The Spurgeon Series 1857 & 1858. Charles H. Spurgeon

When God’s power does restrain himself, then it is power indeed, the power to curb power, the power that binds omnipotence is omnipotence surpassed. God is great in power, and therefore he does restrain his anger. A man who has a strong mind can bear to be insulted, can bear offences, because he is strong. The weak mind snaps and snarls at the little: the strong mind bears it like a rock; it does not move, though a thousand breakers dash upon it, and cast their pitiful malice in the spray upon its summit. God marks his enemies, and yet he does not move; he stands still, and lets them curse him, yet is he not wrathful. If he were less of a God than he is, if he were less mighty than we know him to be, he would long before this have sent forth the all of his thunders, and emptied the magazines of heaven; he would long before this have blasted the earth with the wondrous mines he has prepared in its lower surface; the flame that burns there would have consumed us, and we would have been utterly destroyed. We bless God that the greatness of his power is just our protection; he is slow to anger because he is great in power.

      18. And now, there is no difficulty in showing how this link unites itself with the next part of the text. “He is great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked.” This needs no demonstration in words; I have only to touch the feelings and you will see it. The greatness of his power is an assurance, and an insurance that he will not acquit the wicked. Who among you could witness the storm on Friday night without having thoughts concerning your own sinfulness stirred in your hearts? Men do not think of God the punisher, or Jehovah the avenger, when the sun is shining, and the weather is calm; but in times of tempest, whose cheek is not blanched? The Christian often rejoices in it; he can say, “My soul is well at ease amidst this revelry of earth; I do rejoice for it; it is a day of feasting in my Father’s hall, a day of high feast and carnival in heaven, and I am glad.”

      The God that reigns on high,

      And thunders when he please,

      That rides upon the stormy sky

      And manages the seas,

      This awful God is ours,

      Our Father and our love,

      He shall send down his heavenly powers

      To carry us above.

      But the man who is not of an easy conscience will be ill at ease when the timbers of the house are creaking, and the foundations of the solid earth seem to groan. Ah! who is he then that does not tremble? That lofty tree is split in half; that lightning flash has smitten its trunk, and there it lies for ever blasted, a monument of what God can do. Who stood there and saw it? Was he a swearer? Did he swear then? Was he a Sabbath breaker? Did he love his Sabbath breaking then? Was he haughty? Did he then despise God? Ah! how he shook then. Did you not see his hair stand on end? Did not his cheek blanch in an instant? Did he not close his eyes and fall back in horror when he saw that dreadful spectacle, and thought God would strike him too? Yes, the power of God, when seen in the tempest, on sea or on land, in the earthquake or in the hurricane, is instinctively a proof that he will not acquit the wicked. I know not how to explain the feeling, but it is nevertheless the truth; majestic displays of omnipotence have an effect upon the mind of convincing even the hardened, that God, who is so powerful, “will not at all acquit the wicked.” Thus I have just tried to explain and make bare the link of the chain.

      19. III. The last attribute, and the most terrible one, is, “HE WILL NOT AT ALL ACQUIT THE WICKED.” Let me unfold this, first of all; and then let me, after that, endeavour to trace it also to its source, as I did the first attribute.

      20. God “will not acquit the wicked”; how do I prove this? I prove it thus. Never once has he pardoned an unpunished sin; not in all the years of the Most High, not in all the days of his right hand, has he once blotted out sin without punishment. What! you say, were not those in heaven pardoned? Are there not many transgressors pardoned, and do they not escape without punishment? Has he not said, “I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud, and like a thick cloud your iniquities?” Yes, true, most true, and yet my assertion is true also — not one of all those sins that have been pardoned were pardoned without punishment. Do you ask me why and how such a thing as that can be the truth? I point you to that dreadful sight on Calvary; the punishment which fell not on the forgiven sinner fell there. The cloud of justice was charged with fiery hail; the sinner deserved it; it fell on him; but, for all that, it fell, and spent its fury; it fell there, in that great reservoir of misery; it fell into the Saviour’s heart. The plagues, which should have fallen on our ingratitude did not fall on us, but they fell somewhere and who was it that was plagued? Tell me, Gethsemane; tell me, oh Calvary’s summit, who was plagued. The doleful answer comes, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It is Jesus suffering all the plagues of sin. Sin is still punished, though the sinner is delivered.

      21. But, you say, this has scarcely proven that he will not acquit the wicked. I hold, it has proven it, and proven it clearly. But do you want any further proof that God will not acquit the wicked? Need I lead you through a long list of terrible wonders that God has wrought — the wonders of his vengeance? Shall I show you blighted Eden? Shall I let you see a world all drowned — sea monsters whelping and stabling in the palaces of kings? Shall I let you hear the last shriek of the last drowning man as he falls into the flood and dies, washed by that huge wave from the hilltop? Shall I let you see death riding upon the summit of a crested billow, upon a sea that knows no shore, and triumphing because his work is done; his quiver empty, for all men are drown, except where life flows in the midst of death in that ark? Need I let you see Sodom, with its terrified inhabitants, when the volcano of almighty wrath spouted fiery hail upon it? Shall I show you the earth opening its mouth to swallow up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram? Need I take you to the plagues of Egypt? Shall I again repeat the death shriek of Pharaoh, and the drowning of his host? Surely, we need not to be told of cities that are in ruins, or of nations that have been cut off in a day; you need not to be told how God has struck the earth from one side to the other, when he has been angry, and how he has melted mountains in his hot displeasure. No, we have proofs enough in history, proofs enough in Scripture, that “he will not at all acquit the wicked.” If you wanted the best proof, however, you should borrow the black wings of a miserable imagination, and fly beyond the world, through the dark realm of chaos, on, far on, where those battlements of fire are gleaming with a horrid light — if through them, with a spirit’s safety, you would fly, and would behold the worm that never dies, the pit that knows no bottom, and could you there see the fire unquenchable, and listen to the shrieks and wails of men that are banished for ever from God — if, sirs, it were possible for you to hear the sullen groans and hollow moans, and shrieks of tortured ghosts, then you would come back to this world, amazed and petrified with horror, and you would say, “Indeed he will not acquit the wicked.” You know, hell is the proof for the text; may you never have to prove the text by feeling in yourselves the proof fully carried out, “He will not at all acquit the wicked.”

      22. And now we trace this terrible attribute to its source. Why is this?

      23. We reply, God will not acquit the wicked, because he is good. What! does goodness demand that sinners shall be punished? It does. The Judge must condemn the murderer, because he loves his nation. “I cannot, let you go free; I cannot, and I must not; you would kill others, who belong to this fair commonwealth, if I were to let you go free; no, I must condemn you from the very loveliness of my nature.” The kindness of a king demands the punishment of those who are guilty. It is not wrathful in the legislature to make severe laws against great sinners; it is only love towards the rest that sin should be restrained. Those great floodgates, which keep back the torrent of sin, are painted black, and look very horrible, like horrid dungeon gates, they frighten my spirit; but are they proofs that God is not good? No sirs; if you could open wide those gates, and let the deluge of sin flow on us, then would you cry, “Oh God, oh God! shut the gates of punishment again, let law again be established, set up the pillars, and swing the gates upon their hinges; shut again the gates of punishment, that this world may not again be utterly destroyed by men who have become worse than brutes.” It needs for very goodness’ sake that sin should be punished. Mercy, with her weeping eyes (for she has wept for sinners) when she finds