II. Now very briefly upon the second point. Listen awhile to THE TERRIBLE COMPARISON. "The ungodly are like the chaff." They are not like the wild tree, for that hath life, and they are dead in sin. They are not compared here even to the dead tree plucked up by the roots, for that may be of some service. Floating down the stream, the hand of poverty may recall it from the water, and kindle its fire and relieve its cold. They are not even like the heath in the desert, for it hath some uses, and tends to cheer the arid waste. They are like nothing that hath life, nothing that is of any value. They are here said to be like chaff which the wind driveth away. Now you will at once see how terrible is this figure, if you look at it a moment. They are like chaff. Chaff envelopes good corn, but when the wheat is cut down and carried into the barn, the corn alone is useful, the grain alone is looked at, and that chaff which has grown side by side with the good living wheat, is now become utterly useless, and is to be separated and driven away. And the wicked are compared to chaff—think for a moment, of two or three reasons. First, because they are sapless and fruitless. Chaff hath no sap of life in itself. It is of no use, of no service. Men do but desire to get rid of it. They take the fan into their hands that they may thoroughly purge their floor. They cast up the wheat before the wind with the winnowing shovel, that the breath of the air may blow away the chaff, and leave the wheat pure. All that they care for the chaff is that they may get rid of it, that it may be blown away to waste, for it is sapless and fruitless. Then again you notice that it is light and unstable. The wind sweeps through the wheat, the wheat remains unmoved, the chaff flies away. When cast up in the shovel, the wheat soon finds its place, and returns to the spot from which it has been lifted up; but the chaff is light, it has no stability. Every eddying wind, every breath moves it and carries it away. So are the ungodly. They have nothing stable; they are light, they are but as the froth upon the water; they are but as a bubble on the breaker, seen to day and gone, here and there, and then carried away for ever. Again, the wicked are compared to chaff because it is base and worthless. Who will buy it? Who cares for it? In the East at least it is of no good, no use whatever can be made of it. They are content to burn it up and get rid of it, and the sooner they are rid of it, the better pleased are they. So is it with the wicked. They are good for nothing, useless in this world, useless in the world to come. They are the dross, the offal of all creation. The man who is ungodly, however much he may value himself, is as nothing in the estimation of God. Put a gold chain round his neck, put a star upon his breast, put a crown upon his head, and what is he but a crowned heap of dust, useless, perhaps worse than useless. Base in God's sight, he tramples them beneath his feet. The potter's vessel hath some service, and even the broken potsherd might be used. Some Job might scrape himself with it. But what shall be done with the chaff? It is of no use anywhere, and no one careth for it.
See, then, your value, my hearers, if you fear not God. Cast up your accounts and look at yourselves in the right light. You think, perhaps, that you are good for much, but God saith you are good for nothing. You are "like the chaff which the wind driveth away." I linger no more upon this comparison, but choose, rather to dwell upon the third head, which was this:—
III. THE AWFUL PROPHECY contained in the Verse—"They are like the chaff which the wind driveth away." How near the chaff is to the grain! It is, in fact, its envelope; they grow together. My hearers, I wish to speak now very pointedly and personally. How nearly related are the ungodly to the righteous! One of you, it may be, now present, an ungodly man, is the father of a godly child. You have been to that child what the chaff is to the wheat; you have nourished the child—cherished it in your bosom; you have been wrapt about it like the chaff about the grain. Is it not an awful thing for you to think that you should have been in such close relationship to a child of God, but that in the great day of division you must be separated from it? The chaff cannot be taken into heaven with the wheat. I point to another. You are the son of a godly mother; you have grown up at her knee. She taught you, when you were but a little one, to say your little prayer, and to sing the little hymn,
"Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, look upon a little child."
That mother looked upon you as her joy and her comfort. She is gone now. But you were once to her what the chaff is to the wheat. You grew, as it were, upon the same stock, you were of the same family, and her heart was wholly wrapt up in you. You were her joy and her comfort here below. Does it not cause you one pang of regret that, dying as you are, you must everlastingly be separated from her? Where she is you can never come. Mayhap, too, I have here a mother who has lost several infants; she has been to those infants what the chaff is to the wheat—wrapt up in her bosom for a little while she fondled them; and they, God's good wheat, have been gathered into the garner, and there they are now in Jesu's floor. There are their little spirits rejoicing before the throne of the Most High. The mother who is left thinks not of it, but she is the mother of angels, and, perhaps, herself a child of hell. Ah, mother! what think you of this? Is this' separation from your child eternal? Will you be content to be found at God's great winnowing-day, the chaff, and will you be driven from your children? Shall you see them in heaven—them in heaven, and yourselves then cast out for ever? Can you bear the thought? Hath your heart become brutish? Is your soul harder than a nether mill-stone? Surely, if it be not, the thought of your present intimate connection with God's people, and of your sure separation, will make you tremble. And oh! my hearers here are some of you sitting side by side with the godly. You sing as they sing, you hear as they hear. Perhaps you assist the outward wants of the church. You are to the church just what the chaff is to the wheat. You are the outward husk, the congregation which surrounds the inner living nucleus of the church. And must it be—must you be separated from us? Are you content to go from the songs of the saints to the shrieks of the doomed? Will you go from the great convocation of the righteous to the last general assembly of the destroyed and cursed in hell? The thought checks my voice. I must speak slowly on this matter for awhile. Well, dear brethren, well I know that this thought used to be dreadful to me. My mother said to me once, after she had long prayed for me, and had come to the conviction that I was hopeless, "Ah," said she "My son, if at the last great day you are condemned, remember your mother will say Amen to your condemnation." That stung me to the quick. Must the mother that brought me forth and that loved me say "Amen" to my being condemned at last? Yet such things must be. Doth not the wheat say Amen to the chaff being blown away? Is it not in fact the very prayer of the wheat that it may be separated from the chaff? and surely when that prayer is heard, and awfully answered, the wheat must say Amen to the chaff being blown away into fire unquenchable. Think, my dear hearers, think again. And must it be—must I bid farewell to her I love, who served the Lord in spirit. Must I see her body committed to the grave, and as I stand there must I bid her a last, a final farewell? Must I be for ever separated from her, because I fear not God, neither regard him, and therefore cannot have a portion amongst the Lord's chosen ones? What, have you lost your relatives for ever? Are your pious fathers and mothers buried in a "sure and certain hope" to which you are strangers? Will you never sing the song of rejoicing with them in heaven? Is there never to be another salutation? Is death a gulf that cannot be bridged to you? Oh, I hope it is the joy of some of us to know we shall meet many of our kindred above, and as we have lost one after another this has been our sweet consolation they are gone and we shall soon follow them; they are not lost but gone before; they are buried as to their flesh, but their souls are in Paradise, and we shall be there also; and, when we have seen our Saviour's face and have rejoiced in that glorious vision, then shall we see them also, and have deeper and purer fellowship with them than we ever had before in all the days of our lives. Well, here is a sad prophecy! The wicked are "like the chaff which the wind driveth away."
But you will remark that the awful character of my text does not appear upon the surface. They "are like the chaff which the wind driveth away." Where—where—where? Where are they driven? The man is in health; the sun shines, the sky is calm, the world is still about him. Suddenly there is seen a little cloud the size of a man's hand. A little signal overtakes him. The hurricane begins to rise but first it is but a faint breath. The wicked man feels the cold air blowing on him, but he screens it with the physician, and he thinks that surely he shall live. The storm is on. God hath decreed it, and man cannot stay it. The breath becomes a gale, the gale a wind, the wind a storm, the storm a howling hurricane. His soul is swept away. To go to heaven on angels' wings is a glorious thing; but to be swept out of this world with the wicked is an awful thing—to be carried, not on wings of cherubs, but on the eagle wings of the wind; to be borne, not by yon songsters up to their celestial seats, but to be carried away in the midst of a howling tempest by grim fiends. The wicked are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Do you not catch the thought? I do not know how to bring out the fullness of its poetry—the great storm sweeping man from the place on which he stands. He is driven away. And now cannot your thoughts go further on while I again repeat the question, Whither is he driven? Ah! Whither is he driven? I see him driven from the solid shore of life. He is carried away. But—
"In vain my fancy strives to paint the moment after death."
I cannot tell you into what state that soul at once enters, that is to say, I cannot tell you by any guess of my own—that were frivolous, and were to play with a solemn matter; but I can tell you one thing, Jesus Christ himself hath said it—"He shall burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." You die, but you die not. You depart, but you depart to fire that never shall be quenched. I will not dwell upon the topic. I return again to ask the question—"Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" Who here is prepared to make his bed in hell? Who shall lie down and rest for ever in that lake of fire? You must, my hearers, if you are ungodly, except you repent. Are there none of you behind me there, who have been living without Christ, and without hope in the world? Are there none of you? Surely there are some such. I beseech you, think of your destiny—death, and after death the judgment. The wind, and after the wind the whirlwind, and after the whirlwind the fire, and after the fire nothing—for ever for ever, for ever lost, cast away, where ray of hope can never come; where eye of mercy can never look upon you, and hand of grace can never reach you. I beseech you, oh, I beseech you by the living God, before whom you stand this day, tremble and repent. "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little." "Tophet is ordained of old, yea, for the king it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large; the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it." "Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die O house of Israel?" "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon."
Oh, I pray God the Holy Spirit to touch some ungodly hearts now, and make you think. And remember my dear hearers, if there be in your bosoms this morning one desire towards Christ, cherish it, blow the little spark till it comes to a flame. If your heart melts ever so little this morning, I beseech you resist not, quench not the heavenly influence. Yield up yourselves and remember the sweet text of last Sunday morning, "whosoever will, let him come and take the water of life freely." I thunder at you, but it is to bring you to Christ. Oh that you would but come to him! Oh poor hearts would that ye did but feel! Oh, that ye knew how to weep for yourselves as I could weep for you now. Oh, that ye knew what a fearful thing it will be to be cast away for ever! Why will ye die? Is there anything pleasing in destruction? Is sin so luscious to you that you will burn in hell for ever for it? What, is Christ so hard a master that you will not love him? Is his cross so ugly that ye will not look towards it? Oh, I beseech you by him whose heart is love, the crucified Redeemer, who now speaks through me this morning, and in me weeps over you, I beseech you look to him and be saved, for he came into the world to seek and to save that which was lost, and him that cometh to him he will in nowise cast out, for "he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him."
To-day, O Spirit bring sinners to thyself. I exhort you, sinners, lay hold on Christ. Touch the hem of his garment now. Behold, he hangs before you on the cross. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. even so is Jesus lifted up. Look, I beseech you, look and live. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. As though God did beseech you by me, I pray you in Christ's stead be ye reconciled to God. And O may the Spirit make my appeal effectual! May angels rejoice this day over sinners saved and brought to know the Lord.
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