The World's Great Sermons, Volume 03: Massillon to Mason
Religion
The World's Great Sermons, Volume 03: Massillon to Mason
Sermons
We are not only to do some things, but we are to do all things, and we
are to continue to do so, so that the least deviation from the moral
law, according to the covenant of works, whether in thought, word,
or deed, deserves eternal death at the hand of God. And if one evil
thought, if one evil word, if one evil action deserves eternal
damnation, how many hells, my friends, do every one of us deserve
whose whole lives have been one continued rebellion against God!
Before ever, therefore, you can speak peace to your hearts, you must
be brought to see, brought to believe, what a dreadful thing it is to
depart from the living God.
And now, my dear friends, examine your hearts, for I hope you came
hither with a design to have your souls made better. Give me leave to
ask you, in the presence of God, whether you know the time, and if you
do not know exactly the time, do you know there was a time when God
wrote bitter things against you, when the arrows of the Almighty were
within you? Was ever the remembrance of your sins grievous to you? Was
the burden of your sins intolerable to your thoughts? Did you ever see
that God's wrath might justly fall upon you, on account of your actual
transgressions against God? Were you ever in all your life sorry for
your sins? Could you ever say, My sins are gone over my head as a
burden too heavy for me to bear? Did you ever experience any such
thing as this? Did ever any such thing as this pass between God and
your soul? If not, for Jesus Christ's sake, do not call yourselves
Christians; you may speak peace to your hearts, but there is no peace.
May the Lord awaken you, may the Lord convert you, may the Lord give
you peace, if it be His will, before you go home!
But, further, you may be convinced of your actual sins, so as to be
made to tremble, and yet you may be strangers to Jesus Christ, you may
have no true work of grace upon your hearts. Before ever, therefore,
you can speak peace to your hearts, conviction must go deeper; you
must not only be convinced of your actual transgressions against the
law of God, but likewise of the foundation of all your transgressions.
And what is that? I mean original sin, that original corruption each
of us brings into the world with us, which renders us liable to God's
wrath and damnation. There are many poor souls that think themselves
fine reasoners, yet they pretend to say there is no such thing as
original sin; they will charge God with injustice in imputing Adam's
sin to us; altho we have got the mark of the beast and of the devil
upon us, yet they tell us we are not born in sin. Let them look abroad
and see the disorders in it, and think, if they can, if this is the
paradise in which God did put man. No! everything in the world is out
of order.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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