Daily Prayer - Fly to the shelter of His cross

Good Monday morning, my friends.

 

Something a little more serious than usual this morning.  The message below is from a sermon given by Charles Spurgeon in March of 1866:

 

‘It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.’ Hebrews 10:31

 

It is the highest benevolence to warn men of their danger, and to exhort them to escape from the wrath which will surely come upon them, for ‘It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.’ We feel that it must be a fearful thing to be punished for sin when you remember the atonement. It is our full belief as Christians, that, in order to pardon human sin, it was necessary that God himself should become incarnate, and that the Son of God should suffer excruciating pains, to which the dignity of his person added infinite weight. Brethren, if the wrath of God be a mere trifle, there was no need of a Saviour to deliver us; it were as well to have let so small a matter take its course; or, if the Saviour came merely to save us from a pinch or two, why is so much said in his praise? What need for heaven and earth to ring with the glories of him who would save us from a small mischief? But mark the word. As the sufferings of the Saviour were intense beyond all conception, and as no less a person than God himself must endure these sufferings for us, that must have been an awful, not to say infinite evil, from which there was no other way for us to escape except by the bleeding and dying of God’s dear Son.

 

Think lightly of hell, and you will think lightly of the cross. Think little of the sufferings of lost souls, and you will soon think little of the Saviour who delivers you from them. God grant we may not live to see such a Christ-dishonouring theology dominant in our times.

 

Unfortunately, it seems that we have lived to see just this happen.  Many "churches" have watered down the Gospel to remove the need for atonement so as not to offend.  However, eternal suffering is the fate of those who reject God. Our mission in life is to provide them hope by telling them of the great sacrifice that was offered on their behalf.

 

 

Grace and peace be yours in abundance,

Bruce

 

 

And will the Judge descend,

And must the dead arise

And not a single soul escape

His all-discerning eyes?

 

And from His righteous lips

Shall this dread sentence sound

And thro' the num'rous guilty throng

Spread black despair around:

 

"Depart from Me, accursed,

To everlasting flame,

For rebel angels first prepared,

Where mercy never came"?

 

How will my heart endure

The terrors of that Day

When earth and heav'n before His face

Astonished shrink away?

 

But ere that trumpet shakes

The mansions of the dead,

Hark from the Gospel's cheering sound

What joyful tidings spread:

 

Ye sinners, seek His grace

Whose wrath ye cannot bear;

Fly to the shelter of His cross

And find salvation there.

 

(Philip Doddridge, 1755)