Morning, April 8
Go To Evening Reading
“If they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the
dry?”
Luke 23:31
Among other interpretations of this suggestive question, the following
is full of teaching: “If the innocent substitute for sinners, suffer thus, what will be
done when the sinner himself—the dry tree—shall fall into the hands of an angry God?” When God saw Jesus in the sinner’s place, he did not spare him; and when he finds the unregenerate
without Christ, he will not spare them. O sinner, Jesus was led away
by his enemies: so shall you be dragged away by fiends to the place
appointed for you. Jesus was deserted of God; and if he, who was only
imputedly a sinner, was deserted, how much more shall you be? “ Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani ?” what an awful shriek! But what shall be your cry when you shall say,
“O God! O God! why hast thou forsaken me?” and the answer shall come back, “Because ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my
reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your
fear cometh.” If God spared not his own Son, how much less will he spare you! What
whips of burning wire will be yours when conscience shall smite you
with all its terrors. Ye richest, ye merriest, ye most self-righteous
sinners—who would stand in your place when God shall say, “Awake, O sword, against the man that rejected me; smite him, and let
him feel the smart forever”? Jesus was spit upon: sinner, what shame will be yours! We cannot
sum up in one word all the mass of sorrows which met upon the head
of Jesus who died for us; therefore it is impossible for us to tell
you what streams, what oceans of grief must roll over your spirit if you die as you now are. You may die so, you may die now.
By the agonies of Christ, by his wounds and by his blood, do not bring
upon yourselves the wrath to come! Trust in the Son of God, and you
shall never die.