arm and the will: and the will said, “Stretch forth!” but the arm hung idle by the side. It may fail. “Well, but my heart never fails me; whatever goes wrong I can make the best of it.” But suppose your heart should fail and that you became one of those to whom the grasshopper was a burden, one that made the worst of everything, that could look no difficulty in the face. Your heart may fail, your flesh may fail, your money may fail, your employ may fail, your friends may fail, everything upon earth may fail. If you have Christ for your friend you will never fail, if you have God for your Father you have a shelter, a home, a comfort that will never fail. If you have not you have nothing that you can count upon. Then come this day, come and say to all the shadows, “I trample over you, I clasp the substance. Holy God, my Eternal Father, let me be reconciled to thee! Be thou my God! Make me thy child! Give me a part and a lot in the family of the holy! For the sake of Jesus, who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, write my name in thy book of life and cover me from the storm that is coming, so that amid the change of life and the ruin of death, the awe of the judgment-day, my spirit may abide under an everlasting shelter! may look forward to the eternity that is to be and say to it, ‘Welcome—
open all thy scenes—uncover thy deepest secrets—world of the unknown, bring out all that thou hast hidden, for all things are mine, for I am Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.’” Amen and Amen.
GOD’S CONTROVERSY WITH MAN.
REV. CHARLES PREST.
“Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel; and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.”—Amos iv. 12.
This chapter refers to the condition of Israel at the time of this prophecy, and to the expostulation and threatened procedure of God concerning the nation. God’s people had revolted from Him; they had sunk into idolatry; they had been often reproved, but had hardened their necks, and therefore the Lord, after recapitulating the calamities which had befallen them, and which all came in the way of fatherly chastisements for their recovery to righteousness, and indicating that his anger was not turned away, says, “and because I will do this unto thee”—and because having done this repentance does not appear, then prepare to meet me. That is, meet me in battle. If you will not submit,
then let the battle be fought; if you will not bow down to these kind modes of discipline—kindly intentioned, however terrible in execution, then prepare to meet me. This expostulation proceeds upon a very intelligible principle—a principle, however, which we sometimes sadly forget, and which we are too much in the habit of neglecting—on the principle that man is an accountable creature; and secondly, that God will call him to account for his conduct.
God has a controversy with man, with us—a controversy with us because of our sin, our sin being an outrage against the divine love; a controversy with us because He is right and we are wrong; because He designs the welfare of all, and the sin that we love is productive of universal destruction; a controversy with sinners that can only be terminated in one of two ways—a controversy with every unconverted person here to-day. Do not deceive yourselves: if you are strangers to the life of God, you are in opposition to Him, and with you as sinners there is a controversy only to be terminated—first, by your submission, your repentance—and, thank God, He has prepared a perfect and suitable method for our submission, and for our repentance. If He has a controversy with us, He wills it to be terminated in such a mode as shall secure the
original purpose of his great love, which our sin has outraged. Christ has appeared in our behalf, and for this purpose has offered a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for our sins. For this purpose the Divine Spirit waits in all our assemblies, and now in this place, that any of you who are now enemies to Him by wicked works, being pricked in your hearts on account of your sins, and groaning under your condemnation, may fly for refuge to the hope set before you in Christ Jesus our Lord. So God would have this controversy terminated. So He invites you in his great mercy to terminate it. And for this purpose we are ministers of reconciliation, and “we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.”
There is but one other way of terminating this controversy, and that is by our destruction. If we will abide in our controversy, if we will wage the battle to the end, this destruction must ensue, here is no method else—no escape any where between the one extreme and the other; it is submission and life, it is battle and death—death eternal. O that death eternal! What is it? Not the annihilation of your souls. What is the death of a soul? The loss of the life of God—the loss of communion with God. The soul is made for such a communion: this is its true life;
it has no satisfaction apart from this enjoyment. There cannot be communion without love; that is the soul of communion; and if you renounce the reign of love, and come under the dominion of enmity, you cut yourselves off from the life of God, you die, and must endure the bitter pains of eternal death. I pray God that you may terminate this controversy, and thank God that you may do so, by the submission of your hearts to his merciful provision of salvation, that so you may live in hallowed Christian blessedness here, and inherit perfect fellowship and communion with God hereafter.