June 26, Morning

C. H. Spurgeon · Modern retelling

"Art thou become like unto us?" — Isaiah 14:10 · KJV

What must the end be for someone who has worn the name of Christ and then abandoned it, when his soul stands stripped before God? How will he bear that voice, "Depart, you cursed; you rejected Me, and I reject you; you were unfaithful and turned away from Me, and I have banished you forever from My presence, and will show you no mercy." What shame will be his on that great last day, when before the assembled crowds the pretender is unmasked? See the openly profane, people who never claimed any religion at all, lifting themselves up to point at him. "There he is," says one, "will he preach the gospel here?" "There he is," says another, "he rebuked me for cursing, and all the while he was a fraud himself!" "Look," says a third, "here comes the great hymn-singer, always at his meeting, the man who boasted that everlasting life was certainly his, and here he stands!" No eagerness will ever be more terrible than that of the tormentors on the day they drag a hypocrite's soul down to ruin. Bunyan pictured it with a grim and awful grandeur when he described the back way to destruction: seven fiends binding the wretch with nine cords, hauling him off the road to heaven he had claimed to walk, and thrusting him through the back door. Watch out for that back way, all you who make a profession! "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith." Look closely at your condition; see whether you are in Christ or not. Nothing is easier than handing down a lenient verdict when you are the one on trial, but here you must be honest and true. Be fair to everyone else; be severe with yourself. Remember, if it is not rock you are building on, then when the house falls, great will be the fall of it. May the Lord give you sincerity, steadiness, and strength, so that no day, however evil, ever leads you to turn aside.