The Righteous and the Wicked
Contrasted By Charles Simeon 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, for the body, and
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 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 noonday 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, in vain calling upon rocks
and mountains to cover them from his wrath. 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 they are cast, Even that lake that burns with fire and
brimstone, From whence the smoke of their torment Will ascend
for ever and ever.