“And is this the sense in which every soul will be destroyed who refuses to hear this Prophet?  Most assuredly it is.  O, friends, how shall I tell you the difference between a soul saved and a soul destroyed?  The one is forever happy, the other forever miserable.  The one is an eye that sees and enjoys all the beauties of earth and sky, the other is an eye forever blind.  The one is an ear that will forever hear the melodies of heaven, the other is an ear forever deaf to all but the wailings of hell.  The one is a ship completely rigged and fitted to bear herself nobly and safely over the surging surface of a stormy sea, the other, a floating hulk; mastless, sailorless, only waiting to be cast upon some desert shore to rot.

“But no one can ever have a just excuse for being thus destroyed; for it is plain that whosoever hears this Prophet shall be saved.  Jesus Christ is a wonderful Savior.  ’He is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God through him.’  Will not you come?  ’God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.  For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world.’  The text does not say that GOD will destroy every soul that will not hearken to that Prophet.  I do not believe that this is meant.  Our Lord says in one place:  ’Fear him, who, after he hath killed the body, is able to destroy both soul and body in hell:  yea, I say unto you, Fear him.’  Who is this that is thus to be feared?  I tell you that it is SIN, impersonated in the devil. Sin, SIN is what is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.  Sin, disobedience to God, transgression of God’s law, has placed the seal of death upon every living human body in the world; and sin has stamped the seal of death upon every unsaved soul in hell.

“O friends, I am afraid of sin.  I am afraid to disobey my God and Savior.  I am more afraid of sin than I would be of smallpox in an infected district.  I am more afraid of sin than I would be of leprosy on the plains of Syria.  That or this could only kill my body; but SIN is able to destroy both my soul and body in hell.

“It is plain that to hear the voice of that Prophet, who is none other than our Lord Jesus Christ, to hear his voice with an ear to find out what he says and what he wants us to do, and then in love and faith to do it, is the only way any soul has by which to escape the threatened destruction.  I wish that I could implant in the heart of every sinner here to-day such a fear of sin and its awful consequences as would lead him to flee for refuge, to lay hold of the hope set before us in the Gospel.  Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is this house of refuge.  Sinner, come to him.  No, no!  You need not do that, for he comes to you, and you only need rise up and open the door and let him in.”

A SINGULAR PHENOMENON.