Darkness.
I. SIN PLUNGES THE SOUL INTO DARKNESS. "Light is sown for the righteous" (Psalms 97:11). The darkness of evil thoughts and an evil will throws its shadow out on the world, and ultimately brings gloom over the whole of life.
1. This darkness is distressing. The benighted feel a horror of great darkness falling upon them amid the wild and lonely mountains. When God withdraws the sunshine of his grace this mournful condition must be the experience of the godless.
2. It is confusing. They "stumble upon the twilight mountains." Without God we have no true guide in life. There are mountains of difficulty to be overcome in our earthly pilgrimage, steep and toilsome and dangerous. How dreadful to venture unenlightened and unguided through such pathless wilds! If the life were to be spent in a paradise, it would be sad to dwell amidst its beauties in perpetual gloom; but, seeing that it is a pilgrimage over the mountains, it is fearful to be left in darkness.
3. It will grow into deeper darkness. At first it is a twilight. Some hope that this is the herald of the dawn; but they are mistaken—it is the portend of the night. The mingled lights and shadows will melt into the blackness of midnight. The mixed joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, of this life, which some sanguine souls suppose to be the worst condition they will be in, and likely to give place to rest and joy hereafter, will end to the sinner in the terrible darkness of a much worse future retribution.
4. The present light is no guarantee that the darkness is not approaching. The brightest day may be followed by the blackest night.
II. THE PROSPECT OF THIS DARKNESS SHOULD WARN MEN TO AVERT IT.
1. It is not inevitable. It has not yet come. There is still time to escape. If there were no remedy, all warnings would be useless. The very utterance of warnings implies that the terrors to which they refer may be avoided.
2. The contemplation of its approaching advent should urge men to seek an escape. The prospect is gloomy, and many will not face a gloomy prospect. They dislike allusions to unpleasant subjects. But it is necessary to contemplate such sad truths, that men may be roused by selfish fear when they will not be moved by the love of God.
3. The way of escape is to be found in "giving glory to God." It is returning from rebellion to the service of God, humbling ourselves, rejecting the pride which clings to the old sin, and regarding God alone as worthy of honor, and so submitting to his will and obeying his commands as to glorify him by our acts. To the Christian all this is implied in faith in Christ which involves the humbling of ourselves before him, and our trust in his grace which glorifies his love, and loyalty to his will which honors his rights of royalty.