Woe is unto us if we preach not the gospel; and that is the sad destitution of this poor fallen world.
Oh, minister of the gospel! stand for one moment and bethink thyself of thy poor fellow creatures! See them like a stream, rushing to eternity—ten thousand to their endless home each solemn moment fly! See the termination of that stream, that tremendous cataract which dashes streams of souls into the pit!
Oh, minister, bethink thyself that men are being damned each hour by thousands, and that each time thy pulse beats another soul lifts up its eyes in hell, being in torments; bethink thyself how men are speeding on their way to destruction, how “the love of many waxeth cold” and “iniquity doth abound.”
I say, is there not a necessity laid upon thee? Is it not woe unto thee if thou preachest not the gospel?
Take thy walk one evening through the streets of London when the dusk has gathered, and darkness veils the people. Mark you not yon profligate hurrying on to her accursed work? See you not thousands and tens of thousands annually ruined?
Up from the hospital and the asylum there comes a voice, “Woe is unto you if ye preach not the gospel.”
Go to that huge place built around with massive walls, enter the dungeons, and see the thieves who have for years spent their lives in sin. Wend your way sometimes to that sad square of Newgate, and see the murderer hanged. A voice shall come from each house of correction, from each prison, from each gallows, saying, “Woe is unto thee if thou preachest not the gospel.”
Go thou to the thousand death-beds, and mark how men are perishing in ignorance, not knowing the ways of God. See their terror as they approach their Judge, never having known what it was to be saved, not even knowing the way; and as you see them quivering before their Maker, hear a voice, “Minister, woe is unto thee if thou preachest not the gospel.”
Or take another course. Travel round this great metropolis, and stop at the door of some place where there is heard the tinkling of bells, chanting and music, but where the whore of Babylon hath her sway, and lies are preached for truth; and when thou comest home and thinkest of Popery and Puseyism, let a voice come to thee, “Minister woe is unto thee if thou preachest not the gospel.”
Or step into the hall of the infidel where he blasphemes thy Maker’s name; or sit in the theater where plays, libidinous and loose are acted, and from all these haunts of vice there comes the voice, “Minister, woe is unto thee if thou preachest not the gospel.”
And take thy last solemn walk down to the chambers of the lost; let the abyss of hell be visited, and stand thou and hear
“The sullen groans, the hollow moans,
And shrieks of tortured ghosts.”
Put thine ear at hell’s gate, and for a little while list to the commingled screams and shrieks of agony and fell despair that shall lend thine ear; and as thou comest from that sad place with that doleful music still affrighting thee, thou wilt hear the voice, “Minister! minister! woe is unto thee if thou preaches not the gospel.”
Only let us have these things before our eyes, and we must preach. Stop preaching! Stop preaching! Let the sun stop shining, and we will preach in darkness.
Let the waves stop their ebb and flow, and still our voice shall preach the gospel, let the world stop its revolutions, let the planets stay their motion; we will still preach the gospel.
Until the fiery center of this earth shall burst through the thick ribs of her brazen mountains, we shall still preach the gospel; till the universal conflagration shall dissolve the earth, and matter shall be swept away, these lips, or the lips of some others called of God, shall still thunder forth the voice of Jehovah. We cannot help it.
“Necessity is laid upon us, yea woe is unto us if we preach not the gospel.”