction of Thy sons! Alas! terrible laughter is that indeed.