how saints may help the devil. This sermon was originally preached on July 24th in the year 1859 by Charles Haddon Spurgeon. The text for this morning comes from the book of Ezekiel, Ezekiel chapter 16 verse 54. So that you may bear your disgrace and be ashamed of all you have done in giving them comfort. It is not a comfortable condition to be in when one is hostile to God, and the sinner knows this. Although he perseveres in his rebellion against the Most High and refuses to turn at the rebuke of the Almighty, but still goes on in his iniquity, desperately seeking his own destruction, yet he is aware, he is aware in his own conscience that he is not in a secure position. Therefore, it is a fact that all wicked men and women are constantly on the lookout for excuses. They find these excuses either in pretended resolutions to reform at some future time or else in the declaration that Reformation is outside of their power. they must continue to go on in their iniquities. When a man or woman is willing to find an excuse for being God's enemy, they needn't look very long. He who has to come up with a piece of evidence may have some difficulty, but he who would forge a lie may sit in his own living room and do it. Now all the excuses of sinners are false, They are a sanctuary of lies, and therefore we need not wonder that they are extremely numerous and very easy to come up with. One way in which sinners frequently justify themselves for being an enemy of God is by endeavoring to make excuses for their own iniquities because of the inconsistencies of God's people. One way in which the sinners frequently justify themselves for being an enemy of God is by endeavoring to make excuses for their own iniquities because of the inconsistencies of God's people. This is the reason why there is so much slander in the world. A true Christian is a rebuke to the sinner. Wherever he goes, he is a living protest against the evil of sin. Therefore, the unbeliever is dead set against a holy man. His language in his heart is, he accuses me to my face. I cannot bear the sight of his holy character. It makes the sin of my life appear all the more terrible whenever I see the purity of his innocence in contrast to it. and then the unbeliever looks real close and strives to find fault with the righteous. If, however, he fails to do so, he will next try to invent a fault. He will slander the man, and even if he fails here and the man is like Job, blameless and upright and one that fears God and shuns evil, then the sinner will, like the devil with Job, begin to allege some wrong motive to the Christian's fear of God. Does Job serve God for nothing, said the devil? He could find no fault with Job whatsoever. His character was untainted and unblemished, but he says he sticks with his religion for what he can get out of it. Oh, I believe it is a glorious accusation when we are falsely charged with being religious for the sake of gain. It shows that our enemies have no other charge that they can bring against us. They have searched hard for any possible thing to charge us with, and they can find nothing tangible. And so this is the only thing that they can bring, an allegation against the motive of the man who has no other motive in all the world than to glorify his God and win sinners from the destruction of hell. In this, then, let us glory. If sinners slander us, it is because we make them uneasy. They see that our lives are a protest against them, and what can they do? They must somehow or other answer the charge which we have filed against them in heaven's high court. And they do it by issuing a response against us and bringing us in as defendants in the case. We glory in this, that we are defendants who can prove our innocence and we are not ashamed to stand in heaven's court, to stand in heaven's court before God to have our motives tried. There is great encouragement to us when they falsely accuse us. We know the work is being accomplished. We are sure our shots of truth have had an effect on their armor. When they are driven to return on us their slanders and the venom of their wrath. Now we know that they feel the strength of our arm. They have felt our might and they kick against it. They pour out their wrath. In this I say we glory. We have struck them hard or else they would not rise against us in this fashion. However, sadly, so sadly, sinners have not always had to use slander and lies. Because, sad to say, the church The Church of Christ has given enough good reasons for the wicked to excuse themselves in their sin. The inconsistencies of those who profess to be Christians, the lack of true holiness, the absence of seriousness to the things of God have given plenty of reasons for the ungodly to justify themselves in their sins. I will discuss this sad subject this morning. And may God grant to all His people who will feel convicted in their consciences the spirit of mourning and contrition, that they may confess before God this great sin that they have done, namely, that they have comforted sinners in their sin by their own inconsistency, and have justified the wicked in their rebellion by their own disobedience and defiance. This morning I shall, first, point out the different acts of Christians which have helped to comfort sinners in their sin. And then, secondly, I shall observe the consequences of this evil, how much the world at large has been injured by the deeds of professed followers of Christ. And then I shall come with a solemn warning. bringing out the great battering ram to smash against these refuge of lies, and moreover crying with a loud voice, crying to those who are the faithful servants of Christ, to withdraw their hands and no longer to assist in keeping up that Jericho in which the wicked have entrenched themselves. First, Then it will be my sad and miserable business this morning to show certain facts which we cannot honestly deny. Namely, that the acts of many of Christ's followers have been the cause of justifying and comforting sinners in their evil ways. And first, I would observe that the daily inconsistencies of the people of God have much to do in this matter. By inconsistencies, I don't exactly mean those grosser sins into which, at sad and mournful periods, many Christians fall. But I mean those frequent inconsistencies which become so common that they are scarcely condemned by society. To start with, the greediness of too many Christians have had this said about them. Look, says the unbeliever, this man professes that his inheritance is from above and that his affection is not set on the things of the earth but on the things of heaven. But look at him, he is just as serious as I am about the things of this world. He can be just as harsh with his debtors as I can be. He can manipulate those that deal with him quite as keenly as I have ever done. No, my beloved, this is not a mere fable, sad to say. I have seen persons commended as successful businessmen whose lives will not bear the test of Scripture. whose business transactions were as brutal, as greedy as the transactions of most of the worldly of men. How often has it happened that some of you have bowed your head in church and have said, forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And one hour later, your finger has been almost meeting your thumb through the jugular vein of some debtor whom you have seized by the throat. The Church of the Living Christ appears to be as worldly as the world itself. And professors of Christianity have become as ruthless in business and as ungenerous in their dealing as those that have never been baptized into the Lord Jesus and have never professed to serve Him. And now, what does the world say about this? It throws this in our face. If it is accused of loving the things of the world, it answers, and so do you. If we tell the world that it has set its hopes on a shadow, it replies, but we have set our hope on the very same thing in which you are trusting. You are as worldly, as greedy, as envious as we are. Your protest has lost its force. You are no longer witnesses against us, for we now accuse you. Another point in which the sinner often excuses himself is the obvious worldliness of many Christians. You will see Christian men and women as fond of dress and as pleased with the frivolities of this age as any other person possibly could be. just as anxious to adorn their bodies so as to be seen of men, just as ambitious to win the praise which the most silly gentleman or the most gaudy among worldly women gives to fine dressing. What does the world say when we turn to it and accuse it of being a mere butterfly and finding all its pleasures in gaudy toys? Oh, yes, it says. We know of your hypocrisy. Don't you stand up and sing, jewels to me are gaudy toys, and gold nothing but filthy dust. And yet you are just as fond of things that glitter as we are. Your doctors of divinity pride themselves just as much in their D.D. as any of us in other titles. You are just as proud about terms of honor as any of us can be. You talk about carrying the cross, but we don't see it anywhere except the golden cross that you sometimes wear around your neck. You say you are crucified to the world and the world to you. It is a very Mary sort of crucifixion. You say that you put to death the misdeeds of the body and deny yourselves. Well, you're putting to death of the misdeeds must be done in secret for we can see very little of it. Thus, the unbeliever responds to our challenge, declaring that we are not sincere, and thus he comforts himself in his sin and justifies himself in his iniquity. Look too, my friends, at the obvious pride of many of those who profess to be Christians. You see members of Christian churches as proud as they possibly can be. Their backs are as stiff as if an iron rod were in the center. They come up to the church, And it is a Christian doctrine that God from one man has made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth. But the Christian is as snobbish as anybody else, just as proud and just as stiff. Is the Christian clothed in expensive clothes? How often does he feel it is a condescension to own a cheap suit? And how often do you see a sister of Christ dressed in expensive clothing who thinks it is something wonderful when she sees a fellow member in a faded dress? It is of no use to deny it. I don't think that this evil is as common among us as it is in some other churches, but this I know. that there are respectable churches and chapels in which a poor man scarcely dares to show his face. The pride of the church surely has become almost as great as the pride of Sodom of old. Her fullness of bread and her stiffness of neck has caused her to exalt herself, and whereas it is the real glory of the church that the poor have the gospel preached to them, and that the poor have received the word with gladness. Sadly, it has now become the honor of the church to talk of the respectability and the dignity and the class of her members and the greatness of her wealth. What then do unbelievers say? They say this, you accuse us of pride, you are as proud as we are. You, the humble followers of Jesus, who washed the feet of His saints? Not you, though. No, without a doubt, you would have no objection to be washed by others, but we do not think it likely that you would ever wash our feet. You, the disciples of the fishermen of Galilee? Not you. You are too fine and too great for that. Do not accuse us of pride. Why? Because you are as proud a generation as we are. Now these are only mentioned among us as inconsistencies and not as sins. But they truly are sins, and they are such sins that they restrain the Spirit of God from blessing the church. They also are sins that cause the wicked to be callous in their sins. They blunt the edge of our rebukes and prevent the Word of God from working in the hearts of men. I might mention another sad fact with regard to the Church, which often stings us deeply. the various deep-seated hatreds and strifes and divisions that arise. The various deep-seated hatreds and strifes and divisions that arise. You tell the worldly man that Christians love each other. Ah, he says, you should go over to that church or to that other church and see how they love each other. Look at many of your churches. See how the minister is treated and how the deacons fight with each other and how the members hate one another. They can scarcely hold a church meeting without abusing one another. How often is this proved to be true in many churches? And then the unbeliever says, you tell us that we bite and devour each other and that our wars and fightings come from our lust. Where do your wars and fighting come from? You tell us that our anger and wrath are the effect of sin that dwells within us. What causes your divisions and your stripes? In this way, you see, the testimony of the children of God is rendered invalid, and we help to comfort sinners in their sins. Now it is my mournful duty to go a step further. It is not merely these inconsistencies, but the glaring sins of some professed disciples that have greatly assisted sinners in sheltering themselves from the attacks of the Word of God. It is not merely these inconsistencies, but the glaring sins of some professed disciples that have greatly assisted sinners in sheltering themselves from the attacks of the Word of God. Every now and then a cedar falls in the middle of the forest. Someone who stood prominent in the Church of God as a professed follower of Jesus turns aside. They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. We have wept over professed Christians becoming drunkards. We have seen men who were mighty at religious public meetings becoming scoundrels. We have had it thrown in our faces dozens of times that religion often becomes a cloak for fraud, and that when the world has trusted a religious man with its wealth, that religious man has carried it off with him and has not been found again. Oh, this is the great curse of the church. I was thinking only yesterday with much sorrow in my heart of the present age, and I could not help but come to the conclusion that all the burnings at the stake by pagan tyrants that all the tortures of the Roman Catholic executioners, that all the bloody deaths to which God's people were ever put in any one age of the world have never done so much harm, never done so much harm to the cause of Christ as the inconsistencies of those who profess to be Christians today. It was about three years ago, I think, that failures among religious men seem to be the order of the day, and our papers literally teemed with accusations against the Church of God. O my brethren, let us not talk of these things except with mourning and tears. Wrap yourself in sackcloth. O Church of God, stop all your laughter and put ashes on your head, for the crown of your glory has departed. Your garments are stained, and the filthiness of your clothes are witnesses against you. O Church of our living Christ, your holy men and women were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, but now their clothes are blacker than a piece of coal, and their hands are defiled with iniquity. Remember the time of your purity, when your priests were glorious, and your sons and daughters were clothed in royal apparel. How you have fallen. How you are cast down from the high mountains. Your princes are clothed in rags. The purity is taken away from your daughters and you yourself have become miserable and a widow because of the iniquity of your sons and of your daughters. Woe to us for your glory is departed Your sun is covered with thick darkness and your stars withhold their light. The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us because we have sinned. My dear friends, my soul has carried me away. Breathless and panting, I return to my humbler but not less earnest style. Remember how vast your powers are for evil. Your ministers may preach as long as they will, but you undo their preaching if you are unholy. If you are inconsistent in your lives, Paul, Apollos, and Peter might preach with power, but they do not have half the power to build up that you have to pull down. You are the mightiest workmen, you professors of religion. You can undo infinitely more than we can accomplish. And now I pause. I pause and relieve the shadow of this subject with something which I fear is equally vile in the sight of God. How often do the people of God comfort sinners in their sins by their murmurings and their complaints? How often do the people of God comfort sinners in their sins by their murmurings and complaints. O Beloved, we are too much in the habit of covering our faces with sadness on account of our earthly trials, and too little in the habit of weeping on account of the failings of the Church, the Church of our God. How frequently do you meet with a true Christian full of unbelieving cares, Ah, he says, all these things are against me. He has food and clothing, but he is not content with it. He has more than that. But his amount of things that he has is a little diminished. And he is very sad about it. And he has no faith and cannot trust the Lord. Oh, says the unbeliever, see these Christians, they talk about faith. but their faith is not half as much a service to them as my desperation is to me that hardens my heart and makes me stand up against affliction a great deal better than their faith in God's providence can do. Why just look at these saints, a sniffling set of crying creatures. They never have either peace or joy. They are always wearing long faces and talking about their sad trials and troubles They never have an hour of happiness. Who would want to be a Christian? I don't want to be converted, says the unbeliever. Why should I remove the sunbeams from my eye and take the smile off of my face? Why should I profess to follow a God whose servants only worship Him with weeping? and never offer any sacrifice but that of groans and sighs and murmurs." My friends, might not a wicked man often come in when Christians are grumbling together about the bad times, about the high price of food and clothing and things, and the low pay that they receive and so forth, and might not he say, Yes, I can see your God treats you very badly. If I were you, I'd strike and have nothing to do with him. And he goes away laughing and saying, ah, Baal treats me better. I get more pleasure in this world than these Christian people do. Let them have their wonderful heaven to themselves if they like. I'm not going whining through this world with them. Let me have joy in rejoicing while I may. Now my friends, don't you think that in this way you and I have done a world of damage to the cause of Christ and may have helped to comfort sinners in their iniquities? One other point and I will be done with this. Perhaps the greatest evil has been done by the cold heartedness and indifference of those who profess to be Christians. Perhaps the greatest evil has been done by the cold-heartedness and indifference of those who profess to be Christians. I do not charge you, O Church of God, with inconsistency. I lay no crime at your door now. It is with another fault that I charge you, one as grievous as these. I pray for you. I pray that you would plead guilty to it for you need to confess the truth. And then I pray God that he will cleanse you of your guilt and that you will no longer offend him with the evil of yours. The church of God at the present time is cold and lukewarm, and it is lifeless compared with what it used to be. When I was preaching in Wales this week, I could not help but observe the power which attended the ministry, where there was a living congregation and an earnest company gathered together to hear the word of God. We have become accustomed to sit in a kind of solemn silence to hear the gospel. Not so in Wales, for there you hear the voice of praise. Every person expresses the feelings of his soul in audible prayers and cries to God. And finally, when the Spirit has descended, you hear the loud cries of glory to God. As each precious sentence drops from the lips of the preacher, it seems to be taken up and fed upon by the people while they shout aloud for joy. I believe it is a great improvement on our English congregations. And some of our English preachers could not continue to preach in their dull style if sometimes the people had a chance of either hissing at them or cheering them on. That, however, is but an index of the cold state of the churches. We are an apathetic, cold nation. Even Scottish preachers are more alive than we are. They speak the word of God with more sincerity than many of our ministers do in England. Cold as we think the North is, yet they have become even warmer than we are. And now what does the world say to all of our coldness? Why it says, ah, this is the kind of religion we like, says the unbeliever. We don't like those raving evangelicals. We can't stand them. We don't like those earnest, untiring Christians of the flock of Whitefield. Oh no, they were a raving set of folks. We don't like them, but we like these quiet folks. Yes, says the unbeliever, I think it is right that every man should go to his church and go to his chapel on a Sunday but I never could go and hear such raving as Mr. So-and-so gives. Of course you could not. You are an enemy to God, and that is why you like a lukewarm Laodicean church. That very church which the world likes best is sure to be that which God abhors. The world says we like everything to go on smoothly, We like a man to go to his own local church and hear a good, solid, substantial sermon read. We like to go up to the church and hear a sober, eloquent divine. We don't like any of this furious preaching, any of these earnest exhortations. No, of course you like that of which God has said, you are neither cold nor hot. God hates such churches and that is why sinners love them. But what effect does all this have on the unbeliever? Why just this? The unbeliever says, I like you because you don't rebuke me. I like that kind of religion because it is no accusation against me. When I see a Christian hot and serious about the unbeliever being saved, he says, It rebukes my own indifference. But when I see a professed Christian just as indifferent about the salvation of men as I am, why, then I say, it is all a farce, nonsense. They don't mean it. The minister does not care a bit about whether souls are saved or not, and as for the church, They make a great deal of noise every now and then at Exeter Hall about saving some poor blacks far away, but they don't care about saving us. And so an unbeliever wraps himself up and goes on his way in his sin and his iniquity and perseveres even to the end, declaring all the while that religion is nothing but a sham. because he sees us careless in solemn matters and cold concerning everlasting realities. Thus I have, mournfully in my own soul, set forth the plan whereby Satan comforts sinners in their sins, even by means of those who ought most sternly to rebuke them. And now for the second point, the consequences of this evil. And here I wish to speak very pointedly and personally to all of you who profess to be Christians. And I do hope that you will take every point personally in which you must feel that you have been and are guilty. Friends, how often have you and I, in the first place, helped to keep sinners comfortable in their sin by our inconsistency. Had we been true Christians, the wicked man would often have been convicted in his heart and his conscience would have convicted him. But having been unfaithful and untrue, he has been able to sleep on quietly without any disturbance from us. Don't you think, my dear brothers and sisters, that each of you have been guilty here? That you have often helped to pacify the wicked in their rebellion against God? I must confess myself that I am guilty. I have labored to escape from the sin, but I am not completely delivered from it. I pray that each one of you makes a full confession before God, if by your silence when sin has been committed before your eyes, or by a smile when an off-color joke has been told in your hearing, or if by a constant indifference to the cause of Christ You have led sinners to sleep more securely in the bed of their iniquities. But to go further still, don't you think that very often, when a sinner's conscience has been roused, you and I have helped to give it a sleep-inducing drink by the coldness of our hearts? Hush, conscience, says the sinner, but he will not be still. but cries aloud, repent, repent, and then you, a professing Christian, come near, and you administer the anesthesia of your indifference, and the sinner's conscience falls back again into its slumber, and the reproof that might have been useful is entirely lost on him. I am sure that this is one of the great crying sins of the Church, that we are not now the witnesses of God as we should be, but often quiet the witness of conscience in the souls of men. Look now to your own lives. I am speaking personally to each one of you. Look at yesterday and the days that went before, and I ask you, and I solemnly charge you to answer this question. Haven't you often assisted in the first place to keep men's consciences quiet? and afterwards to send them to sleep when they have been aroused. Further, is it not possible that often sinners have been strengthened in their sin by you? They were only just beginning in iniquity, and had you rebuked them with honesty and sincerity by your own holy life, they might have been led to see their folly and might have ceased from sin. But you have strengthened their hands. They have gone forward confidently because they have said, see, a church member leads the way. So-and-so is not more scrupulous than I, says one. I may do what he does. And so you have helped to strengthen sinners in their sin. Is it not possible that some of you Christians have helped to confirm men in their sins and to destroy their souls? It is a masterpiece of the devil when he can use Christ's own soldiers against Christ. But this he has often done. I have known many a case. Let me tell you a story of a minister, one which I believe to be true and which convicts me. And therefore I tell it with the hope that it may also waken your consciences and convict you too. There was a young minister once preaching very earnestly in a certain chapel, and he had to walk some four or five miles to his home along a country road after the service. A young man who had been deeply impressed under the sermon requested the privilege of walking with the minister with an earnest hope that he might get an opportunity of sharing his feelings with him and obtaining some word of guidance or comfort Instead of that, the young minister, all along the way, told the most remarkable stories to those who were with him, causing loud roars of laughter, and even relating stories which were inappropriate. He stopped at a certain house, and this young man went in with him, and the whole evening was spent in laughing and joking and foolish talking. Some years later, when the minister had grown old, he was sent for to the bedside of a dying man. He hurried there with a heart desirous to do good. He was requested to sit down at the bedside, and the dying man, looking at him closely, said to him, do you remember preaching in such and such a village on such an occasion? I do, said the minister. Well, I was one of your listeners, said the man, and I was deeply impressed by your sermon.

Thank God for that, said the minister. Stop, said the man. Don't thank God till you have heard the whole story. You will have reason to alter your tone before I am done. The minister's expression changed, but he could not have guessed what would be the full extent of the man's testimony.

The man said, Sir, do you remember after you finished that solemn sermon, I with some others walked home with you? I was sincerely desirous of being led in the right path that night. But I heard you speak with such levity and with much coarseness, too, that I went outside the house while you were sitting down to your evening meal. I stamped my foot on the ground. I said that you were a liar. that Christianity was a lie, that if you could pretend to be so serious about it in the pulpit and then come down and talk like that, well, the whole thing must be a sham. And I have been an infidel. I have been a confirmed infidel from that day to this, but I am not an infidel at this moment. I know better. I am dying. And I know that I am about to be damned. And at the judgment seat of God I will lay my damnation to your charge. My blood is on your head."

And with a dreadful shriek and one demonical glance at the trembling minister, he shut his eyes and died.

Is it not possible, my friends, that we may have been guilty of the same crime? The idea of it should make the flesh creep on our bones, and yet I think there are many among us who must confess, I have done the same, I am guilty.

But are there not enough traps in which to catch souls, without you being Satan's assistant to do mischief? Hasn't Satan enough legions of devils to murder men without employing you? O followers of Christ, O believers in Jesus, will you serve under the Prince of Darkness? Will you fight against your Master? Will you drag sinners down to hell? Shall we, I include myself here, more truly than any of you, shall we who profess to preach the gospel of Christ by our conversation injure and destroy men's souls?

Thus I think I have expounded the solemn consequences of this fearful evil. And now I come in conclusion and I pray that God will help me while I deal seriously and solemnly with you and bring out this great battering ram to smash against this vain excuse of the wicked.

Among the vast numbers of this great congregation, We are sure to have a very large number of persons who are not converted to God and who have continually made this their excuse. I see so much of the inconsistency of those who profess to be Christians that I do not intend to think about religion myself.

My listener, I appeal to you by the living God. Give me your ear for a moment while I pull this vain excuse of yours to pieces. What have you to do with the inconsistencies of another? To his own master he shall stand or fall. What will you gain if one half of all the professors of Christianity are sent to hell? What comfort will that be to you when you shall come there yourself? My friend, will God require the sins of another person at your hands? Where is it said that God will punish you for what another does? Or do you imagine that God will reward you because another is guilty? You are surely not foolish enough for that. I ask you, what do you have to do with another's servant? That man is a servant of God, or at least he professes to be. If he is not so, What business can it possibly be of yours? If you should see 20 men drinking poison, would that be a reason why you should drink it too? If passing over the London Bridge, you should see a dozen miserable creatures leaping off the side. It would provide a good argument why you yourself should seek to stop them, but it provides no argument why you should leap also. What if there were hundreds of suicides? Will that excuse you if you shall shed your own blood? Do men plead this way in courts of law? Does a man say, oh judge, excuse me for having been a thief? There are so many hundreds of men that profess to be honest that are as much thieves as I. You will be punished for your own offenses. Remember, not for the offenses of another. Listen, I appeal to you. Look this in the face. How can this help to alleviate your misery? How can this help to make you happier in hell? Because you say there are so many hypocrites in this world. But besides that, you know well enough that the church is not as bad as you say it is. You see that there are some that are inconsistent, but aren't there many that are holy? Do you dare to say there are none? I tell you, you are a fool. There are many bad coins in the world, many counterfeits. Do you therefore say there are no good ones? If you say so, you are foolish. For the very fact that there are counterfeits is a proof that there must be realities. Would any man think it worth his while to make counterfeit money if there was not real money? It is just the quantity of good ones that allows the counterfeit ones to be noticed. And so no man would pretend to be a Christian unless there were some good Christians. There would be no hypocrites if there were not some true men. It is the quantity of true men that helps to reveal the hypocrite in the crowd. And then again I say to you, unbeliever, when you come before the judgment seat of God, do you think that this will serve you as an excuse to begin to find fault with God's own children? Suppose you were brought before a king, an absolute monarch, and you should begin to say by way of appeal, oh king, I have been guilty, it is true, but so are your own sons and daughters. There are a great many faults in the princes of the blood. Would he not say to you, you wretch, you are adding insult to wickedness. You are guilty yourself. And now you dare malign my own children, the princes of the blood. The Lord will not allow you to say that in your day of judgment. He has pardoned his children and he is ready to pardon you. He sends mercy to you this day, but if you reject it, then don't imagine that you will escape by recounting the sins of the pardoned ones. Rather, this shall merely result in an addition to your sin, and you shall perish even more fearfully. But come, come once again, I plead with you with all my might. What? Can you be so foolish as to imagine that because another man is destroying his soul by hypocrisy, that this is a reason why you should destroy yours by indifference? If there are thousands of untrue Christians, then so much the more reason why I should be a true one. If there are hundreds of hypocrites, this should make me more sincere to search myself and should not make me indifferent about the matter. O sinner, you will soon be on your deathbed. And will it comfort you there to think, I have rejected Christ, I have despised salvation, I am perishing in my sins? And to add, but there are many Christians who are hypocrites. No, death will tear away that excuse. That will not serve you. And when the heavens are on fire, when the foundations of the earth shall shake, when God shall come flying on the clouds to judge the children of men, when the eternal eyes are fixed upon you, and like burning lamps are illuminating the secret parts of your heart, will you then be able to make this an excuse? Holy God, it is true, I have damned myself, it is true. I have willfully transgressed, but there were so many hypocrites. Then the judge will say to you, what have you to do with that? You have no right to interfere with my kingdom and with my judgeship. Because of your own offenses, you are lost. For your own rejection of Christ, you shall eternally perish. And now I conclude by addressing the people of God with equal seriousness. My dear listeners, even if I could weep tears of blood this morning, it would not be too much emotion concerning this most solemn point. I don't know that this text ever struck me before yesterday, but I no sooner noticed it than it came home to me as an accusation. I plead guilty to it and I pray for forgiveness. I only wish that a light power may apply it to you that you may feel that you have been guilty too. Oh friends, can you bear the thought that you may have helped to drag others down to hell? Christ has loved you and pardoned your sins, and will you push others downward? And yet, if you are inconsistent, and especially if you are cold and lukewarm in your religion, you are doing it. Well, says one, I don't do much good, but I do no harm. That is an impossibility. You must either be doing good or evil. There is no borderland between the truth and sin. A man must be either on land or in the water, and you are either serving God or serving Satan. Each day you are increasing your master's kingdom or else diminishing it. I cannot bear the thought that any of you should be employed in Satan's camp. Now suppose there ever should be an invasion of this country by France. The bells ring from every church steeple, the drum is sounding in every street, and men are gathering at every intersection. Peaceful men spring up as soldiers in an instant, and multitudes are marching away to the coast When we come near it, we see a troop of soldiers who have climbed our white cliffs. And with bayonets fixed, they are marching against us. We, with a tremendous cheer, rush on against them to drive them back into the sea which surrounds our beloved country. Suddenly, as we rush forward, we detect scores of Englishmen marching in the same ranks with our enemies, and seeking to ravage their own country. What should we say? Seize these traitors. Don't let one of them escape. Put them all to death. Can Englishmen take the side of England's enemies? Can they march against our homes, betray their fatherland, and take the side of the tyrant emperor? Can this be? Then let them die the death. And yet this day I behold a more mournful spectacle yet. There is King Jesus marching at the head of his troops. And can it be that some of you who profess to be his followers are on the other side? That professing to be Christ, you are marching in the ranks of the enemy, carrying the baggage of Satan and wearing the uniform of hell. when you profess to be soldiers of Christ? I know there are such here. God forgive them. God spare them. And may the deserters yet come back, even though they come back in the chains of conviction. May they come back and be saved. Oh, brothers and sisters, there are enough to destroy souls without us. enough to extend the kingdom of Satan without our helping them. Come out from them and be separate. Touch no unclean thing. Church of our God, wake up, wake up, wake up to the salvation of men. Sleep no longer. Begin to pray, to wrestle, to labor in birth. Be more holy, more consistent, more strict, more solemn in your manner. Begin, O soldiers of Christ, to be more true to your colors. And surely the time will come when the church will be reformed and revived. And then surely the King will come in our midst, and we shall march on to certain victory, trampling down our enemies and bringing to our King many crowns through many victories that we achieve. Amen.