Jeremiah 8:20 The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. I. SOME FAVOURABLE SEASONS FOR THE SALVATION OF THE SOUL, WHICH IF LOST, MUST BE THE SUBJECT OF BITTER REGRET. 1. The season of youth. Young prayers, young vows, and young services, are most acceptable in the sight of heaven — most useful to the subject of them; and most beneficial in the way of example to others. 2. The season of health. When it is not till sickness over. takes us that an attention is paid to religion, it will be regarded as forced on us and it will be regarded with pity rather than admiration. The consequences of deferring religion to a death bed, are equally unhappy as respects the individual himself. 3. The period of the present life. Imagination itself cannot picture the horror felt by the impenitent disembodied spirit when the dread realities of an eternal world burst upon the view. What earthly condition so dreadful, that it would not give ten thousand worlds to regain, might there be but another opportunity of listening to the Divinely commissioned messengers of mercy, and of escaping from a miserable hereafter? II. THE CAUSES WHY THESE HOPEFUL SEASONS ARE LOST. 1. Inconsideration and unbelief. It is the insensibility of the victim filleted for the sacrifice, of the mariner sleeping on the mast, or of the patient in the delirium of fever. 2. The spirit of procrastination. To defer our religious concerns while the truth of the Divine threatening is admitted, argues an aversion to that temper and conduct which form a meetness for heaven which is strong and permanent. (R. Brodie, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.WEB: The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. |
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