So going to see him, he said, I understand Mr. So-and-So, you are very fond of frequenting the theatre. No, sir, he said, that is false. I go now and then just for a great treat, still I do not go because I like it; it is not a habit of mine. Well, said Rowland Hill, suppose someone should say to me, Mr. Hill, I understand you eat carrion, and I should say, no, no, I do not eat carrion. It is true, I now and then have a piece of stinking carrion for a great treat. Why, he would say, you have convicted yourself, it shows that you like it better than most people, because you save it up for a special treat. Other men only take it as common daily food, but you keep it for a treat. It shows the deceitfulness of your heart, and reveals that you still love the ways and wages of sin.
14. Ah, my friends, those men who say little sins have no vice in them whatever, they only give indications of their own character; they show which way the stream runs. A straw may let you know which way the wind blows, or even a floating feather; and so may some little sin be an indication of the prevailing tendency of the heart. My hearer, if you love sin, though it is only a little one, your heart is not right in the sight of God. You are still a stranger to divine grace. The wrath of God abides on you. You are a lost soul unless God changes your heart.
15. And yet, another remark here. Sinner, you say it is only a little one. But do you know that God will damn you for your little sins? Look angry now, and say the minister is harsh. But will you look angry at your God in the day when he shall condemn you for ever? If there should be a good man in a prison today and you did not go to see him, would you think that to be a great sin? Certainly not, you say, I would not think of doing such a thing. If you saw a man hungry and you did not feed him, would you think that to be a great sin? No, you say, I would not. Nevertheless, these are the very things for which men are sent to hell. What did the Judge say? “I was hungry and you gave me no food, thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was sick and in prison and you did not visit me. Forasmuch as you have not done this to the least of these, my brethren, you have not done it to me.” Now, if these things, which we only consider to be little sins, actually send myriads to hell, ought we not to stop and tremble before we talk lightly of sin, since little sins may be our eternal destroyers. Ah, man, the pit of hell is dug for little sins. An eternity of woe is prepared for what men call little sins. It is not only the murderer, the drunkard, the fornicator, that shall be sent to hell. The wicked, it is true, shall be sent there, but the little sinner with all the nations that forget God shall have his portion there also. Tremble, therefore, on account of little sins.
16. When I was a little lad, I one day read at family prayer the chapter in the Revelations concerning the “bottomless pit.” Stopping in the midst of it, I said to my grandfather, “Grandfather, what does this mean — ‘the bottomless pit?’ ” He said, “Go on child, go on.” So I read that chapter, but I took great care to read it the next morning also. Stopping again I said, “Bottomless pit, what does this mean?” “Go on,” he said, “Go on.” Well it came the next morning, and so on for two weeks; there was nothing to be read by me in the morning except this same chapter, for I would understand it if I read it for a month. And I can remember the horror of my mind when he told me what the idea was. There is a deep pit, and the soul is falling down, — oh how fast it is falling! There! the last ray of light at the top has disappeared, and it falls on — on — on, and so it goes on falling — on — on — on — for a thousand years! “Is it not getting near the bottom yet? will it not stop?” No, no; the cry is, on — on — on, “I have been falling a million years, is it not near the bottom yet?” No, you are no nearer the bottom yet: it is the “bottomless pit”; it is on — on — on, and so the soul goes on falling, perpetually, into a deeper depth still, falling for ever into the “bottomless pit” — on — on — on, into the pit that has no bottom! Woe without termination, without hope of it’s coming to a conclusion. The same dreadful idea is contained in those words, “The wrath to come.” Note, hell is always “the wrath to come.” If a man has been in hell a thousand years, it is still “to come.” As to what you have suffered in the past it is as nothing, in the dread account, for still the wrath is “to come.” And when the world has grown grey with age, and the fires of the sun are quenched in darkness, it is still “the wrath to come.” And when other worlds have sprung up, and have turned into their palsied age, it is still “the wrath to come.” And when your soul, burnt through and through with anguish, sighs at last to be annihilated, even then this awful thunder shall be heard, “the wrath to come — to come — to come.” Oh, what an idea! I do not know how to utter it! And yet for little sins, remember you incur “the wrath to come.” Oh, if I am to be damned, I would be damned for something; but to be delivered up to the executioner and sent into “the wrath to come” for little sins which do not even make me famous as a rebel, this is to be damned indeed. Oh that you would arise, that you would flee from the wrath to come, that you would forsake the little sins, and flee to the great cross of Christ to have little sins blotted out, and little offences washed away. For oh, — again I warn you, — if you die with little sins unforgiven, with little sins unrepented of, there shall be no little hell; the great wrath of the great King is always to come, in a pit without a bottom, in a hell the fire of which never shall be quenched, and the worm of which never shall die. Oh, “the wrath to come! the wrath to come!” It is enough to make one’s heart ache to think of it. God help you to flee from it. May you escape from it now, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
{a} Midge: A popular name loosely applied to many small gnat-like insects. OED.
{b} Aphids: A family of minute insects, also called plant lice, which are very destructive to vegetation. They are prodigiously prolific, multiplying through the summer by parthenogenesis; they form the food of lady bugs, and are tended by ants for the honeydew which they yield, from where sometimes called ant cows. OED.
A Vision Of The Latter Day Glories
No. 249-5:193. A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, April 24, 1859, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.
And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow into it. {Isaiah 2:2 Micah 4:1}
1. The prophets of God were called seers in olden times, for they had a supernatural sight which could pierce through the gloom of the future and behold the things which are not yet seen, but which God has ordained for the last times. They frequently described what they saw with spiritual eyes after the form or fashion of something which could be seen by the eye of nature. The vision was so substantial that they could picture it in words, so that we also may behold in open vision, the glorious things which they beheld after a supernatural manner. Let us imagine Isaiah as he stood upon Mount Zion. He looked around him and there were “the mountains that are around Jerusalem” far surpassing it in height, but yielding to Zion in glory. Dearer to his soul than even the snow capped glories of Lebanon which glittered afar off was that little hill of Zion, for there upon its summit stood the temple, the shrine of the living God, the place of his delight, the home of song, the house of sacrifice, the great gathering place where the tribes went up, the tribes of the Lord, to serve Jehovah, the God of Abraham. Standing at the gate of that glorious temple which had been constructed by the matchless skill of Solomon, he looked into the future and he saw, with tearful eye, the structure burned with fire; he saw it destroyed and the plough driven over its foundations. He saw the people carried away into Babylon, and the nation cast off for a time. Looking once more through the glass he beheld the temple rising from its ashes, with its outward glory diminished, but really increased. He saw into the future until he beheld the Messiah himself in the form of a little babe carried into the second temple; he saw him there, and he rejoiced; but before he had time for gladness his eye glanced onward to the cross; he saw the Messiah nailed to the tree; he beheld his back ploughed and mangled with the whip. “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows,” said the prophet, and he paused for a while to bemoan the bleeding Prince of the House of David. His eye was now doomed to a long and bitter weeping, for he saw the invading hosts of the Romans setting up the standard of desolation in the city. He saw the holy city burned with fire and utterly destroyed. His spirit almost melted in him. But once more