God's offer of mercy to the sinner.
Scarcely ever does God punish sin by a sudden unannounced visitation, or without previous warning to the sinner of what is coming upon him. And this warning is almost always accompanied by an offer of mercy. God has "no pleasure in the death of him that dieth" (Ezekiel 18:32); he "would not that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). And therefore he warns men. He warned even the ungodly world before the Flood by the preaching of Noah; he warned the Ninevites by Jonah; he now warned the Moabites by Isaiah; he warned the Jews of later times by John the Baptist, by his Son, by the apostles. And all equally in vain. How often do we not see in cases of this kind—
I. THE OFFER MADE. Sometimes by an inward awakening of the conscience, more often by preaching or teaching from without, the sinner is startled, alarmed, made to see his sin and feel his danger. Mercy is offered to him, if he will repent and amend; a course of conduct is placed before him by which he may recover himself. But the course is unpleasing; it involves pain and trouble. Pride has to be humbled in the dust, confession and restitution have to be made, pet sins have to be surrendered, self-denial has to be attempted, often the whole course of the life hitherto lived has to be altered, and a new departure made from a new beginning. To the natural man this seems hard, as to Moab the resumption of a tributary position; it seems intolerable, impossible, not to be thought of. And, after a longer or a shorter struggle, the second stage is reached—
II. THE OFFER SPURNED. The sinner desires mercy and forgiveness, but he will not consent to pay the price. Immediate suffering, though not of any great severity, seems harder to beat' than the prospect of future intense suffering. Or perhaps he flatters himself that the future suffering may be escaped. He thinks that he may repent later; or he doubts whether God will punish so severely as he has threatened; or he even doubts whether there is any God at all. On one ground or another he spurns the offer made him—puts it aside, ceases to think of it, practically rejects it. And then comes the final result—
III. THE SPURNING OF THE OFFER PUNISHED. Punishment may be in this life or in the next. That of nations must be in this life; that of individuals may be in either, or in both. Usually—it is in both. Our sin finds us out. Unpleasant physical consequences follow upon most sinful indulgences. Others bring loss of character and of men's respect. Others, again, lead to poverty and earthly ruin. All are liable to be followed by never-ending regret and remorse, feelings as painful as any known to man. Further, the consciousness of ill desert cannot but arouse a fear of judgment to come—a fear which, as death approaches, becomes often a constant agonizing dread. To all this has to be added the punishment that in another world awaits those who have spurned God's offers in this—punishment shadowed out to us in Scripture under the images of the "undying worm," and the "fire that never shall be quenched." It is surely worth while for sinners to ask themselves whether the enjoyment which they derive from their sins is really of sufficient value to them to compensate for all this weight of after suffering. Would they not act more prudently, as welt as more virtuously, if they accepted God's offer of mercy as soon as it is placed before them, and forsook their sins at once, and repented and turned to God?