Without Christ (2)

(b) For another thing, to be without Christ is to be without peace. Every man has a conscience within him, which must be satisfied before he can be truly happy. So long as this conscience is asleep or half dead, so long, no doubt, he gets along pretty well. But as soon as a man’s conscience wakes up, and he begins to think of past sins, and present failings, and future judgment, at once he finds out that he needs something to give him inward rest. But what can do it? Repenting, and praying, and Bible-reading, and church-going, and sacrament-receiving, and self-mortification may be tried, and tried in vain. They never yet took off the burden from anyone’s conscience. And yet peace must be had!

There is only one thing can give peace to the conscience, and 259that is the blood of Jesus Christ sprinkled on it. A clear understanding that Christ’s death was an actual payment of our debt to God, and that the merit of that death is made over to man when he believes, is the grand secret of inward peace. It meets every craving of conscience. It answers every accusation. It calms every fear. It is written, “These things I have spoken unto you, that in Me ye might have peace.” “He is our peace.” “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (John xvi. 33; Ephes. ii. 14; Rom. v. 1.) We have peace through the blood of His cross: peace like a deep mine—peace like an everflowing stream. But “without Christ” we are without peace.

(e) For another thing, to be without Christ is to be without hope. Hope of some sort or other almost everyone thinks he possesses. Rarely indeed will you find a man who will boldly tell you that he has no hope at all about his soul. But how few there are that can give “a reason of the hope that is in them!” (1 Pet. iii. 15.) How few can explain it, describe it, and show its foundations! How many a hope is nothing better than a vague, empty feeling, which the day of sickness and the hour of death will prove to be utterly useless—impotent alike to comfort or to save.

There is but one hope that has roots, life, strength and solidity, and that is the hope which is built on the great rock of Christ’s work and office as man’s Redeemer. “Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor. iii. 11.) He that buildeth on this cornerstone “shall not be confounded.” About this hope there is reality. It will bear looking at and handling. It will meet every enquiry. Search it through and through, and you will find no flaw whatever in it. All other hopes besides this are worthless. Like summer-dried fountains, they fail man just when his need is the sorest. They are like unsound ships, which look well so long as they lie quiet in harbour, but when the winds and the waves of the ocean begin to try them, their rotten condition is discovered, and they sink beneath the waters. There is no such thing as a good hope without Christ, and “without Christ” is to have “no hope.” (Eph. ii. 12.)

(d) For another thing, to be without Christ is to be without heaven. In saying this I do not merely mean that there is no entrance into heaven, but that “without Christ” there could be no happiness in being there. A man without a Saviour and Redeemer could never feel at home in heaven. He would feel that he had no lawful right or title to be there: boldness and confidence and ease of heart would be impossible. Amidst pure and holy angels, under the eyes of a pure and holy God, he could not hold up his head: he would feel confounded and ashamed. It is the very essence of all true views of heaven that Christ is there.

Who art thou that dreamest of a heaven in which Christ has no place? Awake to know thy folly. Know that in every description of heaven which the Bible contains, the presence of Christ is one essential feature. “In the midst of the throne,” says St, John, “stood a Lamb as it had been slain.” The very throne of heaven is called the “throne of God and of the Lamb.”—“The Lamb is the light of heaven, and the temple of it.”—The saints who dwell in heaven are to be “fed by the Lamb,” and “led to living fountains of waters.” The meeting of the saints in heaven is called, “the marriage supper of the Lamb.” (Rev. v. 6; xxii. 3; xxi. 22, 23; vii. 17; xix. 9.) A heaven without Christ would not be the heaven of the Bible. To be “without Christ” is to be without heaven.

I might easily add to these things. I might tell you that to be without Christ is to be without fife, without strength, without safety, without foundation, without a friend in heaven, without righteousness. None so badly off as those that are without Christ!

What the ark was to Noah, what the passover lamb was to Israel in Egypt, what the manna, the smitten rock, the brazen serpent, the pillar of cloud and fire, the scapegoat, were to the tribes in the wilderness, all this the Lord Jesus is meant to be to man’s soul. None so destitute as those that are without Christ!

What the root is to the branches, what the air is to our lungs, what food and water are to our bodies, what the sun is to creation, all this and much more Christ is intended to be to us. None so helpless, none so pitiable as those that are without Christ!

I grant that, if there were no such things as sickness and death—if men and women never grew old, and lived on this earth for ever—the subject of this paper would be of no importance. But you must know that sickness, death, and the grave are sad realities.

If this life were all—if there were no judgment, no heaven, no hell, no eternity—it would be mere waste of time to trouble yourself with such inquiries as this tract suggests. But you have got a conscience. You know well that there is a reckoning-day beyond the grave. There is a judgment yet to come.

Surely the subject of this paper is no light matter. It is not a small thing, and one that does not signify. It demands the attention of every sensible person. It lies at the very root of that all-important question, the salvation of our souls. To be “without Christ” is to be most miserable.

(1) And now I ask every one who has read this paper through to examine himself and find out his own precise condition. Are you without Christ?

Do not allow life to pass away without some serious thoughts and self-inquiry. You cannot always go on as you do now. A 261day must come when eating, and drinking, and sleeping, and dressing, and making merry, and spending money, will have an end. There will be a day when your place will be empty and you will be only spoken of as one dead and gone. And where will you be then^ if you have lived and died without thought about your soul, without God, and without Christ? Oh, remember, it is better a thousand times to be without money, and health, and friends, and company, and good cheer, than to be without Christ!

(2) If you have lived without Christ hitherto, I invite you in all affection to change your course without delay. Seek the Lord Jesus while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. He is sitting at God’s right hand, able to save to the uttermost everyone who comes to Him, however sinful and careless he may have been. He is sitting at God’s right hand, willing to hear the prayer of every one who feels that his past life has been all wrong, and wants to be set right. Seek Christ, seek Christ without delay. Acquaint yourself with Him. Do not be ashamed to apply to Him. Only become one of Christ’s friends this year, and you will say one day it was the happiest year that you ever had.

(3) If you have become one of Christ’s friends already, I exhort you to be a thankful man. Awake to a deeper sense of the infinite mercy of having an Almighty Saviour, a title to heaven, a home that is eternal, a Friend that never dies! A few more years and all our family gatherings will be over. What a comfort to think that we have in Christ something that we can never lose!

Awake to a deeper sense of the sorrowful state of those who are “without Christ.” We are often reminded of the many who are without food, or clothing, or school, or church. Let us pity them, and help them, as far as we can. But let us never forget that there are people whose state is far more pitiable. Who are they? The people “without Christ!”

Have we relatives “without Christ”? Let us feel for them, pray for them, speak to the King about them, strive to recommend the Gospel to them. Let us leave no stone unturned in our efforts to bring them to Christ.

Have we neighbours “without Christ”? Let us labour in every way for their souls’ salvation. The night cometh when none can work. Happy is he who lives under the abiding conviction that to be “in Christ” is peace, safety, and happiness; and that to be “without Christ” is to be on the brink of destruction.