Billy Sunday

CHAPTER XXX

Eternity! Eternity!

I tell you a lot of people are going to be fooled on the Day of Judgment. – Billy Sunday.

Only a man to whom has been given eloquence and a dramatic instinct can drive home to the average mind the realities of eternity and its relation to right living in this world and time. Under the title "What Shall the End Be?" Sunday has widely circulated his message upon this theme:

"WHAT SHALL THE END BE?"

No book ever came by luck or chance. Every book owes its existence to some being or beings, and within the range and scope of human intelligence there are but three things – good, bad and God. All that originates in intellect; all which the intellect can comprehend, must come from one of the three. This book, the Bible, could not possibly be the product of evil, wicked, godless, corrupt, vile men, for it pronounces the heaviest penalties against sin. Like produces like, and if bad men were writing the Bible they never would have pronounced condemnation and punishment against wrong-doing. So that is pushed aside.

The holy men of old, we are told, spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Men do not attribute these beautiful and matchless and well-arranged sentences to human intelligence alone, but we are told that men spake as they were inspired by the Holy Ghost.

The only being left, to whom you, or I or any sensible person could ascribe the origin of the Bible, is God, for here is a book, the excellence of which rises above other books, like mountains above molehills – a book whose brilliancy and life-giving power exceed the accumulated knowledge and combined efforts of men, as the sun exceeds the lamp, which is but a base imitation of the sun's glory. Here is a book that tells me where I came from and where I am going, a book without which I would not know of my origin or destiny, except as I might glean it from the dim outlines of reason or nature, either or both of which would be unsatisfactory to me. Here is a book that tells me what to do and what not to do.

Men Believe in God

Most men believe in God. Now and then you find a man who doesn't, and he's a fool, for "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God." Most men have sense. Occasionally you will find a fool, or an infidel, who doesn't believe in God. Most men believe in a God that will reward the right and punish the wrong; therefore it is clear what attitude you ought to assume toward my message tonight, for the message I bring to you is not from human reason or intelligence, but from God's Book.

"What shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?" Now listen, and I will try to help you. Israel's condition was desperate. Peter told them that if they continued to break God's law, they would merit his wrath. I can imagine him crying out in the words of Jeremiah: "What will you do in the swelling of the Jordan?" I hear him cry in the words of Solomon: "The way of the transgressor is hard." That seems to have moved him, and I can hear him cry in the words of my text: "What shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?"

There are those who did obey. Peter knew what their end would be – blessings here and eternal life hereafter – but he said, "What shall the end be of them that obey not?"

A man said, "I cannot be a Christian. I cannot obey God." That is not true. That would make God out a demon and a wretch. God says if you are not a Christian you will be doomed. If God asked mankind to do something, and he knew when he asked them that they could not do it, and he told them he would damn them if they didn't do it, it would make God out a demon and a wretch, and I will not allow you or any other man to stand up and insult my God. You can be a Christian if you want to, and it is your cussedness that you are unwilling to give up that keeps you away from God.

Supposing I should go on top of a building and say to my little baby boy, "Fly up to me." If he could talk, he would say, "I can't." And supposing I would say, "But you can; if you don't, I'll whip you to death." When I asked him to do it, I knew he couldn't, yet I told him I would whip him to death if he didn't, and in saying that I would, as an earthly father, be just as reasonable as God would be if he should ask you to do something you couldn't do, and though he knew when he asked you that you couldn't do it, nevertheless would damn you if you didn't do it.

Don't tell God you can't. Just say you don't want to be a Christian, that's the way to be a man. Just say, "I don't want to be decent; I don't want to quit cussing; I don't want to quit booze-fighting; I don't want to quit lying; I don't want to quit committing adultery. If I should be a Christian I would have to quit all these things, and I don't want to do it." Tell God you are not man enough to be a Christian. Don't try to saddle it off on the Lord. You don't want to do it, that's all; that's the trouble with you.

At the Cross

A man in a town in Ohio came and handed one of the ministers a letter, and he said, "I want you to read that when you get home." When the minister got home he opened it and it read like this:

"I was at the meeting last night, and somehow or other, the words 'What shall the end be?' got hold of me, and troubled me. I went to bed, but couldn't sleep. I got up and went to my library. I took down my books on infidelity and searched them through and searched through the writings of Voltaire, and Darwin, and Spencer, and Strauss, and Huxley, and Tyndall, and through the lectures of Ingersoll, but none of them could answer the cry and longing of my heart, and I turn to you. Is there help? Where will I find it?" And that man found it where every man ever has, or ever will find it, down at the Cross of Jesus Christ, and I have been praying God that might be the experience of many a man and woman in this Tabernacle.

Ever since God saved my soul and sent me out to preach, I have prayed him to enable me to pronounce two words, and put into those words all they will mean to you; if they ever become a reality, God pity you. One word is "Lost," and the other is "Eternity."

Ten thousand years from now we will all be somewhere. Ten thousand times ten thousand times ten thousand years, the eternity has just begun. Increase the multiple and you will only increase the truth. If God should commission a bird to carry this earth, particle by particle, to yonder planet, making a round trip once in a thousand years, and if, after the bird had performed that task God should prolong its life, and it would carry the world back, particle by particle, making a round trip once in a thousand years, and put everything back as it was originally, after it had accomplished its task, you would have been five minutes in eternity; and yet you sit there with just a heart-beat between you and the judgment of God. I have been praying that God would enable me to pronounce those two words and put in them all they will mean to you, that I might startle you from your lethargy. I prayed God, too, that he might give me some new figure of speech tonight, that he might impress my mind, that I, in turn, might impress your mind in such a manner that I could startle you from your indifference and sin, until you would rush to Jesus.

The Judgment of God

What is your life? A hand's breadth – yes, a hair's breadth – yes, one single heart-beat, and you are gone, and yet you sit with the judgment of God hovering over you. "What shall the end be?"

I never met any man or woman in my life who disbelieved in Christianity but could not be classified under one of these two headings.

First – They who, because of an utter disregard of God's claims upon their lives, have, by and through that disregard, become poltroons, marplots or degenerate scoundrels, and have thrown themselves beyond the pale of God's mercy.

Second – Men and women with splendid, noble and magnificent abilities, which they have allowed to become absorbed in other matters, and they do not give to the subjects of religion so much as passing attention. They have the audacity to claim for themselves an intellectual superiority to those who believe the Bible, which they sneeringly term 'that superstition.' But, listen! I will challenge you. If you will bring to religion or to the divinity of Jesus, or the salvation of your soul, the same honest inquiry you demand of yourself in other matters, you will know God is God; you will know the Bible is the Word of God, and you will know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. You will know that you are a sinner on the road to hell, and you will turn from your sins. But you don't give to religion, you don't demand of yourself, the same amount of research that you would demand of yourself if you were going to buy a piece of property, to find out whether or not the title was perfect. You wouldn't buy it if you didn't know the title was without a flaw, and yet you will pass the Bible by and claim you have more sense than the person who does investigate and finds out, accepts and is saved.

Glad Tidings to All

What is the Gospel that the people ought to obey it? It is good news, glad tidings of salvation, through Jesus Christ.

Oh, but somebody says, do you call the news of that book that I am on the road to hell, good news? No, sir; that in itself is not good news, but since it is the truth, the sooner you find out the better it will be for you.

Supposing you are wandering, lost in a swamp, and a man would come to you and say: "You are lost." That wouldn't help you. But supposing the man said: "You are lost; I am a guide; I know the way out. If you put yourself in my care, I will lead you back to your home, back to your loved ones." That would meet your condition.

Now God doesn't tell you that you are lost, and on the road to hell, and then leave you, but he tells you that you are on the road to hell, and he says, "I have sent a guide, my Son, to lead you out, and to lead you back to peace and salvation." That's good news, that God is kind enough to tell you that you are lost, and on the road to hell, and that he sends a guide, who, if you will submit, will lead you out of your condition and lead you to peace and salvation. That's gospel; that's good news that tells a man that he needn't go to hell unless he wants to.

When the Israelites were bitten by the serpents in the wilderness, wasn't it good news for them to know that Moses had raised up a brazen serpent and bid them all to look and be healed?

When the flood came, wasn't it good news for Noah to know that he would be saved in the ark?

When the city of Jericho was going to fall, wasn't it good news to Rahab. She had been kind and had hid two of God's servants who were being pursued as spies. They were running across the housetops to get away to the wall to drop down, and Rahab covered them, on top of her house, with grass and corn, and when the men came they could not find them. After the men had gone, Rahab gave them cord and lowered them down the wall, and God said to her, "Because you did that for my servants, I will save you and your household when I take the city of Jericho. What I want you to do is to hang a scarlet line out of your window and I will save all that are under your roof." Wasn't it good news to her to know that she and all her household would be saved by hanging a scarlet line out of the window? Never has such news been published. "Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins." It was good news, but never has such news reached the world as that man need not go to hell, for God has provided redemption for them that will accept of it and be saved.

Supposing a man owed you $5,000 and he had nothing to pay it with. You would seize him and put him in jail, and supposing while there, your own son would come and say: "Father, how much does he owe you?" "Five thousand dollars." And your son would pay it and the man would be released.

Ah, my friends, hear me! We were all mortgaged to God, had nothing with which to pay, and inflexible justice seized upon us and put us in the prison of condemnation. God took pity on us. He looked around to find some one to pay our debts. Jesus Christ stepped forward and said: "I'll go; I'll become bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh." God gave man the Mosaic law. Man broke the law.

If a Jew violated the law he was compelled to bring a turtle dove, or pigeon, or heifer, or bullock to the high priest for a sacrifice, and the shedding of its blood made atonement for his sins. Once a year the high priest would kill the sacrifice, putting it on the altar. That made atonement for the sins of the people during the year. Then they would put their hand on the head of the scape-goat, and lead it out into the wilderness.

The Atonement of Christ

Jesus Christ came into the world, born of a woman. When he shed his blood, he made atonement for our sins. God says, "If you will accept Jesus Christ as your Saviour, I will put it to your credit as though you kept the law." And it's Jesus Christ or hell for every man or woman on God Almighty's dirt. There is no other way whereby you can be saved. It's good news that you don't have to go to hell, unless you want to.

When the North German Lloyd steamer, the Elbe, went down in the North Sea, years and years ago, only nineteen of her passengers and crew were saved. Among them was a county commissioner who lived in Cleveland, Ohio, and when he reached the little English town he sent a cablegram to his wife, in which he said, "The Elbe is lost; I am saved." She crumpled that cablegram, ran down the street to her neighbors, and as she ran she waved it above her head and cried, "He's saved! He's saved!" That cablegram is framed, and hangs upon the walls of their beautiful Euclid Avenue home. It was good news to her that he whom she loved was saved.

Good news I bring you. Good news I bring you, people. You need not go to hell if you will accept the Christ that I preach to you.

"What shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel?" And the gospel of God is, "Repent or you will go to hell." "What shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel?" What is the gospel, and what is it to obey the gospel? We have seen that it is good news; now what is it to obey? What was it for Israel to obey? Look at the brazen serpent on the pole. What was it for Noah to obey? Build the ark and get into it. What was it for Rahab to obey? Hang a scarlet line out of the window, and God would pass her by when he took the city of Jericho. All that was obeying. It was believing God's message and obeying.

Ah! I see a man. He walks to the banks of the Seine, in Paris, to end his life. He walked to the bank four times, but he didn't plunge in. He filled a cup with poison, three times raised it to his lips, but he did not drink. He cocked the pistol, put it against his temple. He did that twice, but he didn't pull the trigger. He heard the story of Jesus Christ and dropped on his knees, and William Cowper wrote:

"God moves in a mysterious way,His wonders to perform;He plants his footsteps in the sea,And rides upon the storm."There is a fountain filled with blood,Drawn from Immanuel's veins;And sinners plunged beneath that flood,Lose all their guilty strains."

So that's what you found, is it, Cowper?

I go to Bridgeport, Connecticut. I rap at a humble home and walk into the presence of Fanny J. Crosby, the blind hymn-writer. She has written over six thousand hymns. She never saw the light of day, was born blind, and I say to her, "Oh, Miss Crosby, tell me that I may tell the people what you have found by trusting in the finished work of Jesus Christ? You have sat in darkness for ninety-four years; tell me, Miss Crosby." And that face lights up like a halo of glory; those sightless eyes flash, and she cries:

"Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine;Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!""Pass me not, O gentle Saviour,Hear my humble cry!""Jesus keep me near the cross,There's a precious fountain.""Once I was blind, but now I can see,The light of the world is Jesus.""And I shall see Him, face to face,And tell the story, Saved by Grace."

I go to Wesley as he walks along the banks of a stream, while the storm raged, the lightning flashed and the thunder roared. The birds were driven, in fright, from their refuge in the boughs of the trees. A little bird took refuge in his coat. Wesley held it tenderly, walked home, put it in a cage, kept it until morning, carried it out, opened the door and watched it as it circled around and shot off for its mountain home. He returned to his house and wrote:

"Jesus, lover of my soul,Let me to thy bosom fly."

What have you found by trusting in the finished work of Jesus Christ?

God's Word

It is said of Napoleon that one day he was riding in review before his troops, when the horse upon which he sat became unmanageable, seized the bit in his teeth, dashed down the road and the life of the famous warrior was in danger. A private, at the risk of his life, leaped out and seized the runaway horse, while Napoleon, out of gratitude, raised in the stirrups, saluted and said, "Thank you, captain." The man said, "Captain of what, sir?" "Captain of my Life Guards, sir," said he.

The man stepped over to where the Life Guards were in consultation and they ordered him back into the ranks. He refused to go and issued orders to the officer by saying, "I am Captain of the Guards." Thinking him insane, they ordered his arrest and were dragging him away, when Napoleon rode up and the man said, "I am Captain of the Guards because the Emperor said so." And Napoleon arose and said, "Yes, Captain of my Life Guards. Loose him, sir; loose him."

I am a Christian because God says so, and I did what he told me to do, and I stand on God's Word and if that book goes down, I'll go down with it. If God goes down, I'll go with him, and if there were any other kind of God, except that God, I would have been shipwrecked long ago. Twenty-seven years ago in Chicago I piled all I had, my reputation, my character, my wife, children, home; I staked my soul, everything I had, on the God of that Bible, and the Christ of that Bible, and I won.

"What shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?" Hear me! There are three incomprehensibilities to me. Don't think there are only three things I don't know, or don't you think that I think there are only three things I don't know. I say, there are three things that I cannot comprehend.

Eternity and Space

First – Eternity; that something away off yonder, somewhere. You will think it will end. It leads on, on, on and on. I can take a billion, I can subtract a million; I can take a million or a billion, or a quadrillion, or a septillion of years from eternity, and I haven't as much as disturbed its original terms. Minds trained to deal with intricate problems will go reeling back in their utter inability to comprehend eternity.

And there is space. When you go out tonight, look up at the moon, 240,000 miles away. Walking forty miles a day, I could reach the moon in seventeen years, but the moon is one of our near neighbors. Ah, you saw the sun today, 92,900,000 miles away. I couldn't walk to the sun. If I could charter a fast train, going fifty miles an hour, it would take the train two hundred and fifteen years to reach the sun.

In the early morn you will see a star, near the sun – Mercury – 91,000,000 miles away; travels around the sun once in eighty-eight days, going at the speed of 110,000 miles an hour, as it swings in its orbit.

Next is Venus; she is beautiful; 160,000,000 miles away, travels around the sun once in 224 days, going at the rate of 79,000 miles an hour, as she swings in her orbit.

Then comes the earth, the planet upon which we live, and as you sit there, this old earth travels around the sun once in 365 days, or one calendar year, going at the speed of 68,000 miles an hour, and as you sit there and I stand here, this old planet is swinging in her orbit 68,000 miles an hour, and she is whirling on her axis nineteen miles a second. By force of gravity we are held from falling into illimitable space.

Yonder is Mars, 260,000,000 miles away. Travels around the sun once in 687 days, or about two years, going at the speed of 49,000 miles an hour. Who knows but that it is inhabited by a race unsullied by sin, untouched by death?

Yonder another, old Jupiter, champion of the skies, sashed and belted around with vapors of light. Jupiter, 480,000,000 miles away, travels around the sun once in twelve years, going at the speed of 30,000 miles an hour. I need something faster than an express train, going fifty miles an hour, or a cyclone, going one hundred miles an hour. If I could charter a Pullman palace car and couple it to a ray of light, which travels at the speed of 192,000 miles a second – if I could attach my Pullman palace car to a ray of light, I could go to Jupiter and get back tomorrow morning for breakfast at nine o'clock, but Jupiter is one of our near neighbors.

Yonder is old Saturn, 885,000,000 miles away. Travels around the sun once in twenty years, going at the speed of 21,000 miles an hour.

Away yonder, I catch a faint glimmer of another stupendous world, as it swings in its tireless and prodigious journey. Old Uranus, 1,780,000,000 miles away. Travels around the sun once in eighty-four years, going at the speed of two hundred and fifty miles an hour.

As the distance of the planets from the sun increases, their velocity in their orbit correspondingly decreases.

I say is that all? I hurry to Chicago and take the Northwestern. I rush out to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, I climb into the Yerkes observatory, and I turn the most ponderous telescope in the world to the skies, and away out on the frontier of the universe, on the very outer rim of the world, I catch a faint glimmer of Neptune, 2,790,000,000 miles away. Travels around the sun once in one hundred and sixty-four years, going at the speed of two hundred and ten miles an hour. If I could step on the deck of a battleship and aim a 13-inch gun, and that projectile will travel 1,500 miles in a minute, it would take it three hundred and sixty years to reach that planet.

Away out yonder is Alpha Centauri. If I would attach my palace car to a ray of light and go at the speed of 192,000 miles a second, it would take me three years to reach that planet. An express train, going thirty miles an hour, would be 80,000,000 years pulling into Union depot at Alpha Centauri.

Yonder, the Polar or the North star. Traveling at a rate of speed of 192,000 miles a second, it would take me forty-five years to reach that planet. And if I would go to the depot and buy a railroad ticket to the North star, and pay three cents a mile, it would cost me $720,000,000 for railroad fare to go to that planet.

"Oh, God, what is man, that thou art mindful of him?" And the fool, the fool, the fool hath said in his heart, "There is no God." I'm not an infidel, because I am no fool. "The Heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork." I don't believe an infidel ever looked through a telescope or studied astronomy.

"What is man, that thou are mindful of him?" These are days when it is "Big man, little God." These are days when it is gigantic "I," and pigmy "God." These are days when it is "Ponderous man, infinitesimal God."

There are 1,400,000,000 people on earth. You are one of that number, so am I. None of us amount to much. What do you or I amount to out of 1,400,000,000 people? If I could take an auger and bore a hole in the top of the sun, I could pour into the sun 1,400,000,000 worlds the size of the planet upon which we live, and there would be room in the sun for more. Then think of the world, and God made that world, the God that you cuss, the God that wants to keep you out of hell, the God whose Son you have trampled beneath your feet.

If you take 1,400,000,000, multiply it by 1,400,000, multiply that by 1,000,000, multiply that by millions, multiply that by infinity, that's God. If you take 1,400,000,000, subtract 1,400,000, subtract millions, subtract, subtract, subtract, subtract on down, that's you. If ever a man appears like a consummate ass and an idiot, it's when he says he don't believe in a God or tries to tell God his plan of redemption don't appeal to him.

God's Infinite Love

And the third: The third is the love of God to a lost and sin-cursed world and man's indifference to God's love. How he has trampled God's love beneath his feet, I don't understand. I don't understand why you have grown gray-haired, and are not a Christian. I don't understand why you know right from wrong, and still are not a Christian. I don't understand it. Listen! What is it to obey the Gospel? The Gospel is good news, and to obey it is to believe in Jesus. What is it not to obey? What was the end of those who weren't in the ark with Noah? They found a watery grave. What was the end of those who didn't look at the brazen serpent in the wilderness? They died. What was the end of those who were not with Rahab when she hung out the scarlet line? They perished.