Sodom will be better off!

(MacDuff, "The Doomed City" 1887)

"I assure you, Sodom will be better off on
the judgment day than you." Matthew 11:24

Alas! alas! Is it not to be feared that many
are content with having "a name to live," who
are spiritually dead. There are thousands who
come to our churches, who hear the preacher,
who assent to the message, but go back from
listening to the tremendous themes of Death,
Judgment, and Eternity, to plunge deep as
ever into engrossing worldliness and sin.

The preacher may be heard; his words may fall
like lulling music on the ear, but the gates of
the soul are firmly locked and barred against
admission. The preacher may thunder his rebukes,
but some heart sin and life sin, will, in spite
of them, be retained and caressed.

Are there none now reading these words, whom
the Savior would begin to "upbraid," because they
have not repented? When His scrutinizing eye
looks down, Sabbath after Sabbath, upon listening
audiences throughout our land, all apparently
solemn, sincere, outwardly devout, does He not
discern, lurking underneath this fair external guise,
the signs and symptoms of loathsomeness and decay;
like the pure virgin snow covering the charred and
blackened ruin?

Ah! sermons will not save us!

Church going will not save us!

Orthodoxy in creed and party will not save us!

Repent! Repent! is the sharp, shrill call of the
Gospel trumpet! There must  be . . .
  a change of heart;
  a change of life;
  a crucifixion of sin; and with full purpose of
heart, a cleaving unto the Lord who died for us!

n.b. To read this whole sermon, just click on 
The Doomed City