EVERY one who appears before the judgment throne to answer for their sins, will inevitably find themselves in the same condition as that described by the word which stands at the head of this paper.
People make all sorts of excuses now, when the question is raised about their souls and eternity. We have heard soldiers and sailors say, that really there were so many difficulties and temptations in their line of life, that it was hardly possible they could be judged as other men.
Others, again, will tell you that their time is so occupied with their business or family affairs, that they have
no time to think
about their souls. How strange it all seems when we weigh things in the light of eternity! Time to think about business, about pleasure, about the things of a fading, dying world; but eternity, with its great realities, eternity to be spent in heaven or hell, no time for that!
We might wonder how sensible people could be so deluded, did we not know the darkening, blinding power of Satan, the “god of this world,” over the souls of men.
The man in the parable before us (Matt. 22), who had not on the wedding garment, might very well have pleaded excuses had some of his fellow-guests spoken to him on the subject. He might have said that really he had no time to procure that garment, or somehow he neglected to do so. It is easy to pass along in the crowd, or to account for ourselves to our fellow-men; but what avails that before God? And so it was here: we do not find any question raised, until the King came in and looked round the room. But nothing escaped his eye, he took notice of everything, and he saw there a man who had not on a wedding garment.
Such a garment was provided free for each guest in those days, and to be present without one was an insult to the person who spread the feast. The garment was, in figure, Christ: Christ in His all-sufficiency to clothe the poor repentant prodigal, and make him fit to enter God’s house.
No question was raised here as to the man’s character. He may have been most upright, kind, and benevolent; or he may have been quite the opposite: but the whole point at issue was, Was he clothed with the wedding garment? In other words, the great question for each one today is, “What think ye of Christ?”
The man without the wedding garment may have had a very nice robe indeed; possibly one which he or others would have thought quite as good as, if not superior to that provided by the king: but all this availed nothing, when the one question to be decided was, Had he on the wedding garment? No, no; it is a vain delusion for any-one to imagine that they can meet the eye of God, a God of holiness and truth, in the thread-bare robe of their own works, their amended life, their prayers or tears.
Christ is no make-weight
to make up our deficiencies. He is a full and all-sufficient Saviour; and so, in the matter of salvation, it must be all Christ, or no Christ at all.
“Friend,” says the king, “how camest thou in hither, not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless.” Religious professor without Christ, you may be most correct in your outward life, attend your place of worship regularly, and do many things which are good in themselves, — but if you die without Christ, you will stand speechless before that judgment throne from which there is no appeal, and from which there is no escape.
But what a lovely contrast to this we find in the case of the poor prodigal in Luke 15! He repented, he came back in his rags; he was received, welcomed, clothed in the best robe, and brought into the house fit to be there, to share the joys of the feast which the father provided even for such a sinner as he. And so it must be one or other of the two, — to be clothed with Christ, receiving Him by faith, and share the joys of heaven forever; or, to be without Christ,
speechless before the judgment throne,
and to hear the solemn sentence, “Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
It is God who says, “If any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema, Maranatha”; that is, accursed. F. G. B.