Outside the gates of Samaria, at the time mentioned in our text, you might have seen four miserable beings, gaunt and thin, with that sharpness of eye and visage which is ever the effect of protracted hunger. They were lepers, suffering from a loathsome disease, and emaciated by privation. They held, as it were, a miniature council of war, and the result of their deliberations was that they said one to another, “Why stay we here to die? If we go into the city, even should we be permitted to remain there, famine is so rife that we should soon die there; while, if we continue to sit here, it is quite certain that we must pine away, and perish. Let us go to the camp of the Syrians; there is a little hope in that direction, though it may be a very slender one. The Syrians may put us to death, and so end our miseries. Perhaps death by the sword is preferable to death by famine; at any rate, we can but die in any case. Let us choose the desperate alternative; let us take that course which, although it requires the greatest boldness, holds out some slight hope of success.”

You know the result of their decision; they went to the Syrian camp, found that the host had fled, feasted themselves to the full, and, possibly, began to appropriate some of the plunder that abounded all around them. Then, suddenly, the thought struck them, “Here we have bread and corn in abundance, yet the people in Samaria are starving. This is a time of common distress; so, though they did thrust us out of the city, it would be a deed unworthy even of lepers if we left our fellow-creatures without news of our discovery; so, let us go back, and tell the good news to the people in the city, that their sufferings may be relieved, as our own have been.” They did so, and soon the famished crowds poured out of Samaria, and fed to the full. You are familiar with the narrative, so I will base upon it an argument which may prove useful to any enquiring ones who may be here. There are, probably, with us some who have before them an alternative somewhat similar to the one mentioned in our text. If so, I hope they will imitate these poor lepers in their actions; and, afterwards, count it their joyful privilege to deliver to others a message as cheering as the one which these lepers carried to the famine-stricken people of Samaria.

First, then, there are some of you who have an alternative presented to your consciences.

There was a time when you were careless about eternal things, but that time has passed. You can look back, possibly, for only a few weeks, to the time when the Sabbath was to you a day of revelry, when the house of God was entirely neglected by you, when the Bible was a Book which you would not have read unless you had been flogged to it, and when prayer was a duty and privilege that you utterly despised. But, now, your conscience has been somewhat awakened, and though not thoroughly as yet, still partially you begin to perceive that what is written in Scripture is true, that we have gone astray like lost sheep, that our iniquities have prevailed against us, and that our very righteousnesses are as filthy rags. You have heard the gospel preached; it matters not where,-whether in the cathedral, or in the theatre, or anywhere else. But, now that you have listened to the Word, Satan has interposed, and has said to you, “Christ will not receive such sinners as you are. The grace of God was never intended for men who have degraded themselves as you have. There may be hope for other men, but there is none for you; the gate of mercy is fast closed against you, and it has been said of you, ‘He that is filthy, let him be filthy still; he has disobeyed his God, let him receive the penalty for that disobedience.’ ”

Now you perceive that there are just two courses open to you; you can sit still, but then you know that you must perish; or you can go to Christ, and your fear is that you will perish then. Yet you can but die if you go to him, and he rejects you; whereas, if you do not go to him, you must surely perish. Even should you believe in him, you fear that you may be lost; but if you do not believe in him, there is no hope at all for you. Should you go to him in prayer, your fears tell you that he may repel you, and say to you, “Get you gone; what right have you, who once cursed me, to expect any favour from me? You, who have scorned my grace a hundred times, and defied my law, what do you mean by falling upon your knees, and entreating my mercy? Begone, ungrateful wretch, and perish in thy sins!” Yet still this truth is present to your mind,-that, if you do perish there, you do but perish, and it is quite certain that you must perish if you remain where you are. Let me try and work out this question for you, sitting down by your side, as one of the leprous men may have sat down by his fellow. You know, my friend and brother, that, should you die as you now are, it is absolutely certain that you must perish. Do not listen to Satan’s lie: “You shall not surely perish.” You all know that the Bible is the Book of God. I can hardly believe any man who tells me that he doubts whether the Bible is the Word of God. The truth of Scripture is being so perpetually confirmed by all the discoveries of those who travel in the land where it was written that I can scarcely credit the doubts concerning its authenticity as being honest.

But even if you reject the Word of God, you must believe that God is just. If there be a God, he must punish men for sinning against him. How can any moral government exist if sin goes unpunished, if virtue and vice lead to the same end? Conscience, fallen though it is, and no longer like God’s candle in the soul, still hath sufficient light left to assure men that God must punish sin. Supposing that you do accept the Word of God as true, you know that the unregenerate can never see the face of God with acceptance, that those who have not been cleansed from sin can never stand before the thrice-holy Jehovah, for there can by no means enter heaven anything that defileth. As to your ultimate fate, if you continue as you now are, there can be no question, the fire of hell must be your everlasting portion. Now turn to the other alternative; there is for you at least some hope. Even your poor trembling heart admits that there is at least some hope that, if you seek mercy, you shall find it. I can assure you that there is not only hope, but that there is certainty that you will obtain it. Jesus casts out none that come to him, and he freely receives the vilest of the vile. But I put the matter now as your unbelief puts it; it is not to you an absolute certainty that Christ will reject you, is it? You are not quite sure that, if you pray to him, he will reject your petition; or that, if the tear of penitence shall steal down your cheek, God will refuse to pardon you. I am only stating the question as you yourself state it; if I were speaking according to my own convictions, I should, on the authority of God’s Word, affirm again and again that, if you come unto him through Jesus Christ, his Son, he will certainly receive you. But even putting it in your way, is it not the wisest course for you to say,-

“If I perish, I will pray,

And perish only there”?

Let us look at the matter in another light. It is certain that, if you perish as you now are, you will perish without pity and without mercy. The law, by which you are condemned already, knows nothing about forgiveness, and the law provides no sacrifice for sin. If you perish without seeking mercy at the hands of Christ, there can be no mercy for you; but rigorous, unabated, undiluted justice must be your portion. But now, do you not feel that, even if you could perish after coming to God through Christ, yet you would not perish without having some ray of pity thrown upon you? Would there not be at least this consolation for you,-“I did what God commanded me to do; I did come to him, and seek forgiveness; I did plead the precious blood of Christ, yet he rejected me”? Do you not think that this would be balm to your spirit? But if you perish as you now are, you will have this thought ringing in your ears for ever,-“You heard of Christ, but you believed not on him; you lived where the light of the gospel was clearly shining, yet you shut your eyes to it; Christ was preached close to you, yet you refused to trust him; you would have none of his warnings, but you put your fingers in your ears, and ran on to destruction.” But should you perish after having sought mercy through Christ, you would be able to say, “I did seek it; I did knock, I did pray, I did trust, I did yield my heart to God, yet I perished.” If such perishing were possible,-though we know that it is not,-it would be far preferable to perishing without having sought the Saviour in his own appointed way. For your own sake, then, I urge you to choose this alternative, and I ask you to let me take you by the hand, and lead you to him who, with arms outstretched, waits to welcome you, that he may give pardon to the guilty, life to the dead, and salvation to the lost.

Yet further, you ought to remember that all those who have continued in a state of nature have, without exception, perished. Not one, however high in station, however excellent in morality, however profound in learning, however lofty in fame, has ever been able to pass the threshold of heaven except through the blood and merit of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the black list of the unregenerate, there is no exception to their condemnation. But take the other side, and at least we can assure you, from our own case, that even supposing that some perish, though they trust in Christ,-which is not true,-yet there are some who do not. Certainly, there are some who, in this life, receive the pardon of their sins, and know that they have received it, and who, in death, are cheered with the prospect of a glorious immortality. Saul of Tarsus was led to repent of sin, though he said that he was the chief of sinners. Others in his day, who had no more right to mercy than you have, sought and found it; and there are hundreds, yea, I might say thousands, in this Tabernacle now, who could rise, if this were the proper season to do so, and each one say, “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and delivered him out of all his troubles.” Well, then, if God has, to your knowledge, saved some who have come to him,-I say that he saves all who come to him through Christ, but I am dealing with the question from your standpoint,-then it would be wise and right for you also to say,-

“I’ll to the gracious King approach,

Whose sceptre pardon gives;

Perhaps he may command my touch,

And then the suppliant lives.

“Perhaps he will admit my plea,

Perhaps will hear my prayer;

But if I perish, I will pray,

And perish only there.

“I can but perish if I go;

I am resolved to try;

For if stay away, I know

I must for ever die.”

But you can go on to say, in the words of the same gracious writer,-

“But if I die with mercy sought,

When I the King have tried,

This were to die (delightful thought!)

As sinner never died.”

Nay; not one ever died thus. You would be the first who thus perished, so take this alternative; and, as the Holy Ghost has quickened you to make you feel your need of a Saviour, I pray that the same Holy Spirit may lead you, this very hour, to plunge into the stream,-sink or swim,-that, whether you perish or are saved, you may say, “Thy wounds, O Jesus, shall be my hiding-place; thy blood shall cleanse me from all sin; thy righteousness shall be my clothing; thou, and thou alone, shalt be my All-in-all.”

Now I pass on to observe that the discussions of these lepers ended in action.

I wish this could be said of all of you. How many holy resolutions have been strangled in this house of prayer! How many good thoughts have been murdered in those pews! See if you cannot find their blood upon your own skirts. Many a time, the tear, which betokened the first rising emotion, has been wiped away, and the emotion has gone with it. May it not be so now, but may God grant that, like the lepers, we may put into action what we think over, and what, by the aid of the Holy Spirit, we resolve to do!

And, first, let me remind you that the action of these lepers was bold. Cowardice would have sat still, and said, “It is true that we shall perish if we remain here, but we will not go just yet to the Syrian camp; we are very hungry, but we may be able to go without food for another hour;” and thus, only the extreme pinch of privation would have driven them out. The fear of a sword-thrust might have kept them still, but it did not. They said, “We will risk it; we know that it is a desperate experiment; but, for better or for worse, for life or for death, we will go to the camp of the Syrians.” So they said, and so they did, and you will be wise if you act in the same fashion. It may seem a very bold thing for you, my unknown but trembling hearer, to think of going to Christ by faith. “Why!” you say, “I have not the presumption to do so after what I have been.” Perhaps some of you could tell of immoral conduct, others could speak of the gospel despised, and of privileges neglected, which makes your guilt even more heinous, and you say, “No, we cannot have the face to go to Christ. We are too black, too guilty, too diseased. We cannot cover our sores, we cannot hide the leprosy which gleams in deadly whiteness from our brow. We cannot go, we dare not go.” But do you not recollect those lines of Hart’s that we so often sing,-

“Venture on him, venture wholly,

Let no other trust intrude;