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Many ministers of Christ have been accused of taking pleasure in preaching upon this terrible subject of "the wrath to come." It were strange, indeed, if it were so. To preach Christ is our delight, the joy of our heart; but while it is bard to preach the terrors of the law, it were harder still to bear the doom which must rest upon the silent minister, the unfaithful watchman who did not warn the sinner, and whose blood must therefore be required at the watchman's hands. None ever spoke as did Jesus on this terrible theme; no preacher ever used figures of such glaring horror as did He. Upon such a subject we cannot afford to trifle. Must the eternal and holy Son of God offer up His life for us, and is the world to come a thing about which men can idly sport or dream? But this forgetting of God.

I. LET ME CHARGE THIS SIN UPON YOU. Gross sinners will receive their doom. God will not treat them with leniency; He will not wink at their follies, "the wicked shall be turned into hell." But observe their companions — "those who forget God." Now I charge this sin upon many. Sinner, thou forgettest —

1. God's infinite majesty;

2. His mercies;

3. His laws;

4. His presence;

5. His justice.

II. THE REASON OF THIS FORGETFULNESS.

1. It is because the thought of Him makes the sinner afraid. The guilty man always dreads the eye of the judge.

2. It is irksome to thee. Thy heart revolts. Thou sayest, "Why should I think of God?"

3. Such thinking and going on in sin are incompatible, and thou preferrest thy sins. Sin loved, God is abhorred.

III. YOUR EXCUSES FOR IT. You say —

1. A man is excusable if he has not had enough in early youth to impress God upon his memory. You, who have been trained by godly parents, cannot say that.

2. To think of God always is very hard. Have you ever made the attempt? How, then, do you know it is hard work? Your forgetting never caused you to weep. If it were not wilful and wicked forgetting you would repent of it. Everything around you reminds you of God, and what warnings many of you have had.

IV. I WOULD PERSUADE YOU TO REPENTANCE. I would plead — relying on the Holy Ghost.

1. By the terrors of the law. In hell the thought of God shall be as a dagger in your soul. "Son, remember," that was the word of Abraham to Dives in hell, and an awful word it was. But

2. By the mercies of God. He saith, "As I live, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, but had rather that he should turn unto Me and live." There is hope for thee in Christ Jesus.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

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KJV: The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.

WEB: The wicked shall be turned back to Sheol, even all the nations that forget God.