Suppose a cup of sweet poison
were put into our hands by Charles Simeon. They do not consider
in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness. Now their
own sinful deeds have engulfed them. They are before my face. Hosea chapter 7 verse 2. The unsaved think, God does not
see us. Neither will the Almighty regard
it. But God both sees all their wickedness and will remember
it in order to a future retribution. That the unsaved do not consider
either the omnipresence of God nor His omniscience is obvious. For could they sin with so much
abandon if they did? Or could they maintain such tranquility
of mind after having committed sin? Would not the thought of
God's eye being always upon them cast some restraint upon their
sinful pleasures? Would not the expectation of
a future recompense occasion some uneasiness? Suppose a cup
of sweet poison were put into our hands and we were informed
that within a few hours after we drank it, we would be wracked
with inexpressible agony and in the space of one day, we would
die in excessive torment. Would we not ponder for a moment
before we ventured to drink it? And supposing us foolish enough
to sacrifice our lives for this momentary sweet gratification,
would we not put the cup to our lips with a trembling hand? And
after we had swallowed the contents, would we not feel some concern,
some regret, some sense of our folly? Could we go away and laugh
at what we had done and boast of it and encourage our friends
to do the same? would not a few moments of consideration
turn us from the fatal temptation? Much more, therefore, should
we be affected with a dread of future sin and a sorrow for past
sins, if we considered that God is privy to our thoughts and
actions, and that he will certainly remember them to our everlasting
dismay. Nor is it only the act of theft
or murder or adultery that God will remember, but the look,
the desire, the thought, yes, all our wickednesses of whatever
kind or whatever degree. Remember, God sees us, though
we think ourselves to be hidden from his sight. God marks our
every thought, though we have no regard of him. Unbeliever. God has an iron memory. However
long ago any of your sins may have been committed, they are
as fresh in God's memory and as hateful in His sight, as if
they are being committed this very moment before His face.
Remember that your thoughtlessness in this life will certainly result
in continued and painful reflections in hell. Yes, as soon as you
come into the eternal world, you shall have a perfect view
of all your past wickedness. You shall see sin as God sees
it, in all its enormity and with all its aggravations. The sins
of thought, as well as of act, the sins of omission, as well
as of commission, will all be open to your view, and there
will be no possibility of diverting your attention from them. God
bids you now to consider, and you will not. But what shall
you do in that day when He shall answer your cries for mercy with
this severe rebuke? Son, remember. Luke chapter 16,
verse 25. Lifting up your eyes in torment,
you will then remember all the sins you have committed, all
the warnings you have neglected, and all the mercies you have
abused. O sad remembrance! O dreary prospect
of unalterable and irremediable misery! Christian, a sense of
the Divine Presence will be an excellent preservative from sin.
If at the close of every day we would call ourselves to an
account of how we have spent the day and what God had recorded
concerning us in His Book of Remembrance, then we would certainly
abstain from many sins, which we now commit without thought
or remorse. In the name of God, then, I entreat
you all, consider your ways.