The Warnings of God from The
Night Watches by John McDuffie. I show this unfailing love to
many thousands by forgiving every kind of sin and rebellion. Even so, I will by no means clear
the guilty. Exodus chapter 34 verse 7 He is faithful who promised.
Do we bear sufficiently in mind another truth of equal fidelity? He is faithful that threatened?
Ponder that solemn word. He will by no means clear. Remember
when that word was spoken. It was in connection with a sublime
apocalypse of God's majesty. It was as the glory of the Lord
was passing before Moses. Was not this intended to show
that there is an awful and inseparable connection between the divine
glory and the impossibility of God's clearing the guilty? It
was at this time, moreover, when the benignity of God was intended
to be more specially manifested. It was when he was declared to
be the Lord, the Lord God, merciful, gracious, long-suffering, abundant
in goodness. Then it was we listened to the
awful note of warning that clear the guilty he will not and cannot. His law requires, the honor of
his throne requires, demands that the guilty be not cleared.
Reader, are you still clinging to the dream of final mercy?
Do you believe in the first part of the divine proclamation at
Sinai and persist in presumptuous and fatal skepticism with regard
to the last? That boundless in His resources
and infinite in His love, God will by some means clear the
guilty? Do not be deceived. See that
you do not incur the woe of him who strives with his Maker. The
Lord, who is not slack concerning his promises, can be as little
slack concerning his threatening. Time blunts the wrath of man,
and chastens and subdues the turbulence of his passions. But
there is no blind impulse, no vacillation in him with whom
a thousand years are as one day. God's threatenings, says a writer,
are God's doing. The law has not one breathing
of mercy for you. There is not one cleft in all
Mount Sinai where you can escape the vengeance of the storm. Unless
you flee without delay to him who has cleared the guilty by
himself, the guiltless one becoming the guilt bearer, be assured
that through eternity you will by no means be cleared. My soul,
are you yet in the state of perilous estrangement, still launched
on the cheerless ocean of uncertainty, leaving everything to a dying
hour, the time to which nothing should be left but to die? Ponder
these living words of unchanging truth. Though hand join in hand,
the wicked shall not escape unpunished. The golden chain of grace stretches
from heaven to earth, but it can go no further. Seek the Lord
while He may be found. There is solemn warning in that
one word. It tells you there is a day coming when the Lord
will be sought, but will not be found. Time's sun is fast
setting, its twilight is nigh. Its evening is falling in cloud
over sky. Its shadows are stretching in
ominous gloom. Its midnight approaches the midnight
of doom. Then haste, sinner, haste! There
is mercy for thee, and wrath is preparing. Flee, linger, flee! Reader, cast yourself this night
at His footstool. Implore His mercy. Rise not from
your bended knees until, with His propitiated smile gladdening
you and the hope of His heaven cheering you, you may, it may
be for the first time in your life, lie down with a quiet conscience
and a pardoned soul on your nightly couch, exclaiming, I will lie
down and sleep in peace. For you alone, O Lord, make me
dwell in safety. Psalm 4 verse 8