A Sermon
Delivered On Sunday Evening, December 1, 1850
BY THE REV. C. G. FINNEY
(OF OBERLIN COLLEGE, UNITED STATES)
at the Tabernacle, Moorfields, London
“Again He designates a
certain day, saying in David, ‘Today’, after such a long time, as it has been
said: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts’.” (Hebrews 4:7)
This reference to David relates to the ninety-fifth
Psalm, from which these words were quoted.
The apostle was addressing the Israelites, and, in this connection, he
was speaking to them about the way that their forefathers tempted God in the
wilderness. As a result, they were not
allowed to enter into the Promised Land.
In warning the Israelites against unbelief, he says to them, “today, if
you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts”.
I. I WILL INQUIRE INTO THE
MEANING OF THE WORD ‘HEART’, AS IT IS USED HERE.
The word ‘heart’, like many other words found in both the Bible
and in common language, is used in many ways.
Here, however, ‘heart’ clearly means the ‘will’. To harden the heart, in the sense in which
the phrase is understood here, no doubt means to gather up the energies of the
will, and to resist, to become stubborn and obstinate. When the Bible commands or exhorts people
not to harden their hearts, it’s like saying, “Do not resist, and strengthen
yourselves against the voice of God. Do
not become stubborn and rebellious, and set yourselves against the voice of
mercy; but today, after such a long time, if you will hear His voice, harden
not your hearts.” That is, if you are
inclined to listen to what God says, don’t harden your hearts and become
stubborn.
Parents sometimes are mortified to see their own children
become stubborn against parental authority, and to see their requirements
resisted, and their advice ignored.
Parents often see children, when they try to persuade them to do
something, instead of obeying, become stubborn and rebellious. They stand and resist, and display a cool
determination to persevere in their disobedience; to persist in resisting the
claims of their parents; and, as far as the philosophy of the act is concerned,
resistance to God is exactly the same thing.
The mental process is very similar.
The mind resisting the truth is the hardening of the heart that is
mentioned in this passage.
II. HOW DO SINNERS HARDEN
THEIR HEARTS?
How do they do this?
Let me say here, that when individuals resist the truth, when they
resist its authority when it is presented to them, they have to make some
excuse for their conduct. The natural
tendency of the truth, when it is presented to the mind, is to convince it, to
force them to make a decision, to lead the individual to yield himself up to
its influence. The mind and truth have
such a relationship with each other, that the mind must naturally be influenced
by the truth; and, unless the individual resists the truth, its natural
tendency is to lead the will to accept and yield to it.
When people harden their hearts, they must have some reason for doing so. Take the case of the Jews, the apostle calls on them not to harden their hearts. He knows they are in danger of doing so. He knows their educational prejudices, their Jewish notions, and their peculiar views of things. He knows the course they have taken with Christ before His crucifixion, and how He had been crucified, raised from the dead, and was proclaimed to the world as a risen Savior. This epistle was written to the Jews, and therefore the author mentions some events from ancient Jewish history. He draws their attention to their past. As soon as he fixes their minds on the course their fathers pursued and its results; he warns them solemnly not to harden their hearts. He says this because he knows those Jews he is addressing, because he is very familiar with their prejudices against Christ. He knows their self-righteous spirit, and that they are prepared to resist Christ. It is easy to see that they could provide lots of reasons to resist. He knows that they are in error, and in great error, on the subject of religion, and therefore he calls on them not to harden themselves, not to yield their prejudices, not to run and hid behind their Jewish errors and peculiar notions, and thus strengthen themselves in opposition to the truth.
This leads me to say that people are in a lot of danger of
hardening themselves, by clinging to some erroneous opinion or improper
practice that they are committed to.
All their prejudices are in favor of it, and they are very jealous lest
anything should disturb it. They hold
on to some particular error, and whenever they are pressed to yield to the
claims of God, unless it is done in a particular way, so that it is consistent
with their prejudices, they are apt to rise up and strengthen themselves
against it. Such people, when they
resist the truth using the excuse that it clashes with their opinion, are in tremendous
danger! When they see that the
practical result of the truth contradicts some pet theory of theirs, they will
strengthen themselves against it.
I remember an example of this.
One evening, in New York City, I found among the inquirers a very
anxious lady who was heavily convicted of her sins, and I strongly urged her to
submit to God. “Ah”, she said, “if I
were in the right church, I would”.
“The right church!” I replied,
“I don’t’ care what church you are in, if you will only submit yourself to
Christ”. “But”, she replied, “I am not
in the Catholic Church, I am not in the right church; if I were, I would
yield”. So her anxiety about the “right
church” prevented her from yielding, and she continued to harden her heart
against Christ. This is often the case, whether people are Catholics, or
whatever they are; when pressed strongly to submit, they run to some prejudice,
and immediately hide themselves behind it.
Although they can’t deny the truth of what they resist, still there is
some error or prejudice that they cling to in their resistance to the truth
that is pressing on their consciences.
Others harden themselves by indulging in a spirit of
procrastination. “I will follow Jesus”,
they begin, “but not now”. They say, “I intend to be religious”, but
when God presses them to yield, they aren’t quite ready. They say, “This is not quite the right
time”, giving to themselves one more excuse to delay in order to harden their
hearts. They have something to do that
must be attended to first. Let me ask
you, how many times have some of you, when urged to yield immediately to
Christ, have given some such reason like this for your delay?
Why are you not Christians?
Is it because your attention has never been called to this subject? Is it because you never intend to become
Christians? No? Well, what’s the matter with you? How can you keep coming up with excuses for
putting off your decision? One day, you
have one excuse; the next day, you have another excuse; and you have, in fact,
as many excuses as occasions, and these excuses come up whenever you have been
pressed immediately to surrender your heart to God. Now, I ask you if this isn’t true? Don’t you know that it is as true, as you know that you exist?
Many people strengthen themselves and harden their hearts by
refusing, whenever they can refuse, to be convicted of their sins. They have many ways of avoiding the issue;
many ways to force away the truth and harden themselves against it. Beware of the practice of excusing sin. The average sinner in this world will make
excuses for what he is doing; and at least it is enough to satisfy
himself. It’s very difficult to
convince someone against his will; it is remarkable to see how a man will evade
conviction. Go to a slaveholder, for
example, and how many excuses will he make?
How many things will he conjure up!
Sometimes he will even run to the Bible to defend himself; at other
times, he will excuse himself by saying that he knows not what to do with his
slaves; that the laws of his State forbid him to emancipate them. You may press him on every point. You may repeatedly reason with him, but it
doesn’t do any good. Men often excuse
and defend their sins this way.
Sometimes they actually deny that they sin at all when they are
pressured to give them up; but the apologies they make are apologies that God
will never accept, although they are good enough to delude themselves.
Another way that men harden themselves is that they are unwilling to come and do what is implied in becoming Christians. They reason within themselves, saying: “I must give up certain things; if I become a Christian, I must do this and that”. They realize that they must make a profession of religion and that, therefore, the eyes of the world will be on them; they see that they must then be careful how they conduct themselves. They can’t go to certain places of amusement; they must stop doing certain things they have been in the habit of doing, and which are now so dear to them. This is how they begin to count their cost. Not long ago, I was pressing an individual to give up certain forms of sin that I knew he was guilty of. “Ah”, he said, “if I begin to give up this and that, where will it all end? I must be consistent; and where shall I stop?” Where should he “stop”? It was clear that the cost was too great for him, and therefore he hardened himself and resisted God’s claims because he felt that God required too much. If he was going to become a Christian, he knew that, to do his duty, he must give up sin as sin, and that it would cost him the sacrifice of his many idols. It is a very common practice to ask people, in a general way, if they are willing to become Christians. But what if you ask them, “what they think Christianity is”? Ah! That is one thing! If you tell them what it really means to be a Christian; that is something else. Now you have urged them to count the cost, and they find it will involve too great a sacrifice. They are completely unwilling to renounce themselves and their idols; and so they commit themselves to hardening their hearts, and strengthening themselves in unbelief.
Lets look at the case I just mentioned. The conversation was concerning a particular
form of sin. Now, why didn’t he yield
at once? Why didn’t he instantly say,
“I will give it up. I know it is wrong
and inconsistent with love of God, and I will therefore renounce it”. But instead of this, he saw that the
principle on which he yielded this point would compel him to give up other
sins; and therefore, he said, “if I begin this, where shall I stop”? He gathered up all the excuses he could, and
strengthened himself in his position.
Thus, he was hardening his heart.
This was just what the Jews did when Christ preached.
Thus, men know that the call is on them to humble themselves
before God, and make restitution where they have been fraudulent in their
dealings. They see that to become
Christians, implies that they undo, as far as it lies in their power, the
wrongs they may have committed, and become honest men. They see that many things are implied in
listening to the voice of God, and becoming followers of Jesus Christ, and this
causes them to surround themselves with considerations to sustain them in their
unbelief and resistance to the authority of God. I could mention many other instances under this topic; I will not
mention any right now, but in a few words I would like to show,
III. WHY MEN SHOULD NOT
HARDEN THEIR HEARTS IN THIS WAY.
Perhaps the first thing that I mention will startle some of
you. It is this: you should not harden
your hearts, because, if you don’t harden your hearts, you will be
converted.
I have already said, that truth is so related to the mind, and the mind to the truth, that when the mind perceives the truth, with its practical bearing, this relationship acts as a powerful impulse to the mind, which encourages it to yield and conform. The truth is a natural stimulus to the mind, prompting it to act in a certain direction. Yes, the truth can be resisted; and it is this resistance, that God exhorts you to avoid. You are to let the truth take effect.
Some of you may remember that the apostle Paul says that God denounces
those who do not obey the truth, and go on in unrighteousness; that is, those
who hold the truth back, and refuse to let it influence their mind. (See Romans
2:8) The way the heart is hardened is
by refusing to yield to the truth, and withholding the mind from reaching out
in obedience to it.
Now observe, beloved, that if you simply yield to the truth,
this is conversion. Conversion is the
mind turning from error, selfishness, and sin, and yielding to the claims of
God, and obeying the commands of the Almighty.
This is conversion.
Now, the natural tendency of the truth is to stimulate our mind
to embrace and obey it. God has so
created our mind, that, as everybody knows, truth is a most powerful stimulant,
which invites and draws our mind in a given direction. Truth induces our mind to conform with its
dictates. Now, to obey the truth is
conversion. If you do not obey the
truth, it is because you harden yourself against it, and resist its influences;
for it is impossible to be indifferent to the presentation of truth, and it is
also impossible to maintain a blank indifference to the presentation of the
great practical truths of Christianity.
These truths are not merely abstract thoughts, where our mind sees no
practical value in them, but these truths are realities of such a nature that
our mind must either resist them or allow them to guide it.
The apostle knew that if they did not harden themselves, they
must surely be converted.
Another reason why you shouldn’t harden your hearts is that you
won’t be converted if you do. In other
words, if you resist the Spirit, God will never force you against your
will. If He cannot persuade you to
embrace the truth, He cannot save you by any physical act of omnipotence, as,
for example, He could create a world.
You are a free moral agent, and He can save you only in His own
way. In other words, if He cannot gain
your own consent to be saved in His own way, He cannot possibly save you at
all. If you want Him to save you by
moving your will, like I would move this lamp (Mr. Finney here moved the branch
of one of the pulpit lamps to and fro) I say, if He is to save you like I move
this lamp, He will not do it. A
physical operation cannot make you willing.
That is not how the will is controlled.
He must get your consent; and when He sends his ministers to reason with
you, when His Spirit strives with you, He strives to gain your free
consent. That is why He says, “Today,
if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts”. If conversion were a simple act of the physical omnipotence of
God, He would not exhort you not to harden your hearts; for how could you
harden your hearts against, and resist an infinitely powerful physical force?
Men, who think that conversion involves a physical change
produced by God, scoff at the idea that the sinner hardens himself against
God. People, who talk like this, assume
that conversion consists in an act of omnipotence; they seem unable to
comprehend that conversion consists in God’s securing your own consent, and
that is all. Did you ever consider
this, dying sinner? Did you ever reflect
on the fact that the only thing that is necessary is to give your consent to be
saved? You think you might be willing;
but the fact is that your obstinacy is the only real difficulty to overcome; to
get you to yield yourself up to God’s claims.
It is easy for you to see that if you harden your heart, surround yourself
with prejudices, and gather all your energies up to resist, it is easy for you
to see that you can only expect to remain unconverted. You can only expect to live, die, and perish
in your sins! As long as you harden
yourself, it is impossible for you to be converted, for conversion is the very
opposite of this resistance. Conversion
is yielding yourself up to the claims of God.
Another reason why you shouldn’t harden your heart is that you
may be given up! God may give you up to
the hardness of your heart. The Bible
shows that this is common. Whole
generations of the Jews were thus given up.
You may also be given up, and there is considerable danger that this
could happen. The same God of mercy
that now governs the world gave up on whole generations in distant past
ages. What reason do you have to think
that He will not do the same with you?
God, under the Gospel, is not more merciful than He was under the law;
He is the same God. Some think there is
little danger that this could happen these days; but the fact is that there is
more danger, because there is more light.
He gives up on people because they resist the light of the truth
concerning His claims. I beg you to consider
this.
IV. WE SHALL ASK, WHOSE
"VOICE" IS REFERRED TO HERE?
Is it the voice of a tyrant, who comes out with His omnipotent
arm to crush you? “If you will hear His
voice, harden not your hearts.” Whose
voice is it? Yes, it is the voice of
God; but, more than that, it is the voice of your Father! But is it the voice of your Father with the
rod of correction, pursuing you to subdue you by force? Oh, no!
It is the voice of His mercy; of His deepest compassion. Hear what He says: “Is Ephraim My dear
son? Is he a pleasant child? For although I spoke against him, I
earnestly remember him still; therefore My heart yearns for him; I will surely
have mercy on him.” (Jer 31:20) Although God spoke against him, yet He still
remembers him. Here,
God is like a father who has almost made up His mind to abandon a disobedient
and cruel child, whose misconduct He could not endure, and whom He found it
impossible to reform. When the father
remembers that child; his parental heart yearns for him. “I have spoken against him”, yet “I earnestly remember him still”.
God addresses you in exactly the same way. He “earnestly remembers” you. He offers to forgive you. He says, “after such a long time”. How long a time? How old are you? How many
long years has God waited for you? Just
add them up; some of you, perhaps, eighteen, twenty, twenty-five, maybe even
thirty years.
How many years have you refused to hear the voice of your
Father, your Savior; the voice of mercy, the voice of invitation, the voice of
promise, the voice of reason, and even of entreaty? By His providence, the work of the Holy Spirit, the Bible, and
his servants--how many ways has His voice reached you? And now He says, “after such a long time”!
A few more remarks must close what I have to say; and my first
remark is this: people often mistake the true nature of hardness of heart. Thinking that it is involuntary, they lament
it as a misfortune, rather than regard it as a crime. They think that the state of apathy, that results from the resistance
of their will, is hardness of heart. It
is true that the mind apologizes to itself for resisting the claims of God,
and, as a natural result, there is very little feeling in the mind, because the
mind must exercise enough of its powers to produce a great lack of feeling. This is hardening of the heart. This is the act of the mind in resisting the
claims of God. For people to excuse
themselves, by complaining that their hearts are hard, is only to adding insult
to injury. They resist God’s claims,
and then complain about the hardness this resistance produces. They harden themselves in the ways we have
stated, becoming obstinate against God, and then they complain about the
results of their own actions. Now, is
this the way?
It is worthy to note that the claims, commands, promises, and
invitations of God are all in the present tense. Turn to the Bible, and from end to end, you will find it is,
“Today” if you will hear His voice.
“Now” is the accepted time. God
says nothing about tomorrow; He does not even guarantee that we shall live
until then. It is “today”, after such a
long time, don’t harden your hearts”.
The plea of inability is one of the most wretched, abusive, and blasphemous of all pleas. What! Are you unable to refrain from hardening yourselves? I have already said, and you all know, that it is the nature of truth to influence your mind when your mind receives it; and when the Spirit converts someone, it is by presenting the truth to gain his consent. Now, if there wasn’t something in the truth itself adapted to influence your mind, He might continue to present the truth forever without you ever being converted. It is because the truth influences, it is because there is something in the very nature of truth, which tends to influence the mind of man. Now, when people complain that they are unable to embrace the truth they commit a deadly error! God approaches with offers of mercy, and with the cup of salvation in His hand, saying, “Sinner! I am coming! Beware not to harden yourself. Do not argue. Do not hide behind professing Christians. Do not procrastinate because I am coming to win you.”
Now, what does the sinner do?
Why, he falls into hardening his heart, procrastinating, making all kind
of excuses, and pleading that he is unable.
Unable! What! Is a man unable to refrain from surrounding
himself with considerations that make him stubborn? Is he unable to abandon this soul-destroying business of
hardening himself? Oh! Sinner, you are able!
This is a most abusive way
of treating God. Why, just think. Here is God trying to gain the sinner’s consent,
to what? Not be sent to hell? Oh, no!
He is not trying to persuade you so you can harden yourself and decide
to lie down in everlasting sorrow. Oh, no!
He is not trying to persuade you to do anything, or to consent to
anything, that will harm you. Oh,
no! He is not trying to persuade you to
give up anything that is really good, anything that will make you wretched or unhappy
if you give it up. He is not trying to
persuade you to give up all joy, and everything that is pleasant; to give up
things that tend to peace. He is not
trying to persuade you to do anything like this. Concerning all such things, He is not only willing that you
should have them, but He wants to bring you into a state in which you can
really enjoy them. He cries out,
“Sinner! Do yourself no harm!” He is trying to prevent you from injuring
yourself. He’s not trying to do
anything that will interfere with your well-being or happiness. He is trying to prevent you from ruining
yourselves, and He is trying to get your consent to be blessed. Will it hurt you to give up your sins? God sent Christ to turn you away from those
courses that, by a natural law, will lead you to ruin. What is it then that God wants you to do?
What is that sweet voice which calls so sweetly from
heaven? It should melt all stubbornness
away. It is the voice of His infinite
compassion and love. Oh, sinner, don’t
destroy your own soul! Don’t flee from
the Savior who has come to save you!
Don’t harden yourself against the offered mercy; and now that the cross
of salvation is passed around from lip to lip, do not push it away! What are you doing? Has God come to hurt you? If He had come in wrath, He wouldn’t care
whether you harden your heart or not. O
sinner! If you place Him in such a
situation that His infinite heart must make the sacrifice, when you enter into
judgment, He will not tell you not to harden yourself. Then you may harden yourself if you
can. He says, “Can your heart endure,
or can your hands remain strong, in the days when I shall deal with you”. Oh, no!
But right now, it is different.
Now He comes and sweetly tries to win you. He comes as a friend, as a Father, as a Savior, spreading out His
broad arms of love to embrace every one of you, drawing you so near to His
great, gushing heart as to thrill its tides of eternal love through your whole
being. Oh! Will you resist?
What! “After such a long
time!” Oh! Sinner, isn’t it infinitely inexcusable? Shall He fail to get your consent? Then, when you stand before Him in solemn
judgment, and the whole universe shall be gathered together, He will publish
the fact of how, after He tried to spread out His broad, beneficial arms of
love over you. How he tried to gather
you under the wings of His protection; but you would not! He couldn’t gain your consent! What!
Shall it be told of any of you in the solemn judgment, that God couldn’t
possibly gain your consent to the only terms on which He could possibly save you? Oh!
When He wipes His hands, as it were, and exclaims, “I am clear of your
blood." what will you say?
God will have the eternal consolation of knowing that He has
made every effort to get you to consent, that He could wisely make. You will have to say, “The fault was my own,
and I have been an infinite fool! I
have resisted the claims of Christ, hardened myself against His dying love, and
cast away my soul!” Sinners! How many times have you been invited? Can you remember? How many times have you seen the Lord’s Table spread? Are you prepared to partake of the elements
now about to be spread, the solemn vow of your attachment to Christ? How many times, I ask again, have you been
invited? Haven’t you had enough of sin? How much more do you want? Let me ask you another question. How much longer would you like to live in
your sins? How many years have you already
devoted to them? Do you think God
should allow you to enjoy a little more sin?
Suppose He, personally, asked the question, “Do you think I should allow
you to live any longer in your sins? Do
you think I should let you live to remain in rebellion any longer?” Suppose He should say, “Unless I fan your
heaving lungs while you’re sleeping tonight you will be lost. Unless I keep you, you will lie down in hell
before morning. Now, do you think I
should keep you alive to sin against me another day? Do you think that when you lie down in your sins, I should watch
over you, and see that you don’t die; and make sure that Satan does not steal
your soul away, and drag you down into the depths of hell?” Do you dare to look the Eternal God in the
face and say, “Yes, Lord, I think I should indulge in sin a little longer, and
not be hurried this way!” No,
indeed! You know you are without excuse. You can only say that you are “infinitely to
blame”, and you are in infinite danger if you don’t stop sinning and yield
yourself up tonight.
(Mr. Finney, after a short prayer, dismissed the congregation,
while the church remained to celebrate the Lord’s Supper; however, seeing that
between three and four hundred people remained in their seats, as “spectators”,
in the spacious galleries, Mr. Finney, after the administration of the
ordinance by the pastor, the Rev. Dr. Campbell, he again addressed the
assembly.)
Christ has invited you to “do this in remembrance” of Him. Whose business is this? Is it your business only, or my business
only; or are we both equally obligated?
Did Christ die for you, and not for me, or for me, and not for you? Or did He give Himself up for us all? Surely it is the duty of all to “do this”
for who Christ died. Did He tell you to
“do this”, and you have never done it?
How come? I want to know why you
have never done it? Is it because you
are not a Christian? Why aren’t
you? When Dr. Campbell (the pastor of
the church) announced that the communicants would seat themselves below, while
the spectators would retire to the gallery, I said to myself, “Spectators! Non-communicants! Who are these non-communicants?
Does this mean that there are those of Adam’s race for whom Christ has
not died? Are there those who will thus
openly acknowledge that they have “no part or lot in the matter”? Suppose, now, that Christ had actually died
for only a part of mankind, and you knew that it had no more reference to you
non-communicants in the gallery than to the fallen angels! If you knew this, why, of course, I would
expect to see you non-communicants; for why would you celebrate His death if
His blood were not shed for you? You
might then reasonably excuse yourselves.
But, if this were true, how could you sit around that gallery
and look on? Now, do take this view of
the matter, and consider it for a moment.
However, Christ says, “let him who thirsts come. And whoever desires, let him take the water
of life freely”. (Rev. 22:17) “Come unto Me and be saved all ye ends of
the earth”. Suppose, then, that the cup
were handed around to you; would you say, “Oh!
I am not prepared; I am not a Christian?” Why aren’t you? You shut
yourself out by your own consent.
Not prepared? You are
neglecting Christ, and hardening your hearts against Him. That is the reason you are not prepared.
Not prepared? Just
think of it! Who is it that requires
you to do this? It is a friend, a dying
friend, a friend dying in your place.
What does He say? He says, “I am
going to offer up My life just for you; break this bread, pour out this wine,
and partake of them in remembrance of Me.
Partake of all of it, and when you do, remember My struggle, My groans,
My agony, and My death.” Will you obey
this dying injunction? Why, then, do
you turn you backs on it?
Suppose that a mortal should do you a similar favor? Suppose a fellow person should bleed and die
in your place, and in the agony of death, he takes a ring from his finger and
says “Here, dear friend, take this, wear it, look at it, and as often as you do
so, remember me!” How would you regard
this love? How would you regard this
token presented in the hour of nature’s final struggle? Would you carelessly toss the ring
away? Suppose any one should say, “Give
me that ring”; or, “How much will you take for it”? How much would you take for it?
Why you would sooner part with your heart’s blood than lose it; and if
they asked why you so prized it, you would tell them your simple story, and assure
them that nothing could influence you to part with it.
Now, think of this! Yet
when Christ made an effort to save you from endless death, by allowing Himself
to die in your place, how indifferent you are!
Was it a mere ring? No! He took bread and broke it, saying, “This is
my body which was broken for you”; He took wine and poured it out, saying,
“This is my blood which was shed for you, do this in remembrance of Me”. Who is to do this? Why, all of you, seeing that it was for all of you that his blood
was shed.
But you say, “I won’t do this”, and turn your back on what
Christ has done. What must the angels
think, when they see a number of people for whom Christ died, and to whom He
said, “Do this in remembrance of Me”, but who will not do it? If there can be amazement in heaven, surely
this would cause it.
Now, will you ever neglect it again? I remember an individual who was present at a meeting just like
this. When the question came up about
his long neglect, when he was so impressed by the consideration of the sin and
danger of his position, he resolved on the spot that he would never voluntarily
neglect it again. At the next
communion, he was there, and could rejoice in the resolution he had made, to
draw near that great heart of love.
After that, he was always one of the first at the table.
What do you say tonight?
Now think of this when you lay your head on your pillow tonight. Can you say, “Lord, tonight I have rejected
You publicly before the whole congregation”.
Try to go to sleep, but say first, “Lord, don’t let me die tonight, I
have just come away from your table and refused to acknowledge You, and don’t
let me go to hell tonight.”
Would you not blush to talk like this? Would you not rather say, “O my God! I have tonight rejected Jesus, and how dare I sleep in my sins? Tonight, Lord, I, in my heart, give You a solemn pledge that, by Your grace, I will never turn my back on that ordinance again. It will never be said of me (by Your grace), that I am not prepared. I will remember You; and in the presence of heaven and earth, I will manifest my gratitude to You from this time forward.” Oh! Let it be written in heaven!