O my heaven! When my last wound is healed, when the last heart-break is ended, when the last tear of earthly sorrow is wiped away, and when the redeemed of the Lord shall come to Zion, then let all the harpers take down their harps, and all the trumpeters take down their trumpets, and all across heaven there be chorus of morning stars, chorus of white-robed victors, chorus of martyrs from under the throne, chorus of ages, chorus of worlds, and there be but one song sung, and but one name spoken, and but one throne honored—that of Jesus only.
THE RANSOMLESS.
"Beware lest He take thee away with His stroke: then a great ransom can not deliver thee."— Job xxxvi: 18.
Trouble makes some men mad. It was so with Job. He had lost his property, he had lost his physical health, he had lost his dear children, and the losses had led to exasperation instead of any spiritual profit. I suppose that he was in the condition that many are now in who sit before me. There are those here whose fortunes have begun to flap their wings, as though to fly away. There is a hollow cough in some of your dwellings. There is a subtraction of comfort and happiness, and you feel disgusted with the world, and impatient with many events that are transpiring in your history, and you are in the condition in which Job was when the words of my text accosted him: "Beware lest He take thee away with His stroke and then a ransom can not deliver thee."
I propose to show you that sometimes God suddenly removes from us our gospel opportunities, and that, when He has done so, our case is ransomless. "Beware lest He take thee away with His stroke: then a great ransom can not deliver thee."
I. Sometimes the stroke comes in the removal of the intellect.
"Oh," says some man, "as long as I keep my mind I can afford to adjourn religion." But suppose you do not keep it? A fever, the hurling of a missile, the falling of a brick from a scaffolding, the accidental discharge of a gun—and your mind is gone. If you have ever been in an anatomical room, and have examined the human brain, you know what a delicate organ it is. And can it be possible that our eternity is dependent upon the healthy action of that which can be so easily destroyed?