We do not know which way to turn. Pay? We can not pay a farthing of all the millions of obligation. Well, Christ comes in and says: "Here is My name; you can use My name. Your name would be worthless, but My red handwriting on the back of this obligation will get you through anywhere." Now suppose the soul says: "I know I am in debt; I can't meet these obligations either in time or eternity; but, oh, Christ, I want not Thy help; I ask not Thy rescue. Go away from me." You would say: "That man, why, he deserves to die. He had the offer of help; he would not take it. He is a free agent; he ought to have what he wants; he chooses death rather than life. Ought you not give him freedom of choice?" Though awhile ago there was only one ardent man who understood the Apostle, now there are hundreds in the house who can say, and do say within themselves: "After all this ingratitude, and rejection, and obstinacy, 'if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha.'"
I go a step further, and say it is most cruel for a man not to love Jesus. The meanest thing I could do for you would be needlessly to hurt your feelings. Sharp words sometimes cut like a dagger. An unkind look will sometimes rive like the lightning. An unkind deed may overmaster a sensitive spirit, and if you have made up your mind that you have done wrong to any one, it does not take you two minutes to make up your mind to go and apologize. Now, Christ is a bundle of delicacy and sensitiveness. How you have shocked His nerves! How you have broken His heart!
Did you, my brother, ever measure the meaning of that one passage: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock"? It never came to me as it did this morning while I was thinking on this subject. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." Some January day, the thermometer five degrees below zero, the wind and sleet beating mercilessly against you, you go up the steps of a house where you have a very important errand. You knock with one knuckle. No answer. You are very earnest, and you are freezing. The next time you knock harder. After awhile with your fist you beat against the door. You must get in, but the inmate is careless or stubborn, and he does not want you in. Your errand is a failure. You go away.
The Lord Jesus Christ comes up on the steps of your heart, and with very sore hand he knocks hard at the door of your soul. He is standing in the cold blasts of human suffering. He knocks. He says: "Let me in. I have come a great way. I have come all the way from Nazareth, from Bethlehem, from Golgotha. Let Me in. I am shivering and blue with the cold. Let Me in. My feet are bare but for their covering of blood. My head is uncovered but for a turban of brambles. By all these wounds of foot, and head, and heart, I beg you to let Me in. Oh, I have been here a great while, and the night is getting darker. I am faint with hunger. I am dying to get in. Oh, lift the latch—shove back the bolt! Won't you let Me in? Won't you? 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock!'"
But after awhile, my brother, the scene will change. It will be another door, but Christ will be on the other side of it. He will be on the inside, and the rejected sinner will be on the outside, and the sinner will come up and knock at the door, and say: "Let me in, let me in. I have come a great way. I came all the way from earth. I am sick and dying. Let me in. The merciless storm beats my unsheltered head. The wolves of a great night are on my track. Let me in. With both fists I beat against this door. Oh, let me in. Oh, Christ, let me in. Oh, Holy Ghost, let me in. Oh, God, let me in. Oh, my glorified kindred, let me in." No answer save the voice of Christ, who shall say: "Sinner, when I stood at your door you would not let Me in, and now you are standing at My door, and I can not let you in. The day of your grace is past. Officer of the law, seize him." And while the arrest is going on, all the myriads of heaven rise on gallery and throne, and cry with loud voice, that makes the eternal city quake from capstone to foundation, saying: "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha."
Sabbath audience in the Brooklyn Tabernacle, and all to whom these words shall come on both sides the sea, notice here the tremendous alternative: it is not whether you live in Pierrepont Street or Carlton Avenue, walk Trafalgar Square or the "Canongate;" nor whether your dress shall be black or brown; nor whether you shall be robust or an invalid; nor whether you shall live on the banks of the Hudson, the Shannon, the Seine, the Thames, the Tiber; but it is a question whether you will love Christ or suffer banishment; whether you will give yourselves to Him who owns you or fall under the millstone; whether you will rise to glories that have no terminus or plunge to a depth which has no bottom. I do not see how you can take the ten-thousandth part of a second to decide it, when there are two worlds fastened at opposite ends of a swivel, and the swivel turns on one point, and that point is now, now. Is it not fair that you love Him? Is it not right that you love Him? Is it not imperative that you love Him? What is it that keeps you from rushing up and throwing the arms of your affection about His neck?
My text pronounces Anathema Maranatha upon all those who refuse to love Christ. Anathema—cut off. Cut off from light, from hope, from peace, from heaven. Oh, sharp, keen, sword-like words! Cut off! Everlastingly cut off! Behold, therefore, the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in His goodness; otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. Maranatha—that is the other word. "When he comes" is the meaning of it.
Will He come? I see no signs of it. I looked into the sky as I rode down to church. I saw no signs of the coming. No signal of God's appearance. The earth stands solid on its foundation. No cry of welcome or of woe. Will He come! He will. Maranatha! Hear it ye mountains, and prepare to fall. Ye cities, and prepare to burn. Ye righteous, and prepare to reign. Ye wicked, and prepare to die. Maranatha! Maranatha!
But, oh, my brother, I am not so aroused by that coming as I am by a previous coming, and that is the coming of our death hour, which will fix everything for us. I can not help now, while preaching, asking myself the question—Am I ready for that? If I am ready for the first I will be ready for the next. Are you ready for the emergency? Shall I tell you when your death hour will come? "Oh, no," says some one, "I don't want to know. I would rather not know." Some one says: "I would rather know, if you can tell me." I will tell you. It will be at the most unexpected moment, when you are most busy, and when you think you can be least spared. I can not exactly say whether it will be in the noon, or at the sundown when people are coming home, or in the morning when the world is waking up, or while the clock is striking twelve at night. But I tell you what I think, that with some of you it will be before next Saturday night.
A minister of the Gospel said to an audience: "Before next Sabbath some of you will be gone." And a man said during the week: "I shall watch now, and if no one dies in our congregation during this week I shall go and tell the minister his falsehood." A man standing next to him said: "Why, it may be yourself." "Oh, no," he replied; "I shall live on to be an old man." That night he breathed his last.