Numbers 16:41-50 But on the morrow all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, saying… Every minister of Jesus Christ, when he stands in the pulpit, stands in the same responsible relation as Aaron did. I stand and look at the living on one side, and on the other I see the dead. The Bible, up and down, declares that an unforgiven soul is dead in trespasses and in sins. What killed the soul? The plague. What kind of a plague — the Asiatic plague? No; the plague of sin. The Asiatic plague was epidemic. It struck one, it struck a great many; and this plague of sin is epidemic. It has touched all nations. It goes from heart to heart, and from house to house; and we are more apt to copy the defects than we are the virtues of character. The whole race is struck through with an awful sickness. Explorers have gone forth, by ship, and reindeer sledge, and on foot, and they have discovered new tribes and villages; but they have never yet discovered a sinless population. On every brow the mark of the plague — in every vein the fever. On both sides of the equator, in all zones, from arctic to antarctic, the plague. Yes, it is contagious. We catch it from our parents. Our children catch it from us. Instead of fourteen thousand seven hundred, there are more than one thousand millions of the dead. As I look off upon the spiritually dead, I see that the scene is loathsome. Now, sometimes you have seen a body after decease more beautiful than in life. The old man looked young again. But when a man perished with the Asiatic plague he became repulsive. There was something about the brow, about the neck, about the lip, about the eye, that was repulsive. And when a man is dead in sin he is repulsive to God. We are eaten of that abominable thing which God hates, and unless we are resuscitated from that condition, we must go out of His sight. But I remark again, that I look off upon the slain of this plague, and I see the scene is one of awful destruction. Gout attacks the foot, ophthalmia the eye, neuralgia the nerves; and there are diseases which take only, as it were, the outposts of the physical castle; but the Asiatic plague demolishes the whole fortress. And so with this plague of sin. It enwraps the whole soul, It is complete destruction — altogether undone, altogether gone astray, altogether dead. When I look upon those who are slain with this plague, I see that they are beyond any human resurrection. Medical colleges have prescribed for this Asiatic plague, but have never yet cured a case. And so I have to tell you that no earthly resurrection can bring up a soul after it is dead in sin. You may galvanise it, and make it move around very strangely; but galvanism and life are infinitely apart. None but the omnipotent God can resurrect it. I go further and say, that every minister of the gospel, when he stands up to preach, stands between the living and the dead of the great future. Two worlds, one on either side of us: the one luminous, the other dark; the one a princely and luxuriant residence, the other an incarceration. Standing between the living who have entered upon their eternal state, and the dead who shall tarry in their eternal decease, I am this moment. Oh, the living, the living, I think of them to-night. Your Christian dead have not turned into thin clouds and floated off into the immensities. Living, bounding, acting, they are waiting for you. Living! Never to die. (T. De Witt Talmage.) Parallel Verses KJV: But on the morrow all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, saying, Ye have killed the people of the LORD. |
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