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I. "NOT SAVED," AND SALVATION PROVIDED SO DEARLY! Do you ask "How dearly?" Inquire of the Son of God, who, though He was the heir of all things, the outshining of the Father's glory, the equal of God, and rich — transcendently rich — in all the honours, treasures, splendours, and resources of eternity, for "your sakes became poor," ignoble, despised, and distressed, that you, "through His poverty, might be rich." Follow Him in all His travels of mercy, in all His errands of good, in all His miracles of love, in all His sayings of truth. Track Him on His walks from Jordan to Golgotha, — in His sorrows, His sighs, His sufferings, His tears, His anguish, His reproach, His persecutions, His agonies, His terrible, terrible death, and you may form some faint idea of the "cost price" of that salvation for you provided, but by you despised.

II. "NOT SAVED," AND SALVATION OFFERED SO FREELY! I could understand the reason of your delay if the conditions of salvation were difficult, complex, and severely exacting; if so much intelligence, or so much suffering, or so much money were demanded. Such conditions might suit the philosophic, the superstitious, or the millionaire, but not the poor, the simple-minded, and the illiterate. Whereas the terms laid down are such as admirably suit all classes, all ranks, all parties, ranging from the rustic with narrow brains and shallow mind bordering on the fool, to the giant in letters and lore, and from the beggar in his rags to the king in his robes of state and splendour. Your delay, therefore, cannot be excused on the ground of impracticable conditions; yet, perhaps, some of you may feel your paltry pride mortified by the simplicity of the means and the cheapness of the blessing; so that the conditions are a hindrance and a "stone of stumbling" to you. Like Naaman, the Syrian nobleman and leper, you feel proudly indignant because the terms and method of the cure are so simple. But I reply to you tonight, in words analogous to those of Naaman's servants, "If you had been bidden to do some great thing, would you not have done it?" How much rather, then, when you are commanded to "wash and be clean, believe and be saved"? Would you despise the dew which gems the hedgerows, refreshes the flowers, and mirrors the sun, because it comes silent and free? Would you disdain the cooling, teeming, beautiful rain which fills the pools and wells, quickens the drooping, freshens the withering, stirs the decaying life in vegetation, and falls indiscriminately on mountain and dell, on desert waste and meadow bloom, on garden and graveyard, on cottage growths and palace rarities, because it is free? Would you refuse and despise the sunlight because it is free for all and to all? Emphatically, No. Then will you dare reject, madly refuse and despise salvation, God's greatest gift to man, because it is free to all without distinction, and for all without money and without price?

III. "NOT SAVED," AND SALVATION SO NECESSARY AND IMPORTANT! Perishing amid the foaming frenzied breakers of sin, you refuse to get into the lifeboat of mercy, which hastens to your rescue. Blinded by the "god of this world," you stumble in the dangerous dark, and refuse the eyesalve and anointing of grace that you might see. Dying from the gnawings of soul-hunger, you refuse the "Bread of Life." Trembling in nakedness of spirit, and cramped by the awful chills of moral winter, you refuse "the garment of praise," and the mantle of righteousness, and the fire baptism of the Holy Ghost. Full of "wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores," afflicted, stricken with the leprosy of evil, of necessity perishing, and it may be speedily and it must be forever; yet, you refuse the "Balm of Gilead" and the Physician there; you won't have the healing touch, the restoring word, the saving remedy!

IV. "NOT SAVED," AND TIME PASSING SO SWIFTLY! The orbs are slow in their motions, the cataract is tardy in its rush, compared with the swift on-rushing of time. What you do, then, you must do quickly. Your opportunities are fast hurrying by, your heartbeats are growing less, your circle is hourly contracting; the road behind is lengthening, but the path before is shortening; grim death is stealing marches on you, and eternity is on tramp to meet you! Soon! soon! will its heavy footfalls send a shudder through the chambers of your being, if "not saved" quickly. Time! it is either fitting you for a throne or for a dungeon; either preparing you as jewels for the diadem of Immanuel, or preparing you for perdition, according to your use or abuse of it. Time! it is increasing the volume and value of your being, or shrivelling you into a despicable dwarfism of soul; it is building for you a fortune, a mansion, a kingdom forever and ever, or hurling you in swiftest speed to beggary, bankruptcy, and servitude to all eternity!

V. "NOT SAVED," AND LIFE PENDENT ON SO GREAT UNCERTAINTY! Nothing, perhaps, is so precarious as human life, and yet nothing do men trifle more with. We are ignorant of the issues of the next hour; still we plan, and plod, and purpose for future days; or like the wealthy fool of sacred story, say, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry"; not thinking that the "years" are God's property, and that at any moment the awful decree may ring like a death knell in our ears, "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee!" If you value your life, if you respect Christ, if you love heaven, if you dread hell, if you desire an immortality of brightness, and beauty, and bliss, then trifle not with salvation, live not without forgiveness, wait not for a more "convenient season," lest it never come. Procrastination is a wholesale destructionist. It has swung into the dark and woeful abysses multitudes of souls. Be careful! lest it allure you too far, and then recompense you by adjusting the fatal rope, and giving the fatal swing; by branding "too late" on your coffin lid, and "not saved" on your soul.

(J. O. Keen, D. D.)

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KJV: The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.

WEB: The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.