Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

A sermon preached at Enfield, Connecticut, July 8th 1741

“Vengeance is Mine, and retribution, In due time their foot will stumble; For the day of their disaster is near, And the impending things are hastening upon them.”(Deut. 32:35)

In the above verse, God threatens His vengeance against the wicked, unbelieving Israelites. They were God’s visible people and lived under the means of grace; yet, despite all the wonderful works God had done for them, they remained “without counsel” and had no understanding. Under all God’s cultivation and care, they brought forth only bitter and poisonous fruit.

The verse I have chosen for my sermon, “In due time their foot will stumble,” seems to imply several things concerning the punishment and destruction to which these wicked Israelites were exposed.

1. They were continually exposed to destruction.
A person who stands or walks in slippery places is always in danger of falling. This is implied by the way their destruction is described: their foot will stumble.

2. They were continually exposed to sudden and unexpected destruction.
A person walking on slippery ground is liable to fall at any moment. He cannot know whether he will still be standing the next moment or whether he will fall. And when he does fall, he falls at once, without warning. This is also expressed in Ps. 73:18–19: “Surely You set them in slippery places; You cause them to fall to destruction. How they become desolate in a moment! They are completely swept away by terrors!”

3. They were liable to fall by themselves, without needing to be thrown down by another.
A person standing or walking on slippery ground needs nothing but his own weight to bring him down.

4. The only reason they had not already fallen, and did not fall immediately, was that God’s appointed time had not yet come.

For the text says that “in due time” their foot will stumble. When that appointed time comes, they will be left to fall, carried downward by their own weight. God will no longer hold them up in those slippery places, but will let them go. And at that very instant, they will fall into destruction. Like a man standing on steep, slippery ground at the edge of a pit, he cannot stand by himself; the moment he is let go, he falls and is lost.
The truth I now want to press upon you from these words is this:
There is nothing that keeps wicked men out of Hell for even one moment except the mere pleasure of God.

By the mere pleasure of God, I mean His sovereign pleasure—His own will, restrained by no obligation and hindered by no difficulty. It is as though nothing else but God’s will, and that alone, had any part whatsoever in preserving wicked men for even a single moment.

The truth of this observation may be seen from the following considerations.

1. God has no lack of power to cast wicked men into Hell at any moment.
The hands of men cannot be strong when God rises up. The strongest have no power to resist Him, nor can anyone deliver out of His hands. He is not only able to cast wicked men into Hell, but He can do it with perfect ease.

Sometimes an earthly prince may face great difficulty in subduing a rebel who has found a way to fortify himself and has strengthened his position by gathering many followers. But it is not so with God. There is no fortress that can provide any defence against the power of God. Though hand join with hand, and though vast multitudes of God’s enemies combine and unite themselves together, they are easily broken in pieces. They are like great heaps of light chaff before the whirlwind, or large quantities of dry stubble before devouring flames.

We find it easy to tread on and crush a worm that we see crawling on the ground. It is easy for us to cut or singe a slender thread by which something hangs. In the same way, it is easy for God, whenever He pleases, to cast His enemies down to Hell. What are we, that we should think we can stand before Him, at whose rebuke the earth trembles, and before whom the rocks are thrown down?

2. They deserve to be cast into Hell.
Divine justice never stands in the way. It makes no objection to God using His power at any moment to destroy them. On the contrary, justice cries aloud for an infinite punishment for their sins. Divine justice says of the tree that brings forth such grapes of Sodom, “Cut it down! Why does it even use up the ground?” (Luke 13:7). The sword of divine justice is every moment brandished over their heads, and nothing but the hand of sovereign mercy, and the mere will of God, holds it back.

3. They are already under a sentence of condemnation to Hell.
They do not merely deserve to be cast down there; the sentence of God’s law has already gone out against them and stands against them. That law is the eternal and unchangeable rule of righteousness which God has fixed between Himself and mankind. Therefore, they are already bound over to Hell. “He who does not believe has been judged already” (John 3:18). Every unconverted person, therefore, properly belongs to Hell. That is his place. From there he is, for Christ says, “You are from below” (John 8:23). And there he is bound. It is the place which justice, God’s Word, and the sentence of His unchangeable law assign to him.

4. They are now the objects of that same anger and wrath of God which is expressed in the torments of Hell.
The reason they do not go down to Hell at each moment is not that God, in whose power they are, is not already angry with them in the same way He is angry with many miserable creatures now tormented in Hell, who there feel and bear the fierceness of His wrath. Indeed, God is far more angry with great numbers who are now on earth. Doubtless, God is more angry with many who are now in this congregation, who may be sitting at ease, than He is with many of those who are now in the flames of Hell.
So it is not because God is unaware of their wickedness, or because He does not resent it, that He does not let loose His hand and cut them off. God is not altogether like them, though they may imagine Him to be so. The wrath of God burns against them; their damnation does not slumber. The pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot and ready to receive them. The flames even now rage and glow. His glittering sword is sharpened and held over them, and the pit has opened its mouth beneath them.

5. The devil stands ready to fall upon them and seize them as his own at whatever moment God permits him.
They belong to him. He has their souls in his possession and under his dominion. Scripture represents them as his property. The devils watch them; they are always near them, at their right hand. They stand waiting for them like greedy, hungry lions seeking their prey, expecting to have it, but for the present being kept back. If God were to withdraw the hand by which they are restrained, these devils would in a moment fly upon their poor souls. The old serpent is gaping for them. Hell opens its mouth wide to receive them. And if God should permit it, they would be swiftly swallowed up and forever lost.

6. There are hellish principles reigning in the souls of wicked men, which would immediately kindle and flame out into Hell-fire if it were not for God’s restraints.
In the very nature of carnal men there is a foundation for the torments of Hell. There are corrupt principles reigning in them and fully possessing them, which are the seeds of Hell-fire. These principles are active and powerful, exceedingly violent in their nature. If it were not for the restraining hand of God upon them, they would soon break out. They would flame out in the same way that the same corruptions and the same enmity burn in the hearts of damned souls, and they would produce the same torments in them.
The souls of the wicked are compared in Scripture to the troubled sea: “The wicked are like the tossing sea, for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up refuse and mud” (Is. 57:20). For the present, God restrains their wickedness by His mighty power, just as He restrains the raging waves of the troubled sea, saying, “Thus far you shall come, but no farther” (Job 38:11). But if God were to withdraw His restraining power, their wickedness would soon carry all before it.
Sin is the ruin and misery of the soul. It is destructive in its very nature. If God were to leave it without restraint, nothing else would be needed to make the soul utterly miserable.
The corruption of the human heart is boundless in its fury. While wicked men live, it is like fire pent up by God’s restraints. But if it were let loose, it would set the whole course of nature on fire. And since the heart is now a sink of sin, if sin were not restrained, it would immediately turn the soul into a fiery oven, a furnace of fire and brimstone.

7. It is no security to wicked men for even one moment that there are no visible means of death at hand.
It is no security to an unsaved man that he is presently in good health, that he sees no immediate way by which he might leave this world through some accident, or that there appears to be no visible danger in his circumstances. The manifold and continual experience of the world in every age proves that this is no evidence that a man is not on the very brink of eternity, or that his next step will not be into the eternal world. The unseen and unthought-of ways by which people suddenly leave this world are innumerable and inconceivable.
Unconverted men walk over the pit of Hell on a rotten covering, and there are innumerable places in that covering so weak that they cannot bear their weight—yet those places are unseen. The arrows of death fly unseen at midday; the sharpest eye cannot discern them. God has so many different and unsearchable ways of taking wicked men out of the world and sending them to Hell that there is nothing to suggest He would need to use a miracle, or go outside the ordinary course of His providence, to destroy any wicked man at any moment. All the means by which sinners leave the world are so completely in God’s hands, and so universally and absolutely subject to His power and determination, that how and when sinners go to Hell depends only on the mere will of God.

8. The prudence and care of unsaved men in preserving their own lives, or the care of others to preserve them, do not secure them for a single moment.
Divine providence and universal experience both testify to this. There is clear evidence that man’s own wisdom is no security against death. If it were otherwise, we would see some difference between the wise men of the world and others in regard to their liability to early and unexpected death. But how is it in reality? “The wise man dies with the fool!” (Eccl. 2:16).

9. All the efforts and schemes that wicked men use to escape Hell, while they continue to reject Christ and remain wicked men, do not secure them from Hell for even one moment.
Almost every unsaved man who hears of Hell flatters himself that he will escape it. He depends upon himself for his own security. He comforts himself with what he has done, what he is now doing, or what he intends to do. Every unsaved man arranges matters in his own mind as to how he will avoid damnation, and flatters himself that he has planned well for himself and that his schemes will not fail.
They hear, indeed, that only few are saved, and that the greater part of those who have died before them have gone to Hell. Yet each one imagines that he has arranged matters better for his own escape than others did. He does not intend to come to that place of torment. He says within himself that he intends to take great care and order his life in such a way that he will not fail.

But foolish men miserably deceive themselves in their own schemes and in their confidence in their own strength and wisdom. They trust in nothing but a shadow. The greater part of those who once lived under the same means of grace and are now dead have undoubtedly gone to Hell. And it was not because they were not as wise as those who are now alive. It was not because they did not plan as carefully for themselves in order to secure their own escape.

If we could speak with them and ask them one by one whether, when they were alive and used to hear about Hell, they ever expected to become the subjects of eternal misery, we would undoubtedly hear one after another reply:
“No, I never intended to come here. I had arranged matters differently in my mind. I thought my plan for escaping Hell was good. But death came upon me unexpectedly. I did not look for it at that time, or in that manner. It came as a thief. Death outwitted me. God’s wrath was too swift for me. Oh, my cursed foolishness! I was flattering myself and pleasing myself with vain dreams of what I would do to escape Hell. And while I was saying, ‘Peace and security,’ then destruction came upon me suddenly.”

10. God has laid Himself under no obligation, by any promise, to keep any unsaved man out of Hell for even one moment.

God has certainly made no promises of eternal life, or of any deliverance or preservation from eternal death, except those contained in the covenant of grace—the promises given in Christ. But surely those who are not children of the covenant, who do not believe any of the promises, and who have no saving interest in Christ, the Mediator of the covenant, have no share in those promises.

So it is plain and manifest that whatever efforts an unsaved man makes in religion, and whatever prayers he offers, until he believes in Christ, God is under no obligation whatsoever to keep him for a single moment from eternal destruction.
So unsaved men are held in the hand of God over the pit of Hell. They have deserved the fiery pit and are already sentenced to it. God is dreadfully provoked. His anger is as great towards them as it is towards those who are already suffering the executions of the fierceness of His wrath in Hell. And they have done nothing in the least to appease or lessen that anger. Nor is God in the least bound by any promise to hold them up for even one moment.

The devil is waiting for them. Hell is gaping for them. The flames gather and flash around them, and would gladly take hold of them and swallow them up. The fire pent up in their own hearts is struggling to break out. They have no saving interest in Christ the Saviour, and there are no means within their reach that can provide any security for them. In short, they have no refuge, nothing to take hold of. All that preserves them every moment is the mere sovereign will and unobligated forbearance of an incensed God.

Four Applications
The use of this dreadful subject may be to awaken unconverted people in this congregation. What you have heard is the case of every one of you who is outside of Christ. That world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone, is spread out beneath you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God. There is Hell’s wide, gaping mouth open beneath you, and you have nothing to stand upon, nor anything to take hold of. There is nothing between you and Hell but the thin air. It is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up.

You are probably not aware of this. You know that you are presently being kept out of Hell, but you do not see the hand of God in it. You look to other things, such as your good health, your care for your own life, and the means you use for your own preservation. But in truth, these things avail nothing. If God were to withdraw His hand, they would have no more power to keep you from falling than the thin air has to hold up a person suspended in it.

Your wickedness makes you, as it were, heavy as lead. It causes you to tend downward with great weight and pressure towards Hell. If God were to let you go, you would immediately sink, swiftly descend, and plunge into the bottomless gulf. Your good health, your own care and prudence, your best schemes, and all your good works would have no more power to uphold you and keep you out of Hell than a spider’s web would have to stop a falling rock.

Were it not for the sovereign pleasure of God, the earth would not bear you for a single moment, for you are a burden to it, and the creation groans under you. The sun does not willingly shine upon you to give you light to serve sin and Satan. The earth does not willingly yield her fruits to satisfy your lusts, nor is it willingly a stage upon which your wickedness may be acted out. The air does not willingly give you breath while you spend your life in the service of God’s enemies. This world would spew you out were it not for the sovereign hand of God.

There are black clouds of God’s wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm and filled with thunder. Were it not for the restraining hand of God, it would immediately burst upon you. The sovereign pleasure of God presently restrains His rough wind. Otherwise, it would come with fury, and your destruction would come like a whirlwind. You would be blown to Hell like the chaff of the summer threshing floor.
The wrath of God is like great waters dammed up for the present. They increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, until an outlet is given. And the longer the stream is gathering, the more rapid and mighty its course will be once it is let loose. It is true that judgement against your evil works has not yet been executed. The floods of God’s vengeance have been withheld. But meanwhile, your guilt is constantly increasing, and every day you are treasuring up more wrath. The waters are continually rising and growing more and more mighty, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God that holds them back.

If God were only to withdraw His hand from the floodgate, it would immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God would rush forth with inconceivable fury and come upon you with omnipotent power. And if your strength were ten thousand times greater than it is—yes, ten thousand times greater than the strength of the strongest, sturdiest devil in Hell—it would be nothing to withstand or endure it.

The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow is made ready on the string. Justice aims the arrow at your heart and strains the bow. And it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God—an angry God, under no promise or obligation to you at all—that keeps the arrow for one moment from being made drunk with your blood.

Thus, all of you who have never passed through a great change of heart by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls—all of you who have never been born again, made new creatures, and raised from being dead in sin—you are in the hands of an angry God. However much you may have reformed your life in many things, and however carefully you may maintain a form of religion, it is nothing but God’s mere pleasure that keeps you from being swallowed up this moment in everlasting destruction.

However unconvinced you may now be of the truth of what you hear, you will shortly be fully convinced of it. Many who were once in similar circumstances to you have had sudden destruction come upon them when they expected nothing of the kind, and while they were saying, “Peace and security!” Now they see that the things on which they depended for peace and safety were nothing but thin air and empty shadows.
The God who holds you over the pit of Hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you and is dreadfully provoked. His wrath towards you burns like fire. He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire. He is of purer eyes than to bear having you in His sight. You are ten thousand times more abominable in His eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended Him infinitely more than any stubborn rebel ever offended his prince; and yet it is nothing but His hand that keeps you from falling into the eternal fire every moment.

It is to be ascribed to nothing else that you did not go to Hell last night, and that you were allowed to awaken again in this world after closing your eyes to sleep. There is no other reason to be given for why you have not dropped into Hell since you rose this morning, except that God’s hand has held you up. There is no other reason why you have not gone to Hell since you sat here in the house of God, provoking His pure eyes by your sinful and wicked manner of attending His solemn worship. Yes, there is no other reason why you do not this very moment drop down into Hell.

O sinner, consider the fearful danger you are in. It is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit full of the fire of wrath, over which you are held by the hand of that God whose wrath is provoked and incensed against you as much as it is against many of the damned in Hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing around it, ready every moment to singe it and burn it apart. You have no saving interest in Christ the Saviour, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself. You have nothing to keep off the flames of wrath—nothing you have ever done, and nothing you can do—to induce God to spare you for one moment.

1. Consider more particularly whose wrath it is.
It is the wrath of the infinite God. If it were only the wrath of man, even the wrath of the most powerful prince, it would be comparatively little to regard. The wrath of kings is greatly dreaded, especially the wrath of absolute monarchs who have the possessions and lives of their subjects wholly in their power, to dispose of according to their mere will. “The terror of a king is like the roar of a lion; He who provokes him to anger sins against his own soul” (Prov. 20:2). The subject who greatly enrages a powerful prince is liable to suffer the most extreme torments that human art can invent or human power can inflict.

But the greatest earthly rulers, even in their highest majesty and strength, and even when clothed with their greatest terrors, are only feeble, contemptible worms of the dust in comparison with the great and almighty Creator and King of heaven and earth. Even when they are most enraged, and when they have exerted the full force of their fury, it is very little that they can do.

Before God, all the kings of the earth are like grasshoppers. They are nothing—indeed, less than nothing. Both their love and their hatred are to be regarded as insignificant. The wrath of the great King of kings is more dreadful than theirs in the same measure that His majesty is greater than theirs.

As Christ warns, we must not fear those who can kill the body and then can do no more. Rather, we must fear Him who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into Hell. Yes, He says, fear Him. (Luke 12:4–5).

2. Consider that it is the fierceness of God’s wrath to which you are exposed.
We often read of the fury of God. As Is. 59:18 says, “According to what they deserve, so He will pay in full, Wrath to His adversaries, what is deserved to His enemies; To the coastlands He will pay what they deserve.”
So also Is. 66:15 says, “Yahweh will come in fire And His chariots like the whirlwind, To return His anger with wrath, And His rebuke with flames of fire.”
The same truth appears in many other places.
So also, in Rev. 19:15, we read of “He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the wrath of the rage of God, the Almighty.”
These words are exceedingly dreadful. If it had only been said, “the wrath of God,” the words would still have implied something infinitely dreadful. But it is “the wrath of the rage of God.” The fury of God! The fierceness of Yahweh! Oh, how dreadful that must be! Who can express or even conceive what such words contain?
But it is also “the wrath of the rage of God, the Almighty.” This suggests that there will be a very great manifestation of His almighty power in what the fierceness of His wrath inflicts, as though omnipotence itself were, as it were, enraged and exerted, just as men are accustomed to exert their strength in the fierceness of their wrath.
Oh, then, what will be the consequence? What will become of the poor worms who must suffer it? Whose hands can be strong? Whose heart can endure? Into what dreadful, inexpressible, and inconceivable depths of misery must the poor creature sink who becomes the subject of this fierceness and wrath of Almighty God?
Consider this, you who are present here and yet remain in an unregenerate state. That Almighty God will execute the fierceness of His anger means that He will inflict wrath without any pity. When God beholds the unspeakable extremity of your case, when He sees that your torment is vastly beyond your strength, and when He sees how your poor soul is crushed and sinks down, as it were, into infinite gloom, He will have no compassion upon you. He will not hold back the executions of His wrath, nor lighten His hand in the least.

There will be no relief and no mercy. God will not restrain His wrath at all. He will have no regard for your welfare. His only concern will be that you do not suffer beyond what strict justice requires. Nothing will be withheld simply because it is too hard for you to bear. “Therefore, I also will do this in wrath: My eye will have no pity, nor will I spare; and they will cry in My ears with a loud voice, yet I will not listen to them.” (Ezek. 8:18).
Now God stands ready to pity you. This is a day of mercy. You may cry now with some encouragement of obtaining mercy. But once the day of mercy has passed, your most lamentable and sorrowful cries and shrieks will be in vain. You will be wholly lost and cast away by God, who will have no regard for your welfare. God will have no other use for you but that you should suffer misery. You will be continued in existence for no other end, for you will be a vessel of wrath fitted for destruction. And there will be no other use for that vessel but to be filled full of wrath.

God will be so far from pitying you when you cry to Him that He says, “I will also laugh at your disaster; I will mock when your dread comes, when your dread comes like a storm and your disaster comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you” (Prov. 1:26–27).
How dreadful are those words in Is. 63:3, which are the words of the great God: “I have trodden the wine trough alone, and from the peoples there was no man with Me. I also trod them in My anger and trampled them in My wrath; and their lifeblood is sprinkled on My garments, and I stained all My clothes.”
It is perhaps impossible to conceive of words that more clearly display these three things: contempt, hatred, and the fierceness of indignation. If you cry to God to pity you, He will be so far from pitying you in your sorrowful condition, or showing you the least regard or favour, that instead He will only tread you underfoot. Though He will know that you cannot bear the weight of omnipotence treading upon you, He will not regard that, but will crush you beneath His feet without mercy. He will crush out your blood and make it fly, and it will be sprinkled on His garments, so as to stain all His clothes.
He will not only hate you, but He will hold you in the utmost contempt. No place will be considered fit for you except under His feet, to be trodden down like the mire of the streets.

3. Consider that the misery to which you are exposed is that which God will inflict for this very end: that He might show what His almighty wrath is.
God has had it upon His heart to show angels and men both how excellent His love is and how dreadful His wrath is. Earthly kings sometimes desire to show how terrible their wrath is by the extreme punishments they execute upon those who provoke them.
Nebuchadnezzar, that mighty and proud monarch of the Chaldean Empire, was willing to display his wrath when he was enraged with the three Hebrew champions. Accordingly, he gave orders that the burning fiery furnace should be heated seven times hotter than it had been before. No doubt it was raised to the utmost degree of fierceness that human art could produce.

But the great God is also willing to show His wrath and to magnify His solemn majesty and mighty power in the extreme sufferings of His enemies. “What if God, wanting to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath having been prepared for destruction?” (Rom. 9:22). And since this is His design, and what He has determined—to show how dreadful His unrestrained wrath, fury, and fierceness truly are—it will certainly be accomplished and brought to pass.
When the great and angry God has risen up and executed His dreadful vengeance upon the poor sinner, and when that wretched soul is actually suffering the infinite weight and power of His indignation, then God will call upon the whole universe to behold the solemn majesty and mighty power displayed in it. “The peoples will be burned to lime, like cut thorns which are burned in the fire. You who are far away, hear what I have done; and you who are near, acknowledge My might. Sinners in Zion are in dread; trembling has seized the godless. ‘Who among us can sojourn with the consuming fire? Who among us can sojourn with everlasting burning?’” (Is. 33:12–14).

Thus it will be with you who are in an unconverted state, if you continue in it. The infinite might, majesty, and dreadfulness of the omnipotent God will be magnified upon you in the indescribable strength of your torments. You will be tormented in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And when you are in this state of suffering, the glorious inhabitants of heaven will go forth and look upon the dreadful spectacle, that they may see what the wrath and fierceness of Almighty God is. And when they have seen it, they will fall down and adore that great power and majesty. “Then they will go forth and look on the corpses of the men who have transgressed against Me. For their worm will not die and their fire will not be quenched; and they will be an object of contempt to all mankind” (Is. 66:24).

4. Consider that it is everlasting wrath.
It would be dreadful to suffer this fierceness and wrath of Almighty God for one moment, but you must suffer it to all eternity. There will be no end to this intensified and horrible misery. When you look forward, you will see a long forever, a boundless duration before you, which will swallow up your thoughts and astonish your soul. You will utterly despair of ever having any deliverance, any end, any relief, or any rest at all.
You will know with certainty that you must wear out long ages—millions upon millions of ages—wrestling and struggling with this almighty, merciless vengeance. And then, when you have done so, when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this way, you will know that all of it is only one moment compared with what still remains. So your punishment will truly be infinite.

Oh, who can express what the state of such a soul, in such circumstances, is? All that we can possibly say about it gives only a very feeble and faint representation. It is inexpressible and inconceivable. For “Who knows the power of Your anger And Your fury, according to the fear that is due You?” (Ps. 90:11).
How dreadful is the state of those who are daily and hourly in danger of this great wrath and infinite misery. Yet this is the dismal case of every soul in this congregation who has not been born again, however moral and strict, sober and religious they may otherwise be. Oh, that you would consider it, whether you are young or old.
There is reason to think that there are many in this congregation, now hearing this discourse, who will actually be the subjects of this very misery to all eternity. We do not know who they are, in what seats they sit, or what thoughts they now have. Perhaps they are now at ease, hearing all these things without much disturbance, and are flattering themselves that they are not among the lost, promising themselves that they will escape.

If we knew that there was one person—and only one—in the whole congregation who would be the subject of this misery, what an awful thing it would be to think of. If we knew who it was, what a dreadful sight it would be to look upon such a person. How the rest of the congregation might lift up a sorrowful and bitter cry over him.
But alas, instead of one, how many are likely to remember this sermon in Hell. It would be a wonder if some who are now present were not in Hell in a very short time, even before this year is out. And it would be no wonder if some people who now sit here, in certain seats of this meeting-house, in health, quietness, and security, should be in Hell before tomorrow morning.

Those of you who finally continue in an unsaved condition, and who remain out of Hell the longest, will be there in only a little time. Your damnation does not slumber. It will come swiftly, and, in all probability, very suddenly upon many of you. You have reason to wonder that you are not already in Hell. This is undoubtedly the case with some whom you have seen and known, who never deserved Hell more than you, and who once appeared just as likely to be alive today as you are. Their case is now past all hope. They are crying in extreme misery and total despair. But here you are, still in the land of the living and in the house of God, with an opportunity to obtain salvation. What would those poor, damned, hopeless souls not give for one day’s opportunity such as you now enjoy?

And now you have an extraordinary opportunity: a day in which Christ has thrown the door of mercy wide open and stands calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners; a day in which many are flocking to Him and pressing into the kingdom of God. Many are coming daily from east and west, north and south. Many who were, only recently, in the same miserable condition you are in are now in a happy state, their hearts filled with love for Him who loved them and washed them from their sins in His own blood, rejoicing in hope of the glory of God.

How awful it is to be left behind on such a day. To see so many others feasting while you are pining away and perishing. To see so many rejoicing and singing for joy of heart while you have cause to mourn for sorrow of heart and howl for anguish of spirit. How can you rest for one moment in such a condition? Are not your souls as precious as the souls of others who are flocking day by day to Christ?

Are there not many here who have lived long in the world and are still not born again? They have done nothing, throughout all the years they have lived, but store up wrath for the day of wrath. Oh, sirs, your case is especially dangerous. Your guilt and hardness of heart are exceedingly great. Do you not see how generally people of your years are passed over and left behind in this present remarkable and wonderful dispensation of God’s mercy? You need to consider yourselves and wake thoroughly out of sleep. You cannot bear the fierceness and wrath of the infinite God.

And you, young men and young women, will you neglect this precious season which you now enjoy, when so many others of your age are renouncing all youthful vanities and flocking to Christ? You especially now have an extraordinary opportunity. But if you neglect it, it will soon be with you as it is with those who spent all the precious days of youth in sin, and have now come to such a dreadful state of blindness and hardness.
And you children who are unconverted, do you not know that you are going down to Hell, to bear the dreadful wrath of that God who is now angry with you every day and every night? Will you be content to remain children of the devil, when so many other children in the land are being converted and becoming the holy and happy children of the King of kings?

And let everyone who is still outside of Christ and hanging over the pit of Hell—whether old men and women, middle-aged people, young people, or little children—now listen to the loud calls of God’s Word and providence. This day of such great favour to some will doubtless be a day of remarkable vengeance to others. At such a time as this, if people neglect their souls, their hearts harden and their guilt rapidly increases. There has never been so great a danger of such people being given up to hardness of heart and blindness of mind.

God now seems to be swiftly gathering in His elect in all parts of the land. It is probable that the greater part of the adult people who will ever be saved will be brought in shortly. It will be as it was at the great outpouring of the Spirit in the days of the apostles: the elect will obtain salvation, and the rest will be blinded.
If this should be the case with you, you will eternally curse this day. You will curse the day you were ever born to see such a season of the outpouring of God’s Spirit, and you will wish that you had died and gone to Hell before you had seen it. Now, undoubtedly, it is as it was in the days of John the Baptist: “The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matt. 3:10).

Therefore, let everyone who is outside of Christ now awake and flee from the wrath to come. The wrath of Almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging over a great part of this congregation. Let everyone flee out of Sodom. Hasten and escape for your lives. Do not look behind you. Escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed.