“He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn.  The Lord shall have them in derision.  For He has set His King upon the throne” of all the universe.

Yes, Christ the Lord rules, and knows that He rules; whether we know it or not.  Christ’s law still hangs over our head, ready to lead us to light and life and peace and wealth, or ready to fall on us and grind us to powder, whether we choose to look up and see it or not.  The Lord liveth; though we may be too dead to feel Him.  The Lord sees us; though we may be too blind to see Him.  Man can abolish many things; and does both—­wisely and unwisely—­in these restless days of change.  But let him try as long as he will—­for he has often tried, and will try again—­he cannot abolish Christ the Lord.

For Christ is set upon the throne of the universe.  The Father of all—­if we may dare to hint even in Scriptural words at mysteries which are in themselves unspeakable—­is eternally saying to Him—­Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee.  And Christ answers eternally—­I come to do Thy will, O God.  The nations are Christ’s inheritance; and the utmost parts of the earth are His possession, now, already; whether we or they think so or not.

And there are times—­there are times, my friends—­when the awful words which follow come true likewise—­“Thou shalt bruise them with a rod of iron, and break them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

For as to this world in which we live, so to the God who created that world, there is a terrible aspect.  There is calm:  but there is storm also.  There is fertilizing sunshine:  but there is also the destroying thunderbolt.  There is the solid and fruitful earth, where man can till and build; but there is the earthquake and the flood likewise, which destroy in a moment the works of man.  So there is in God boundless love, and boundless mercy:  but there is, too, a wrath of God, and a fire of God which burns eternally against all evil and falsehood.  And woe to those who fall under that wrath; who are even scorched for a moment by that fire.

“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God.”

We are all ready enough to forget this; ready enough to think only of God’s goodness, and never of His severity.  Ready enough to talk of Christ as gentle and suffering; because we flatter ourselves that if He is gentle, He may be also indulgent; if He be suffering, He may be also weak.  We like to forget that He is, and was, and ever will be—­Lord of heaven and earth; and to think of Him only in His humiliation in Judaea 1800 years ago, forgetting that during that very humiliation, while He was shewing love, and mercy, and miracles of healing, and sympathy and compassion for every form of human sorrow and weakness, He did not shrink from shewing to men the awful side of His character; did not shrink from saying, “Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.  Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?”—­did not shrink from declaring that He was coming again, even before that very generation had passed away, to destroy, unless it repented, the wicked city of Jerusalem, with an utter and horrible destruction.