Asahel Nettleton
Is Jesus the Lord of your life? The time of your judgment may be sooner than you think. Asahel Nettleton explains here:
He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy (Proverbs 29:1).
Our subject contains a warning to the young. If he, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy: Then beware how you feel, and how you conduct under reproof. During the present revival how often have you been reproved by preaching, by conversation, by the conviction and conversion of your companions, by the admonitions and by the strivings of the Holy Spirit? How is this season likely to leave you? Certainly not as it found you. If you do not profit by all these warnings, you will be seven-fold harder than when it commenced.
What improvement have you made of all the warnings you have heard? Where are you now? If my preaching does not prove a savor of life, it will be a savor of death unto death to your souls. Every warning neglected is rendering your salvation less and less probable; it is making the work of repentance more and more difficult. You are wandering farther and farther from God-plunging deeper and deeper into misery at every step which you advance.
With your own hand, you are now forging those chains which will bind you down in eternal darkness and despair. To you the Savior calls. Turn you-turn you at my reproof. . . .
The more stupid and hardened the sinner is the nearer to destruction. Thus was it with the inhabitants of the old world. They never were more thoughtless than just before the flood came. It came when they least expected it. They knew not until the flood came. Never was Sodom more stupid than the very night before it was destroyed. The preaching of Lot seemed like an idle tale. They were doubtless making themselves merry with it until the very moment, when the flames of hell took hold of them. Thus it was with the rich fool. He sang the requiem to himself, “Soul, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.”
And thus it was with all who have gone to hell from under the light of the gospel. They cried “peace and safety” until they were lost. Death came too soon. And they dropped into hell, as into a snare and it closed suddenly upon them. Those sinners are commonly the nearest destruction who think and care the least about it. Hell is truth learned too late. Because there is wrath, beware lest God take thee away with his stroke, and then a great ransom cannot do. (“The Destruction of Hardened Sinners”)
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