O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord.
The treble urgency of the Gospel call
I. The Gospel call may well be pressed with threefold emphasis, when we consider the limitation it implies as respects the parties addressed: it is addressed to men and not to angels--it is addressed to “earth” as contradistinguished from hell. Between these two worlds, behold the Bible, like the cloud between Israel and Egypt, with a side of brightness for the former and a side of darkness for the latter! It is surely a solemnly affecting and suggestive thought that, while the Sun of Righteousness is flinging His splendours over the earth, there is another fallen world very differently circumstanced. Do you not feel your soul, at the very thought, concentrating its energies on the inquiry, What is the Gospel message, and what are the terms it proclaims? Will not the sinking crew turn to the lifeboat that is making directly for them, and that all the more eagerly that they discern around them a foaming sea strown rough with wrecks? Will not the patient turn to the physician that proffers his aid, and grasp at the prepared medicine with all the greater eagerness that he is given to understand that no other physician is within reach, though pestilence stalks all around him? And shall we not ply the Gospel call with treble emphasis, and wilt not thou listen to it with treble interest, that it proclaims a Saviour for men, over the head of angels--that it names our “earth,” but names not hell?
II. Universal as my text is, it carries a limitation as respects time: it is addressed to men in time, not in eternity--to the earth as it is now, not as it shall be hereafter.
1. As respects the individual, God “limiteth a certain day, saying, Today, if ye will hear,” etc. Each has his allotted time of probation, his day of grace. Now is that time, that golden day - the time of acceptance. Come, fellow sinner; come as you are; come now; touch the golden sceptre, and live forever.
2. God has also limited a certain time for our world as a whole. There is a certain hour known to God when He will address the commission to Jesus, “Thrust in Thy sickle,” etc. Momentous harvest! The earth even now is rapidly ripening. All will be astir and in earnest then; but many, alas! will awake, not to touch mercy’s sceptre, or the folds of her garment, but to catch the echo of her last farewell.
III. This triple emphasis will be still further accounted for if we consider the universality of the gospel call: it is addressed to the whole race, and not to part of it merely. All the seeming limitations in Scripture of the universal call are, in fact, the strongest proofs of its universality. Were I now to press the appeal in my text on different classes--the old, the young, the abandoned, the careless, or the anxious,--every candid man would understand that my specifying one class implied no exclusion of others, but was merely intended to give point and pungency to my appeal by breaking down the universal call into its particular applications, and thus “rightly dividing the word of truth.” On this obvious principle are we to explain such descriptive phrases as “hungry,” “thirsty,” “weary,” “heavy-laden,” which some have regarded as denoting incipient spiritual attainments, or subjective qualifying prerequisites, which the sinner must have before he is entitled to believe the Gospel. Far from it. They express not our holiness but our misery, not our riches but our poverty, whether we have caught a glimpse of Christ’s fulness or not. “Wide as the reach of Satan’s rage, doth His salvation flow.” Let us share in our Saviour’s spirit. Let the universality of the Gospel provision lead us increasingly to realise the wants and woes and claims of the unnumbered myriads of mankind. It is here that the fire of missionary and evangelistic zeal is to be kindled.
IV. We shall cease to wonder at the threefold emphasis here imparted to the Gospel call when we reflect on the facts it presupposes as to the condition of the world.
1. It supposes the world to be in a state of danger, for a threefold call to the earth, so pointed and energetic, implies that no ordinary catastrophe impends over the world. It is precisely such an impassioned appeal as would be given forth on the outbreak of some public danger, such as fire, or flood, or hostile invasion.
2. But, further, and as a frightful aggravation of the danger, the world is, to a lamentable extent, in a state of insensibility to it. This, too, is implied in the appeal of our text. It represents the world as asleep: hence the call “O earth”; and because that sleep is profound, the call is redoubled, “O earth, earth”; and because the world sleeps on, wrapped in a slumber deep as death, a third time peals the call, each louder than before. Some years ago, two or three men were seen floating asleep in a boat on the river Niagara, and were already among the rapids. Loud and long were the calls addressed to them by the spectators on the river side; but the unhappy men awoke only to utter a wild shriek of despair as they were borne over the tremendous verge. This, by no means an isolated case, aptly illustrates the sinner’s danger as he floats down the stream of time, his insensibility thereto, and the loud warnings addressed to him, both by God and man, to shake off the slumberous spell, and turn while he may to the matte of safety. Say not, “If I am asleep, I am not responsible.” You are not in this sense asleep. You are responsible; for you are an agent rational, intelligent, moral, voluntary, unfettered and free. You are responsible; for, if you believe man, you can believe God; you can give that attention to the Bible which you lavish on the things of time; you can think upon your soul’s salvation with the same faculties that you exert on your business or pleasures; and if you are reluctant to do so, this is not your misfortune, remember, but your crime.
V. The Gospel call may well be urged with threefold emphasis when we consider the quarter whence it comes: it is not of earth, but from heaven--it is not the word of man, but “the word of the Lord.” The King of heaven gives forth an utterance from His everlasting throne, but the worms of His footstool will not deign to give Him audience. Louder and louder speaks the voice which at first spake us into being--and could at any moment revoke that being,--but men sleep on; they will not consider; they say, “Who is the Lord that He should reign over us? Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways.” Disbelieve man if you will, spurn authority, trample on the tenderest of human ties, but oh, address not yourself to a sin that towers in solitary magnitude far above all these--venture not on the supreme blasphemy of making the God of truth and love a liar.
VI. The Gospel call may well be plied with treble emphasis if we consider the precious import of the message it proclaims: it is a word of Gospel, or good news, and not of authority merely--when it might have been a word of wrath. Ah, this deepens the dye still further, of the sin of unbelief--a perpetration of which earth, and earth alone, is the theatre. The light of God’s love in “the glorious Gospel” makes the darkness of human rebellion the more appallingly visible; and the thought that such mercy is within reach, and yet such wrath is in reserve--that man’s destination, if not high heaven must be some nethermost abyss: ah, this, considering the magnitude of the interests involved, may well make us to intensify, redouble, and treble the call, “O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord!” (T. Guthrie, D.D.)
The Divine appeal to man
I. The Characters Addressed “O earth, earth, earth,!” By “earth,” we are to understand the dwellers on earth--man the lord of this lower creation; andlooking to its origin, the term is one that is appropriately employed to designate man.”
1. When addressed as earth, we are reminded of our native origin. “Man is of the earth, earthy.” God made man of the dust of the ground. What, then, becomes of the boastings of man? How foolish the pride of pedigree, the pride of descent! The sable sons of Africa, the swarthy Hindoo, the Red Indian of America, the stunted Esquimaux, the tribes of Europe, and of all the islands of the sea, have all of them a common origin: they are all of them of the earth, earthy.
2. When addressed as earth we are reminded also of our true nature. We are not only from the earth, but we are of the earth. “Dust thou art,” is the true description of every man, of every child of man. Yes, what is that muscular frame but brittle earth? What is that beautiful countenance but tinted earth? What are those sparkling eyes but transparent earth? What are those sensitive nerves so keenly alive to pleasure and to pain, what are they but fine filaments of earth? What is that amazing structure the brain, the seat of the thinking powers, but just a curiously wrought mass of earth?
3. When addressed as earth, we are reminded of the source of our supplies. Not only are our bodies of the earth earthy, but it is from the earth that we derive all that is essential to their sustenance and comfort. It is on its kindly surface that we erect our habitations. It is from its yearly replenished storehouse that we derive the staff of life. It is thence we draw our supplies of corn, of wine, and of oil, while from its copious fountains issue those crystal streams that fertilise our fields and quench our thirst, and in other ways minister to our comfort; and by this, too, we are reminded to moderate our desires. Bread and water are the supplies that the earth most copiously yields, and to these only does the promise extend, “Thy bread shall be given thee, and thy water shall be sure.”
4. We are reminded, when we are addressed as earth, of the earthly state of our minds, that state which is so aptly expressed in the words of the Psalmist, “My soul cleaveth unto the dust.” The design of Gospel truth is to draw our affections from the world, to raise our minds above its grovelling pursuits, and to change the current of our desires, our feelings, and our affections; and for the effecting of all this it is perfectly competent, for “it is the power of God unto salvation, to everyone that believeth.” Why, then, is its success so limited? The reason is that the earthly is more potent than the heavenly, that the material outweighs the spiritual in our thoughts, affections, and desires.
5. We are reminded, when we are addressed as earth, of the tendency of us all. “Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.” These bodies, full of life and activity, must ere long drop into the grave. Those eyes now sparkling with life and intelligence, must ere long be closed in death. Those tongues, now eloquent with the language of hope and affection, must ere long be silent in the tomb. Upon that countenance, now flushed with the bloom of health, must ere long settle the damp dews of death. Let our thoughts and aspirations, then, be tending heavenward while our bodies are tending earthward. Let it be seen, that if our bodies are ripening for the grave our souls are ripening, for heaven.
II. The exercise that is enjoined. “Hear the word of the Lord.”
1. The subject of attention: “The word of the Lord.” In other words, the subject of that attention is the revealed will of God, the Holy Scriptures, the preached Gospel. It must be listened to, not as to “a tale that is well told,” not as to “the voice of one that playeth well upon an instrument,” but listened to with self-application, and with a believing heart.
2. This exercise of hearing “the word of the Lord” may be enforced by many considerations, especially when you take into account the Being who addresses you. It is God who speaks. It is He whose Word is life or death, which exalts to heaven or sinks to hell. Think of the Word itself, of the subject of which it treats. It is no indifferent theme on which it discourses. It is the Word of knowledge, it is the proclamation of mercy, it is the glad tidings of salvation. It is, too, a Word of judgment and of death, but only to those who contemn and refuse to hear it. And then, think of the universal adaptation of its truths. They are fitted for all, for saint and for sinner alike; for the most learned and the most illiterate; for the king upon the throne and the beggar by the wayside. Think, too, of your dying condition, as yet another consideration enforcing attention to “the word of the Lord.” Soon you may be beyond the reach of its tidings of mercy. (H. Hyslop.)
Jehovah’s call to the earth
We know of persons who rise up early and sit up late, in order that they may accumulate riches, in order that they may follow their trade, or in order that they may enjoy the pleasures of sin; but how few there are who can say they “prevent the night watches” that they may “meditate upon God’s Word”!
I. In meditating upon God’s blessed Word, notice the authority with which it comes.
1. It has no title, save that which distinguishes it from all common communications, from all uninspired books. It is the Bible, which means emphatically the book, in distinction from every other book.
2. If you inquire as to its topics, its index, it is impossible to make a catalogue of these. Who can describe the truths, the doctrines, the promises, the precepts, the predictions that it contains?
3. Then you have to inquire respecting its Author. It is God--He that made us, He that sustains us, He that governs us, He alone that can bless us. The Bible is not anonymous, any more than the sun, the moon, the stars, or the sea, for it bears the impressive signature of the Divine name. It is not a fable. “We have not followed cunningly-devised fables” when we testify to you the great things of God’s Word. Oh, the riches, oh, the profundity of this inexhaustible Word! Christians have been drawing upon the resources of its wisdom; mighty preachers have been expounding its contents, scholars have been penetrating into its mysteries, the press has been pouring out dissertations and commentaries upon its mighty theme, and it is still unexhausted and inexhaustible; for it is like its infinite Author.
II. How we are to receive this communication, “O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord.”
1. If we are to hear the Word of the Lord that our souls may live, our ears must be opened. Closed by prejudice, ignorance, and sin, closed by the imperfection and deceitfulness of our nature, the Holy Spirit must open our ears to hear: then we shall hearken diligently, we shall hear believingly, so that this Word will be the life of our souls.
2. As this Word comes to you there must be spiritual participation. Indeed, the reception of the Word of God is described as “eating” that Word; and the Word of God is described as bread which we are to eat, and the manna that came doom from heaven and fell around the camps of the children of Israel was understood to be the type of that living bread upon which we are to feed. It is receiving Christ by faith, it is believing on Him, that is eating the Word. Oh, for this spiritual participation of God’s blessed Word! May God give you a spiritual taste, and spiritual desires.
3. The Word of God is to be received or heard with spiritual joy. Come and take of the most precious things God has given in His Word--let your souls delight themselves in fatness. There are precious promises and precious doctrines, precious prophecies and precious precepts; yea, everything is precious; but the nearer you get to the Cross of Christ and the discovery of God’s love in the gift of His Son, the more precious, the more nourishing, the more comforting, and the more consoling will Divine truth be to your minds.
III. This word comes to different characters and in various ways.
1. In the first place, let me address the sceptic--the doubter. There is no discovery in science which does not tend to confirm the inspiration and credibility of God’s truth; and there is not an evolution of Providence which does not serve to illustrate some portion of God’s prophetic Word. Keep your eyes upon the movements of Providence, and you will find that God is continually unfurling His truth Recollect eternity, with its weal and its woe, stands upon the decision, whether you receive with reverence, or whether you despise or neglect the great salvation which the Word of God brings.
2. This Word comes a warning to the man absorbed in the anxious cares of time; and, says it, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” This world cannot make you happy. Why spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not!
3. Then the Word of God speaks to the man who assents to God’s Word with his understanding, but denies it with his heart’s affection--having the form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. God cannot be deceived by pretences, God cannot be mocked by external service.
4. The Word of God speaks to the sorrowful. It speaks generally to the mourning, “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” It speaks to the widow in her desolateness, and says, “Thy Maker is thy husband.” It speaks to the orphan and the fatherless, and gives them the assurance of protection. It speaks to the soul half-despairing under a consciousness of its sin, and saying, “I am a great sinner, I do not know whether Christ will have compassion upon me and save me.” You are a great sinner? Well, then, Christ is a great Saviour. It speaks to the timid believer, who is ready to say, I fear I shall some day fall by the temptations and allurements of the world. Fall! you cannot fall; you walk upon firm ground, and the arms of Almighty grace sustain you whilst you are unreservedly trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. (H. Dowson.)
God’s loud call to a sleeping world
;--On our rugged and water-worn shores you may often see a black wall of stone, as regular as if it had been built by human hands, running across the tide mark from the terrestrial vegetation down to the lip of the water at its lowest. It is a trap dyke, forced up when its matter was molten, through a fissure in the overlying strata, and appearing now a narrow band of rock, totally distinct both in colour and in kind from the surrounding surface. These protruding portions show that the material of which they consist lies in vast masses underneath. So the thin line of our text seems to protrude above a broad field of mingled prophecy and fact.
I. The manner of this cry. You may measure the danger which a monitor apprehends by the sharpness of the alarm which he gives. The earth itself, and all the creatures on it under man, have a quick ear for their Maker’s voice, and, never needing, never get a call so urgent. The alacrity of the creatures that lie either above or beneath him in the scale of creation brings out in higher relief the disobedience of man. Physically, earth is wide awake and watchful. It courses through the heavens without halting for rest, and threads its way among other stars without collision. The tide keeps its time and place. The rivers roll toward the sea, and the clouds fly on wings like eagles, hastening to pour their burdens into the rivers’ springheads, that though ever flowing they may be ever full. The earth is a diligent worker; it is not the sluggard who needs a threefold call to awake and begin. Equally alert are the various orders of life that crowd the world’s surface. Above our own place, too, angel spirits are like flames of fire in the quickness, and like stormy winds in the power, with which they serve their Maker. The cry of this text is meant for man; he needs it, and he only. When the polar winter threatens to freeze the navigator’s blood, rendering constant and violent exercise necessary to keep the currents moving, then it is that the man feels the greatest drowsiness. It is only by the vigilance of experienced chiefs that they are prevented from sinking into a sleep from which there is no awakening. This fact, and the law which rules it, constitute in the moral region the saddest feature in the condition of the world. They sleep most soundly who have most need to be wakeful. The guilt which brings upon a man God’s displeasure, so stupifies the senses of the man that he is not aware of danger, and does not try to escape.
II. The matter of this cry.
1. The speaker is the only living and true God. It is essential that our belief in the first principle of religion should be well defined and real. Religion may be faint and feckless, for want of a foundation in an actual belief that God is. That Christian education is a tally defective which does not leave upon the mind and conscience a practical sense of God’s being and presence, as the first principle of all truth and all duty.
2. The thing spoken is the Word of the Lord. It is not enough for us that God is near. He was not far from the men of Athens in the days of Paul, and yet He was to them “the unknown God.” He has broken the silence; He has revealed His will The Word of the Lord lies in the Scriptures.
(1) The Word of the Lord in the Scriptures is Mercy. If the message brought only vengeance, we could at least understand the voluntary deafness of the world. But it is strange that men will not listen to their best Friend; strange that the lost should shut their ears against a voice which publishes salvation.
(2) Still further, and more particularly, “the Word of the Lord” is Christ. The use of the Scriptures is to reveal Christ; if we reject Him, they cannot give us life.
3. The injunction to regard that Word “O earth, earth,” etc.
(1) The earth so summoned, has already, in a sense most interesting and important, heard the Word of the Lord. Christ’s kingdom is even now more powerful on the earth than any other kingdom. The power that lives in the conscience and links itself to God is, in point of fact, the most persistent and effective of all the powers which mould the character and history of the human race. It is great, is growing greater, and will yet be supreme.
(2) The earth through all its bounds will one day hear and obey the Word of the Lord. Saving truth lying in the hearts of saved men has a self-propagating power.
(3) When the earth hears its Lord’s word, forthwith it calls upon the Lord. Those who sail in air ships among the clouds, as others sail on the sea, tell us that every cry which they utter on high is answered by an echo from the earth beneath When the earth, spiritually susceptible, receives from heaven the sound, “O earth, earth, earth, hear the Word of the Lord,” another cry forthwith arises, “O heaven, heaven, heaven, hear the petition of sinful men upon the earth.” God delights in that cry.
(4) Earth--that is, men in the body--should hear the Word of the Lord, for to them it brings a message of mercy. Now is the accepted time; this is the place of hope. Beware lest the sound that first awakens you be the crash of the gate when it shuts!
(5) Earth--the dust of the dead in Christ--shall hear the Word of the Lord, and shall come forth. (W. Arnot, D. D.)
The Divine appeal
I. The deep and awful concern of Jehovah for the soul of the sinner.
1. There is surely something peculiarly affecting and awful in this. Mark the concern of your Creator, deeply anxious about the noblest work of His skill and power. It is the concern of your Preserver, who hath watched you with His eye, led you by His hand, etc. It is the concern of a Saviour God, who spared not His own son, etc. This concern of Jehovah assumes a more amazing character when you think of the persons for whom it is manifested. These are not only creatures of a day, but creatures laden with iniquity, filled with corruption, at enmity with Himself, in rebellion against His law, and hastening unto perdition, without one plea for mercy, or one claim on His pity.
II. The strange stupidity and unconcern of the sinners to whom this appeal is made. We are blind and see not God; deaf, and hear Him not; dumb, and speak not to Him. We are, as Paul says, “past feeling.” Try this truth by a double experience. Try it first by the experience of those who never felt it. How else can you account for the fact that such appeals as this addressed to sinners by the living God, are often as unheeded as if the voice of the Eternal resounded through the charnel house of the tomb, or were lost amid the echoes of the desert? But try it by the opposite experience. Give me the sinner who has been startled by the voice of God, and aroused from the slumber of his carnality; give me the man with a broken spirit, who fears, hates, and mourns his manifold iniquities, and looks back upon his former state with shame and sorrow; and that is the man whose language will be, “Oh! what a blinded being I was not to see my guilt and my Saviour sooner I what a stupid creature to go on as I have done neglecting my soul! what a hardened wretch to stand out so long against my God and Saviour!”
III. An appeal to frail and dying creatures. This is always a melancholy and solemnising reflection;--we are earth. We spring from the dust and we hasten back to it. Old men, we appeal to you, and ask you how few have been the days since you were children? But how speedily now shall you be borne away from your frailties to the tomb! Young men, how rapidly are you and I hastening on to become the old men of our time! As to the children, do you not see how fast they are climbing the hill of life? But who will venture to say that things will take that natural course with us? Who can count upon a day, an hour, a moment? The thread of life is frail as the spider’s web, and may be snapt by the feeblest breath. It may be now or never.
IV. God may be supposed to call the earth to witness that He has offered you salvation, and to be ready to testify that He has spoken to you, warned you, besought you to hear His word, and flee from the wrath to come, so that if you refuse the offered mercy, the very earth will lift up its voice against you to silence every excuse, and you shall stand speechless at the bar of the judgment. Will not heaven, and earth, and seas, and skies thus conspire to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, on that great and dreadful day? Will not the simple fact that He shall summon up our spirits to His bar from every hiding place, turn these places into witnesses? Will not the fact that He shall gather our dust from the four winds, from the bottom of the sea, or from the silence of the grave, turn these elements into witnesses? Will not thus the Omniscient God turn the air we breathe, the light we behold, the dust on which we tread, every object we touch, every scene we visit, into a witness for or against us?
V. Apply the text to those who have believed this Word of the Lord. Having felt concern for your own souls, you will feel for the souls of others. You know the preciousness of Christ, and the value of souls. You perceive the danger you have escaped, but to which multitudes are still exposed. You can see yonder long, deep, gloomy phalanx of immortal souls rushing on and rolling over the brink of time into the abyss of eternity. You have entered in some small measure into God’s own views of their state. Having these views, you will, you must feel deep and distressing concern for them. You will plead for the outpouring of the Holy Ghost to raise up labourers, to qualify and send them, and give them success in winning souls. You will do more. You will put your own hand to the work as God Himself does. Is He to give all, and we nothing? Is He to do all, and we not to be fellow workers with Him? Shall He give the word, and we not publish it abroad? (John Walker.)
The earth and God’s Word
I. Earth’s attention to the divine word is of the utmost importance.
1. The earth is under condemnation; His Word can alone gain its acquittal
2. The earth is in moral darkness; His Word can alone enlighten it.
3. The earth is in bondage; His Word alone can liberate it.
4. The earth is in misery; His Word alone can relieve it.
II. Earth’s indifference to the divine word is very stolid.
1. This indifferentism has always been awfully prevalent.
2. This indifferentism is monstrously irrational.
3. This indifferentism cannot always continue. (Homilist.)
An exclamation
I. The solemn address to the children of men.
1. The expression is a metonymy, in which the container is put for the contained; but as man is “of the earth earthy,” it is also descriptive of his mortality. The expression, “O earth, earth, earth!” when properly heard, is well calculated to bring down the lofty looks of man, and to produce humility in the place of pride.
2. The repetition of the word “earth,” is used to command greater attention. This way of arresting the attention was very common amongst the Roman and Grecian orators.
3. When preceded by the interjection O or Oh! the repetition generally expresses uncommon emotion or grief (2 Samuel 18:33).
II. The important object to which their attention is called.
1. The Word of the Lord demands our attention, because it is the most interesting Book.
2. The “Word of the Lord” demands our attention, because it contains the most and best information of any book of the size.
3. But “O earth, earth, earth, hear the Word of the Lord!” for there are the words of eternal life. (B. Bailey.)
God’s voice to man
I. Specify some respects in which we should hear God’s voice.
1. In the still small voice of heavenly mercy.
2. In the loud thunder of God’s providential dispensation.
3. In your personal and relative afflictions.
4. In the ample promises and encouragements addressed to returning penitents.
II. Enumerate some reasons why the whole earth is interested in these communications.
1. Because the Gospel shows the only plan of salvation.
2. Because the progressive improvement and advancement of the race is connected with this message.
3. Because the success of missionary work shows the practicability of diffusing it.
4. Because the signs of the times are in direct accord with the promises of God. (S. Thodey.)
A call to hear the Word of the Lord
I. The subject on the address.
1. The Word of the Lord is unwritten as well as written.
2. It is threatening as well as promising.
II. The duty inculcated in the address.
1. To hear and understand.
2. To hear and obey.
3. To hear and make known to others.
III. The style of the address; apostrophe.
1. The universality of its range.
2. The earnestness and affection of its spirit. (G. Brooks.).