(Charles Simeon) LISTEN to Audio! Download Audio
View the genuine Christian from day to day–his whole soul is humbled before God under a sense of his own extreme unworthiness. Were you to behold him in his secret chamber, you would behold him more abased before God for an evil thought or desire–than an ungodly man would be for the actual commission of the grossest sin! Oh! the sighs and groans which he involuntarily utters under the load of that burden–that body of sin and death, from which he cannot get free. And many are the tears which he sheds in secret, because he cannot attain that perfect holiness which his soul pants after.
A life of self-denial, too, characterizes his daily walk. He desires to “crucify the flesh, with its affections and lusts;” and it is his incessant labor to “mortify the whole body of sin.”
To prepare for death and judgment is his primary concern. He lives as on the borders of eternity! He knows not at what hour the bridegroom may arrive; and therefore he keeps his lamp trimmed, that he may be ready to enter into the bride-chamber with his beloved Lord!
But how is it with the wicked in these respects?
What are their prayers? Nothing but a mere lip-service, in which their hearts are not at all engaged.
As for self-denial, they know nothing about it. Their whole life is a system of self-indulgence.
They may not run into gross sins on account of their regard for their character among men; but they pursue with unabated ardor, those earthly vanities on which their hearts are set. Pleasure, or riches, or honor–occupy all their thoughts, and stimulate all their exertions. They live altogether:
for themselves, and not for God;
and for the body, not for the soul;
for time, and not for eternity!
Contemplate the righteous man in his final end. How blessed this will be, no words can adequately describe!
Were you present with him in his dying hour, and God were to open your eyes–you would see angels attendant on him, to bear upon their wings his departing spirit into Abraham’s bosom. Could you follow him, and witness his reception by the Most High God–what plaudits would you hear! “Well done, good and faithful servant! Enter into the joy of your Lord!” How would you then,
behold him graced with an unfading crown of glory,
seated upon a throne,
invested with a kingdom, and
shining forth with a glory that would eclipse the noon-day sun!
To all eternity he will then live in the immediate fruition of his God–as holy as God Himself is holy; and as happy, according to his capacity, as God Himself is happy.
Alas! alas! The wicked are dragged into the presence of an angry God. From Him they hear that dreadful sentence, “Depart you who are cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels!” And into that fire are they cast–even “that lake that burns with fire and brimstone,” from, whence “the smoke of their torment will ascend forever and ever!”
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