THE GOSPEL TRUMPET.

Te Aroha News, Volume XVI, Issue 222034, 9 January 1900, Page 3

THE GOSPEL TRUMPET.

* All have sinned.’— Rom. iii. 23.

Tm* is the Divine sentence passed Upon all men for that ‘all have sinned*—‘the soul that sinneth it shall die.* Not the soul that sinneth much, or the soul that sinneth little, but

the soul that sinneth it shall die. And to every man or woman in the jMßttthe sentence of God’s justice is Oh, wicked man—whether are outward, or whether they are merely the sins of the heart which the eye of man has never seen, but which lie patent before the eye of the Almighty—Oh, wicked man, thou shalt surely die! That is God’s sensin. At the moment ~4M|Km disobeyed God he died. 'Was Adam damned the moment he died? No, but he died. ‘ln the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.’ Death entered into Aun the very moment he sinned |l|Bfc3t God. What was that death ? not drop down there and then in the Divine presence. No, he lived hundreds of years afterwards. But he was dead at that moment. What was that? When God created man He ‘ breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life.’ There came into man’s nature a power that emanated from God Himself, and bound him to its souroe. But the moment that that first created man sinned, that moment the blessed connecting link between God the author of life and mao, the recipient of life, was severed, and the result was death. Wherever sin is it cuts us off from God; for God is holy. Our sin may have been a very keen,. tool, but it has done its It has severed us from our is all, but it is enough, and ‘wo are dead in trespasses and sins’ (Ep. ii.). In God’s sight the fatal issue is already preconceived. God already sees you iost sinner. Hell is eternal death ; but it is only the development of a death which has begun already Oh ! friend, do you not know that if God were now to look you in the face you would i not have to ask Him, ‘ Dost Thou judge me to be guilty or innocent ’ ? No, you would rather ‘ call to the rocks and mountains to hide you,’ for you would know —alas, how well!—

jthat ■L brand op god’s condemnation ' #as upon your brow; and yet you go on, from day to day, year to year, unconcernedly—a condemned sou ! Devils know it and exult in it; ange's know it and mourn over it; G;d knows it ; your own conscience knows it; and the sooner you own it and confess it to God, and moke common cause with Him in the matter, the better for yourself. Go to your balls, go to --- your, theatres, , bedia n ysor bodies, deck your houses, rush into all sorts of worldly excitement, but all the while just repeat to yourself, ‘ I am a sinner nnder sentence of death,’ CONDEMNED CONDEMNED ALREADY. voice of Eternal Truth hath said ‘He that believeth not is con demned already ’ (John iii. 18). There is no necessity to wait for the Judgment day the grand yet awful spectacle of the Great White Throne. Your doom is sealed already if yon do not repent. Yet God hath provided Himself a Lamb for a burnt offering. * Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World.’ There was but One Being who was pure enough, there was but One who. was pitiful enough, there was but One Being who could be trusted with the

TREMENDOUS. ISSUES OF ETERNITY Testing upon Him. That On© Being jfc was discovered, not among the denizens of a brighter world, ia the very bosom of the Father — the very heart of God. ' GOD OF (SOD, LIGHT'of LIGHT -.-.--'Behold! there He hangs with the world’s guilt upoo H:m, representing and bearing in His own person the f entire sin of humanity, from the first i -disobedience till the final stroke (2 V Peter iii. 7), . when a guilty world, smitten with God’s vengeance, shall roll down to the doom that it has deserved. . There he hangs! His head is bowed, His heart is breaking. All around Him there is darkness. What jfpee"* that darkness? What means that wild, that melancholy cry—that of agony, wrung from an excrufrom a breaking heart ? What ‘My God! My God! why hast „ Thou forsaken Me ? ’ Surely it means that the Son of God has become the "* r representative of man. The Lamb of God has become the Sin-bearer. Sin done its baneful work. Sin BEACHING out its deadly hand 0*- jj a 9 touched that innocent soul, severing oommunion with a holy God—His Father. There He hangs in solitude and in darkness. The light which had followed Him in all His weary — the light which had "*beamed forthjresh and full into His soul, with the very jubilee of faking the shadows of oarth to flee that light of His Father’s favour is eclipsed. He, the eternal Prince and Lord of life, becomes subject to the malignant power W' c f death. Now our eyes are open and we gaze upon the scpue with, oh! what interest! Side by side with this Lamb of God we see the whole human Pb- family. Oh, let us in thought gather T tens ofvmillions of our race round V" the cross. We watch every feature V 0 f that agonized face, with the inward

consciousness that, upon the dying sufferings of that bleeding .Lamb, our own eternal interests are depending; and that if His firm will yields, if His heart give way, if, under the

SUPERNATURAL, HELLISH PRESSURE, the L*ve of Jesus for one moment fails —if lifting up those dying, languid eyes to His Father, He should plead for ten legions of angels to deliver TTim from the anguish of His despair —if He blanch or flinch or hesitate, or give place to a single thought out of harmony to the Divine purpose, that very moment our future is decided, we are lost for ever ! But, glory be to TTia name, He did not flinch, He did not quail. The slow hours rolled away like so many eternities- still he hung there! By slow degrees that heart of His was sinking under the immeasurable load of human guilt— SINKING ! SINKING ! SINKING ! Oh! Lamb of God! how that heart of Thine did sink! Deep calleth unto deep because of Thy waterspouts ; all Thy waves and Thy billows have gone over me. But

TRIUMPH CROWNS THE TRAGEDY. There He hung while the hours crept on their tardy course; then there came a voice of triumph, even from out the very depths of nature’s despair, as He cried ‘lt is finished! 3 and in another moment the smile of-peace is resting on His dying features. ‘ Father,’ he cries again, ‘ into Thy hands I commend My spirit ’; and when He had said this He gave up the ghost. God saw it and was satisfied. Sinner, are you ? WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST 1 Truth.