I warn you, — if you die with little sins unforgiven, with little sins unrepented of, there shall be no little hell; the great wrath of the great King is always to come, in a pit without a bottom, in a hell the fire of which never shall be quenched, and the worm of which never shall die. Oh, “the wrath to come! the wrath to come!” It is enough to make one’s heart ache to think of it. God help you to flee from it. May you escape from it now, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
{a} Midge: A popular name loosely applied to many small gnat-like insects. OED.
{b} Aphids: A family of minute insects, also called plant lice, which are very destructive to vegetation. They are prodigiously prolific, multiplying through the summer by parthenogenesis; they form the food of lady bugs, and are tended by ants for the honeydew which they yield, from where sometimes called ant cows. OED.
A Vision Of The Latter Day Glories
No. 249-5:193. A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, April 24, 1859, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.
And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow into it. {Isaiah 2:2 Micah 4:1}
1. The prophets of God were called seers in olden times, for they had a supernatural sight which could pierce through the gloom of the future and behold the things which are not yet seen, but which God has ordained for the last times. They frequently described what they saw with spiritual eyes after the form or fashion of something which could be seen by the eye of nature. The vision was so substantial that they could picture it in words, so that we also may behold in open vision, the glorious things which they beheld after a supernatural manner. Let us imagine Isaiah as he stood upon Mount Zion. He looked around him and there were “the mountains that are around Jerusalem” far surpassing it in height, but yielding to Zion in glory. Dearer to his soul than even the snow capped glories of Lebanon which glittered afar off was that little hill of Zion, for there upon its summit stood the temple, the shrine of the living God, the place of his delight, the home of song, the house of sacrifice, the great gathering place where the tribes went up, the tribes of the Lord, to serve Jehovah, the God of Abraham. Standing at the gate of that glorious temple which had been constructed by the matchless skill of Solomon, he looked into the future and he saw, with tearful eye, the structure burned with fire; he saw it destroyed and the plough driven over its foundations. He saw the people carried away into Babylon, and the nation cast off for a time. Looking once more through the glass he beheld the temple rising from its ashes, with its outward glory diminished, but really increased. He saw into the future until he beheld the Messiah himself in the form of a little babe carried into the second temple; he saw him there, and he rejoiced; but before he had time for gladness his eye glanced onward to the cross; he saw the Messiah nailed to the tree; he beheld his back ploughed and mangled with the whip. “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows,” said the prophet, and he paused for a while to bemoan the bleeding Prince of the House of David. His eye was now doomed to a long and bitter weeping, for he saw the invading hosts of the Romans setting up the standard of desolation in the city. He saw the holy city burned with fire and utterly destroyed. His spirit almost melted in him. But once more he flew through time with eagle wing, and scanned the future with eagle eye; he soared aloft in imagination, and began to sing of the last days — the end of dispensations and of time. He saw the Messiah once again on earth. He saw that little hill of Zion rising to the clouds — reaching to heaven itself. He beheld the New Jerusalem descending from above, God dwelling among men, and all the nations flowing into the tabernacle of the Most High God, where they paid him holy worship.
2. We shall not, today, look through all the dim vista of Zion’s tribulations. We will leave the avenue of troubles and of trials through which the church has passed and is to pass, and we will come, by faith, to the last days; and may God help us while we indulge in a glorious vision of what is to be before long, when “the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow into it.” The prophet saw two things in the vision. He saw the mountain exalted, and he beheld the nations flowing into it. Now will you use your imagination for a moment; for there is a picture here which I can scarcely compare to anything, except one of Martin’s magnificent paintings, in which he throws together such masses of light and shade that the imagination is left at liberty to stretch her wings and fly to the utmost height. In the present instance, you will not be able to outstrip the reality, however high you may endeavour to soar; for what is in our text will certainly be greater than what the preacher can utter, or that which you may be able to conceive.
3. Transport yourselves for a moment to the foot of Mount Zion. As you stand there, you observe that it is only a very little hill. Bashan is far loftier, and Carmel and Sharon surpass it. As for Lebanon, Zion is only a small hill compared with it. If you think for a moment of the Alps, or of the loftier Andes, or of the yet mightier Himalayas, this mount Zion seems to be a very little hill, a mere insignificant, despicable, and obscure molehill. Stand there for a moment, until the Spirit of God touches your eye, and you shall see this hill begin to grow. Up it mounts, with the temple on its summit, until it surpasses Tabor. Onward it grows, until Carmel, with its perpetual green, is left behind, and Salmon, with its everlasting snow sinks before it. Onward still it grows, until the snowy peaks of Lebanon are eclipsed. Still onward mounts the hill, drawing with its mighty roots other mountains and hills into its fabric; and onward it rises, until piercing the clouds it reaches above the Alps; and onwards still, until the Himalayas seem to be sucked into its base, and the greatest mountains of the earth appear to be only as the roots that strike out from the side of the eternal hill; and there it rises until you can scarcely see the top, as infinitely above all the higher mountains of the world as they are above the valleys. Have you caught the idea, and do you see there afar off upon the lofty top, not everlasting snows, but a pure crystal tableland, crowned with a gorgeous city, the metropolis of God, the royal palace of Jesus the King. The sun is eclipsed by the light which shines from the top of this mountain; the moon ceases from her brightness, for there is now no night: but this one hill, lifted up on high, illuminates the atmosphere, and the nations of those who are saved are walking in its light. The hill of Zion has now surpassed all others, and all the mountains and hills of the earth are become as nothing before her. This is the magnificent picture of the text. I do not know that in all the copious volumes of poetry there is an idea so massive and stupendous as this — a mountain heaving, expanding, swelling, growing, until all the high hills become absorbed, and what was only a little rising ground before, becomes a hill whose top reaches to the seventh heaven. Now we have here a picture of what the church is to be.
4. Of old, the church was like Mount Zion, a very little hill. What did the nations of the earth see when they looked at it? — a humble man with twelve disciples. But that little hill grew, and some thousands were baptized in the name of Christ; it grew again and became mighty. The stone cut out of the mountain without hands began to break kingdoms in pieces, and now to this day the hill of Zion stands as a lofty hill. But still, compared with the colossal systems of idolatry, she is very small. The Hindu and the Chinese turn to our religion, and say, “It is an infant of yesterday; ours is the religion of the ages.” The Easterners compare Christianity to some miasma that creeps along the fenny lowlands, but they imagine their systems to be like the Alps, surpassing the heavens in height. Ah, but we reply to this, “Your mountain crumbles and your hill dissolves, but our hill of Zion has been growing, and strange to say, it has life within its heart, and shall grow on it, must grow on it, until all the systems of idolatry shall become less than nothing before it, until false gods being cast down, mighty systems of idolatry being overthrown, this mountain shall rise above them all, and on, and on, and on, shall this Christian religion grow, until converting into its mass all the deluded followers of the heresies and idolatries of man, the hill shall reach to heaven, and God in Christ shall be all in all.” Such is the destiny of our church,
