plains God's beseeching urgency? Why
this energy and intensity of divine desire? Why this which, if it
were human only, would be called _passionate_ entreaty? Why was
it needful for Jesus Christ to die? Why was it worth His while to
bear the punishment of man's sin? Why should God and Christ, through
all the ages, plead with unintermittent voice? There must be some
explanation of it all, and here is the explanation, 'They that hate
Me love _death_.' 'Be ye reconciled to God,' for enmity is ruin
and destruction.

And finally, dear friends, this turning away from Him that speaketh
from Heaven, of which some of you have all your lives been guilty, is
not only supreme folly, but it is the climax of all guilt. For there
can be nothing worse, darker, arguing a nature more averse or
indifferent to the highest good, than that God should plead, and I
should steel my heart and deafen mine ear against His voice. The
crown of a man's sin, because it is the disclosure of the secrets of
his deepest heart as loving darkness rather than light, is turning
away from the divine voice that woos us to love and to God.

Oh! there are some of you that have heard that Voice too often to be
much touched by it. There are some of you too busy to attend to it,
who hear it not because of the clatter of the streets and the whir of
the spindles. There are some of you that are seeking to drown it in
the shouts of mirth and revelry. There are some of you to whom it
comes muffled in the mists of doubt; but I beseech you all, look at
the Cross, _look at the Cross!_ and hear Him that hangs there
pleading with you.

Before the battle there comes out the captain of the twenty thousand
to the King with the ten thousand, who in His loftiness is not afraid
to stoop to sue for peace from the weaker power. My brother! the
moment is precious; the white flag may never be waved before your
eyes again. Do not; do not refuse! or the next instant the clarion of
the assault may sound, and where will you be then?

It is vain for thee to rush against the thick bosses of the Almighty
buckler. 'We beseech, in Christ's behalf, be ye reconciled with God.'

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans
Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V), by Alexander Maclaren

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXPOSITIONS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE ***

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