There only two classes of people in this audience -- the righteous and the wicked; the saved and the unsaved; the converted and the unconverted. We find the two classes in the church. You will find them in our campmeetings. You will find them in our Conventions. To which class do you belong? The converted, or the unconverted? The saved, or the unsaved? The righteous, or the wicked? You belong to one or the other. Do you remember when you were converted? Do you know where you were converted? Are you living the life of a righteous man? Are you living the life of a saved woman? I am not talking to you about your membership in the church; I am not talking about the years gone by, when you put your name upon a church record. Are you saved tonight? Have you a family altar in your home? Have you a place of secret prayer? Are you in the habit of feeding your soul on the Word of God? It is a very easy matter to get located here. The Holy Spirit is absolutely faithful. God is true. The Word of God is the sword of the Spirit. Where do you belong tonight? If before I get through preaching, if before the midnight hour should strike, you were to be called into eternity with your present experience, where would you land? What would be your eternal destiny? Listen! For the saved, for the righteous, for the new creature in Christ Jesus -- an eternal Heaven; for the unsaved, in the church and out -- an eternal Hell.
Listen to this! My Bible declares positively that the state of the wicked is one of appalling horror. No hope! "Having no hope," and I think just now somebody is saying, "Ah, preacher, that does not mean me; I hope to go to heaven." I want to ask you, "Are you saved." If you are unsaved you have no hope. Any man who is not in Christ Jesus, and Christ Jesus in him, has no hope. I know what you mean, you mean you have a desire. There is a vast difference between a desire and a hope, and I believe that old Bible; I believe it from Genesis to Revelation; I believe every line that there is in it. I believe the Scriptures are profitable for instruction of the saved, and the unsaved, and that Bible declares most emphatically in my text, that the sinner has no hope.
What hope has an unrepentant man? Can you tell me? What have you that is lasting? What have you that is permanent? What have you that is inspiring? Nothing, nothing whatever. Have you wealth? You cannot take it with you. Have you acres? You cannot take them with you. Have you reputation? You cannot take it with you. The only thing that a man can take with him into eternity is his character -- just what God and your wife know you to be. Beloved, the unsaved man, the unsaved woman in this congregation, has no hope in this life. Decay is written on everything. The pulse is beating funeral marches to the grave; the heart, seventy heartbeats a minute toward eternity -- without any hope, without any Christ, without any salvation, going forward to eternal damnation -- not because Christ did not die, not because it is not true that by the grace of God Jesus Christ tasted death for every man, but because every unsaved man, every unsaved woman in this congregation is going forward to eternity, tramp! tramp! tramp! over the crucified body of the Son of God, over a mother's prayers, over the pleadings of the Holy Ghost, over the prayers of Jesus Christ -- going forward to a devil's hell, not because salvation has not been provided, but because ye would not." And the man who resists and grieves the Holy Ghost, the man who crucifies the Son of God afresh, the man who rejects the truth of God, the man who sits in the pew and steels and hardens his heart against the Word of God and holds it aloof from him, and says, "I will not," that man lives without hope, is without hope in this life, and -- listen to this! -- is without hope in the life to come. An eternal existence, and nothing to sweeten it! The life in the world, now a thing of the past -- the soul in eternity to live forever! Exist forever! Think forever! Remember forever!
And nothing in all that eternal existence to sweeten one moment of that eternity. "Son, remember!" Remember what? Back there you had the Word of God. Back there you had the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament. Back there you had gracious providences. Back there you had the Spirit of God striving with you.
Remember! Here is a young man who came to Jesus, but now he is lost, and in hell he lifted up his eyes, and he begins to think of his past. Nothing in all that past to sweeten that existence. "I went to Jesus; I believed Him to be the Son of God; I believed He could answer the query of my soul, satisfy my hunger -- I went to Him and said, 'Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" And He made known to me the conditions. He said, 'Go, and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and come, follow me, and thou shalt have treasures in heaven.' Yes, I remember, but I said, 'No.' I looked at my possessions, the things of this life, my position. and I said. 'No,' and I damned my own soul."
Here is another soul in eternity; once had houses; once had farms; once had barns . once had acres; once was rich; the earth was bringing forth plentifully. Listen to him in eternity: "I look back there, and I said to my soul: 'Soul, take thine ease; thou hast much goods laid up for many years; eat, drink, and be merry.' God said, 'Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee.' The goods are back there in a barn, but my soul is poverty stricken. I am lost, and I am lost forever. I was a fool in time, and I will be a fool for all eternity."
Oh, the awful thought -- without hope in this life, and without hope in eternity! To go from a campmeeting like this, to go from a home where you had a mother's prayers, where you had a father's prayers, where you had a family altar. Somebody preaching on this platform since this campmeeting began, said they had a good, old-fashioned Methodist home. That is the kind I had. I never knew a time in my father's house when they did not pray; I never knew a time they did not have a family altar. There never was a time that this boy could not go home and go to the foot of the stairs and hear somebody upstairs praying. Thank God for my father's prayers! Thank God for my father's life! The preacher in whose meetings I went to the altar thought it was his sermon that moved me; he thought I was one of his converts. No, sir; the thing that won me for God was my
father's prayers. God answered my father's prayers. But think of it! a young man can live in a home where there is a praying father, where there is a praying mother, can listen to the truth of God, can pass that truth by, can be convicted by the Spirit and resist those convictions, can come to a meeting like this and get Gospel truth, backed by the Holy Ghost, and still resist, then lie down and die and wake up in eternity lost forever, no hope here, no hope in the dying hour; and you wake up in eternity, and look back and think, "Father prayed for me. Mother prayed for me. I was surrounded by Gospel influences. I knew the old Bible was true -- father and mother lived it. Christ died for me. I was under conviction again and again. The Spirit of God pled with me. But I am lost." No hope in this life, and no hope in the future. Nothing in the past, nothing in the present, nothing in the future. What is it? Everlasting torment.
See that man die. He has no hope. He is coming down to a deathbed. Come, let us go, let us stand alongside of him. If you would stand alongside of as many deathbeds as this preacher has stood by, you would believe when you saw the dying sinner and heard him pray, that there was a need of salvation now. Wait a moment! You say, "Oh, yes; I had some friends who died unsaved, and they never said a word. They died quietly; they manifested no fear." Do you know the reason why? Because the doctor drugged them before they died. If the doctors did not drug the dying sinner, you could not stay in their room. They would scream, they would yell, they would beg, they would pray. A man one time -- he and I were friends together, had been soldiers, knew each other well -- told me about his wife dying. He said, "'George, Lou died so beautifully. She never said a word, had no fear whatever." She died a sinner, she died drugged and without hope. No hope in this life, no hope in eternity! I do not wonder that preacher this morning got down over this altar, got down on his knees, and said, "I am not clear, and I want to be satisfied." It is an awful thing to live unsatisfied. Ah! you may be in the church, you may be baptized, you may have partaken of the sacrament, you may have your name on the church record, you may die and some preacher stand up and tell what an exemplary church member you have been, but unless you have been born of the Spirit, unless you have an increasing experience -- the path of the just shineth brighter and brighter -- unless you have more salvation tonight than you have had in all your life, to die in your condition would be to go to hell. There is no hope for the unrepentant sinner, Oh, the old Bible says so; I am sticking to the Book. "Having no hope, and without God." A Christless life; a Christless deathbed; a Christless shroud; a Christless casket; Christless at the bar of God; Christless throughout eternity. "Having no hope." Went by the family altar. Went by the old Bible. Went by a mother's prayers. Went by Sinai, as it rolled and thundered, and pealed, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Went by Calvary, with its cross reeking, dripping with Divine blood. Went by it -- what for? To go to hell because you loved sin better than you loved God. Say, beloved, just as sure as God is on the throne, just as sure as that old Book is true, every unsaved man, every unrepentant man in this congregation tonight is without hope. You have got to be separated from sin, you have got to give up sin. You live in the church, you have your name on the church record, going along just as hopeless as the unrepentant sinner outside; for there is no difference between an unrepentant sinner in the church and one outside.
Listen to this. I was riding in the cars; I think it was up at Ashland, and I read a notice of an insurance company. It went like this: "If people today could read the death notices in the paper week after next, they would take out life insurance." Oh, if some men and women in this congregation could read the death notices three months hence -- six months hence -- you would run to this altar. Listen! Death is on your track. The seeds of death are already sown in your frame. You are staggering toward eternity under a weight of sin that would sink you throughout eternal ages, ever down and down and down, the darkness growing darker and darker throughout eternity. Because provision was not made? No! No! No! Christ "by the grace of God tasted death for every man." Every sinner is invited. "Whosoever will, let him come." "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." You say, "Yes, Preacher, I know that." Yes, you know it, and you are trampling it under your feet, trampling on the promise of God that you might be partaker of the Divine nature, and you are going forward to a devil's hell -- not because you may not be saved, but because you will not yield yourself unto God. The sin of the men and women in this congregation is not your drunkenness; it is not your thieving; it is not your lying; it is not murdering your unborn children, or running around with neck and shoulders bare, exciting the lust of men in street cars; but listen to this: Your sin is rejection of Jesus Christ; it is unbelief. "The Spirit, when He is come, shall convince the world of sin, because they believe not on me." If you believed God's Word you would be at this altar. "Having no hope." The unrepentant sinner has no hope.
Now, again. You are condemned already -- you who are out of Christ. You say, "Oh, no; we are not condemned until we get to the judgment." That is a lie of the devil. I believe the Bible.
Listen to this: "If our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and knoweth all things." You are condemned already. The only thing that keeps you out of hell is the mercy of God. "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." That is God's Word.
Young man, you were here at this campmeeting last year. God has spared you. You are harder tonight than you were last year -- farther away from God. You have been heaping up darkness and tribulation, and anguish against the day of wrath. Are you ready to accept of the conditions? Listen! "Without hope." Knell of eternal despair! I drove one day by a funeral into a graveyard. Just as soon as the hearse entered the yard, the sexton saw them coming, and he began to ring a bell. Oh, so dolefully did it ring out! It meant another person passed out of time into eternity. I have this thought. The deep, dark, doleful bells of damnation are ringing all the time. Hell is as jubilant as hell can be every time a sinner goes by Calvary. Every time a sinner, with feet speckled red with the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, enters the confines of the damned, again the bells ring out, deep, doleful, dark, and the ravens of despair perched all over the rugged peaks of an eternal hell, cry out, "No hope! No hope!" Without hope back there upon earth, without hope on a deathbed, without hope in hell, and without hope forever. Write it on the sinner's coffin -- "No hope!" Write it on his grave -- "No hope!" Write it on his tombstone -- "No hope!" Write it on the clouds of God Almighty's justice -- "No hope!" Write it on the judgment bar of God -- "No hope!" Then listen to the chorus of the voices ringing throughout the caverns of eternal damnation -- it is one thing over and over again -- "No hope! No hope! No hope! No hope! No hope!"
Oh, beloved, it is an awful thing to crucify the Son of God, it is an awful thing to grieve the Holy Ghost. I do not wonder, Brother Compton, you say, "Mind the Spirit." I do not wonder you say, "Mind God." So many people are not minding God. You are rejecting the truth, resisting the Spirit, you are cursing your own selves, wrapping your arms around the pillars of the temple and bringing it down upon your own head -- and then an eternal hell, "having no hope." Did you ever read the other part of the verse? -- "and without God in the world." No hope in hell, no promise of relief, no ray of light, no gleam of a coming day, none whatever; increasing, intense darkness. No hope in hell forever, no expectation in hell, no change in hell, only for the worse; fires hotter, darkness more intense.
Last Wednesday, up in Battle Creek, I went through a cyclone. The wind had been blowing, with some little rain, and cold. The cloud came from the southeast, assumed a funnel shape, and started over toward Battle Creek; it began to roar, and four hundred thousand dollars' worth of property was destroyed in just a few minutes. When it was over people came rushing out of the houses. Some houses were lifted off the foundations, others crushed down in the cellars. There were live wires, telegraph poles and trees in the street. But listen! It only lasted three minutes. A French woman came running up the street. She said, "One time somebody told me, 'If you never prayed before, go down and look at the ocean when it is angry, then you will pray; but,' she said, 'if you never prayed before, just get in a cyclone, and you will pray.'" My wife heard her, and said, "I began praying long ago, glory to God, but I prayed through!" Listen! That dark cloud only lasted three minutes; but in hell the cyclone of God Almighty's wrath lasts throughout eternity -- roaring, swirling, shrieking winds of hell, and the soul that rejected Jesus Christ, there under the wrath of the omnipotent God forever and ever. I am talking to dying men and women; I am talking to people who are making a profession of religion. You may have your names on the church record, but you have not an experimental knowledge of salvation. If you should die tonight, you would go to hell. The sinner in the church has no more hope than sinners outside of it. I am talking about unrepentant sinners. God help us to tell the truth. Do not resist it. Hug up close to the truth.
Listen! Darkness, misery, suffering -- forever! Remorse. Abandoned of God. Here God even in the unrepentant sinner's pathway lets the sun shine on him, lets the rain fall on him, lets the ground bring forth for him, lets the stars shine for him, and the moon shed its pale, silvery light upon him, warns him by the example of godly people. He may hedge him in for a while by a mother's prayers; he is not yet abandoned o God. If the angels of God could weep, they would look over the battlements of God and weep over that young man that is going to hell over the blood of Jesus Christ. But at last death comes, and the man is abandoned of God. What an awful thing! Without God in this world, and then abandoned of God throughout all eternity, and shut up with devils, and with whoremongers, and drunkards, and everything vile and unclean -- not because God would not save you, but because you would not let Him save you. "God hath not appointed us unto wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ."
One time a boy nineteen years of age, died in a penitentiary, and the chaplain went to him and said, "Young man, where do your folks live? Mother living?" "Yes, sir." "Does your mother know where you are?" "No, sir; but, chaplain, when I am gone, I would like her to know I am dead, but don't tell her where I died. Don't tell mother where I died." He died in the penitentiary and did not want mother to know. Think of it! Not that mother who went down to death's door for you, not that mother who watched over your early years when your tottering footsteps would have taken you into danger -- not that mother, but the Christ that left the glory that He had with the Father, the Christ before whom angels bow, and cry, "Holy, holy, holy art Thou," the Christ that took upon Himself our nature, came down to this old earth and made the land holy because He went there, went up to Calvary and suffered and died on the cross, then down into the grave, and snatched the scepter from the cruel monster, and went up from Mount Olivet and sits on the Mediatorial Throne, and is praying for you -- that Christ knows your sinful rejection, knows your rebellion, knows you are the author of your own damnation; and that Christ tonight puts this campmeeting, these sermons, across your pathway in order that you may be saved. Brother, do not preach to me, "It is a solemn thing to die." God bless you! it is a solemn thing to live! To live lightly, triflingly, frivolously, carelessly, saying, "No," to God, rejecting the truth of God, grieving the Holy Spirit; God tugging at your heartstrings, putting you under conviction, surrounding you with the prayers of loved ones, giving you Gospel sermons, giving you altar call upon altar call, and yet to go into eternity saying "No" to God. No hope! The unrepentant sinner has no hope. Here is the Word of God for it. "Having no hope, and without God in the world." A reign of despair; despair in the midst of awful surroundings.
I read the other day about the men in the trenches. It said the British and the French were in the trenches, and for three days they were pouring fire on the trenches of the Germans. For one whole year they had been building mines, and then for three days they threw a curtain of fire, shell after shell, on the trenches of the Germans. At the battle of Gettysburg both sides only threw thirty-three thousand shells in three days, but over there they threw thirty-three thousand shells in three minutes, always throwing on the trenches of the enemies, and men come out from those trenches insane; they lost their reason under that awful fire. But listen! That only lasted three days, but the curtain of fire in hell lasts through eternity. "The smoke of their torment ascendeth forever and forever!" Who says so? God Almighty. Eternal remorse! Eternal suffering!
There is a man in our city whose wife was dying of a cancer. She was crying, "Husband, if you love me, kill me! If you love me, kill me! I am suffering. I am going to die anyhow; it is only a question of a few weeks -- husband, if you love me, kill me." That husband went to the doctor. He said, "Doctor, will my wife die?" "Surely, sir." "Doctor, how long?" "Well maybe two weeks. She may die in a week." "Well, doctor, she is crying, 'Kill me,' she is appealing to me, she is saying, 'If you love me, put me out of my misery.' Doctor, I want you to come over and give her a drug that will put her to sleep forever." The doctor said, "Do you mean it?" He said, "If you do not do it, I will kill her myself and put her out of her misery." And that doctor went over and gave her the drug and said, "In two hours she will be beyond pain." Listen to this. When the sinner in hell, with all of his awful suffering, seeks death, death flees from him. There is no morphine in hell. You cannot commit suicide in hell. It is an awful thing to die without Christ, having no hope, rejecting Jesus and going to hell over the crucified Son of God, and that is what every unsaved sinner here tonight is doing. Remorse! Separation! Darkness! Dying! Forever and forever!
I lived in the city of Philadelphia when I was a boy. Up at Haddington they had a cancer hospital, and men would come out of there with their jaws tied up -- cancer doing its work; with an eye tied up -- cancer doing its work; with their body swathed. Listen! They were hopeless. There was no hope. On their countenances was written, "No hope, no hope." Just a little while, and then death. On the countenances of the lost in hell is written in black letters of despair, "No hope; no hope!" On the walls of hell the only mottoes they have read, "No hope; no hope!" The fiery billows of an eternal hell that wrap themselves around the naked soul of an impenitent sinner, they roar, "No hope!" and the wail of the damned, as they gnash their teeth and bite their lips, and chew their tongues, and curse the people that told them the truth, and the people that did not live right before them, their one cry is, No hope; no hope!" Brother, what are you going to do? I repeat what Brother Compton said, "Mind God." "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon."
I was out in Idaho, and I preached one night to a very attentive congregation, and about the first or second night of the meeting a great big stalwart fellow sat in the seats and listened to me -the leading man of the community -- as fine a specimen of humanity, physically, as I ever saw in all my life. I gave my altar call, and this great big fellow came up and put his foot upon a chair and said, "I want to say something to you. Do you think there is any hope for me?" I said, "Yes, there is hope for you." He said, "You don't know what a sinner I have been" -- and he had been a sinner; was a man of means, a gambler and a drunkard, but he wanted God, and he said, "You don't know what a sinner I have been." I told him how Jesus could save to the uttermost, told him to get down, and I got down and prayed for him, and that fellow came through. Listen to this; I want to tell you tonight, "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." Is there any hope? Yes, for a repentant sinner. Yes, for the man that will forsake sin. Yes, for the man that will mind God tonight, there is hope. Calvary appeals, Pentecost appeals, the passing funeral procession appeals, the tornadoes and the cyclones and the wars in Europe all appeal. Death is on our track. It will not be much longer till some of us will enter eternity. Have you got right with God? Have you availed yourself of the blood of Jesus Christ? Oh, it is an awful thing. "Having no hope, and without God." But tonight God says, "Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation." Now, twelve minutes of nine. How many of you people are ready for heaven in two minutes? Oh, I was so glad in that cyclone I was saved. When the thing went by I said, "Come on," to my mother and wife; "we'll have a prayermeeting," and we got down on our knees right off and had a prayermeeting and thanked God for taking care of us. Oh, it is a blessed thing to know you are saved. Do you know it? Are you ready for heaven on a moment's notice? Have you been converted? Have you the witness of the Spirit? Do you know that you are a new creature in Christ Jesus? Are your sins under the blood? Are you indwelt tonight by the Holy Ghost? There is no hope without Jesus Christ.
"Lord, I believe were sinners more Than sands upon the ocean shore, Thou hast for all atonement made, For all a ransom Thou hast paid."
But, brother, you must accept of Jesus Christ as your Savior. Without that you have no hope, and tomorrow is eternity.
