Woes to Come

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Revelation 9:1-12

And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven to the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.…

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Woes to come: — To my own apprehension, while reading this in private, it seemed just such an utterance as the angel of God might address to the soul of the ungodly when he leaves the body. "Death is over," saith the angel. "One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter." Thou hast passed through the woes of death, but behold there comes a judgment, and then comes a second death: "One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter."

1. The woe which is supposed to be passed is the woe of death. Death to the righteous has lost its sting, but to the wicked death has all its terrors. Its horrors are not diminished by anything that Christ hath done; yea, rather, death gathers more cause of dismay; for the very Cross itself may fill the obdurate heart with consternation. When the sinner dies impenitent, having rejected the mercy of Christ, death is woe indeed. One of my predecessors, Mr. Benjamin Keach, has left on record an account of a man that had been a trouble to his Church — for he had backslidden — and his cries, shrieks, and tears, at the very prospect of death, were enough to make one's hair turn white and stand upon end. The poor wretched man seems to have had a foretaste of perdition before he entered into its fire; and so it is ofttimes with the wicked: thou hast had thy harvest; thy summer is ended; but thou art not saved; thou hast been warned, but thou shalt not be warned again, and all the while conscience says this is just — I knew my duty and I did it not; I knew it was my. duty to repent, but I steeled my heart against God, and I would not forsake my sins; I turned my back upon the Cross to dance in a merry circle downwards to the pit. This shall make death woeful indeed, when it shall be hurled into the mind; thou knewest thy duty, but thou didst it not:

2. Of the two woes that loom in the future, I would now briefly but solemnly speak.

(1) The first woe of the man who dies in his sins is the woe of judgment; that is terrible indeed. Scarce can a prisoner stand in the docks to be tried for his life by his fellow-man without trembling; at least, it is a wonder if it should be so. But conceive the great assize — the graves are opened! What horrors shall seize hold upon the wicked at that moment!

(2) After the woe of judgment there comes the woe of hell. Oh, what a woe is that in which all the woes of the lost are condensed! You cannot compare the pains of this life with the agonies to be endured hereafter.

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