Lesson From An Old Indian

Reminds me of Jonathan Edwards.
The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked. His wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire. He is of purer eyes than to bear you in his sight; you are ten thousand times as abominable in his eyes as the most hateful, venomous serpent is in ours.

You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince, and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else that you did not got to hell the last night; that you were suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell since you have sat here in the house of God provoking his pure eye by your sinful, wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.

O sinner! consider the fearful danger you are in! It is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath that you are held over in the hand of that God whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of Divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it and burn it asunder. . . .

It would be dreadful to suffer this fierceness and wrath of Almighty God one moment; but you must suffer it to all eternity. There will be no end to this exquisite, horrible misery. When you look forward, you shall see along forever a boundless duration before you, which will swallow up your thoughts, and amaze your soul. And you will absolutely despair of ever having any deliverance, any end, any mitigation, any rest at all. You will know certainly that you must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages in wrestling with this Almighty, merciless vengeance. And then when you have so done, when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this manner, you will know that all is but a point [dot] to what remains. So that your punishment will indeed be infinite.

Oh! who can express what the state of a soul in such circumstances is! All that we can possibly say about it gives but a very feeble, faint representation of it. It is inexpressible and inconceivable: for "who knows the power of God's anger"!

How dreadful is the state of those that are daily and hourly in danger of this great wrath and infinite misery! But this is the dismal case of every soul in this congregation that has not been born again, however moral and strict, sober and religious, they may otherwise be. Oh! that you would consider it, whether you be young or old!

There is reason to think that there are many in this congregation, now hearing this discourse, that will actually be the subjects of this very misery to all eternity. We know not who they are, or in what seats they sit, or what thoughts they now have. It may be they are now at ease, and hear all these things without much disturbance, and are now flattering themselves that they are not the persons, promising themselves that they shall escape.

If we knew that there was one person, and but one, in the whole congregation, that was to be the subject of this misery, what an awful thing it would be to think of! If we knew who it was, what an awful sight would it be to see such a person! How might the rest of the congregation lift up a lamentable and bitter cry over him!

But, alas! instead of one, how many is it likely will remember this discourse in hell! And it would be a wonder, if some that are now present should not be in hell in a very short time, before this year is out. And it would be no wonder if some persons that now sit here in some seats of this meeting-house, in health, and quiet and secure, should be there before tomorrow morning!
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (1741)

 

His discourse was the same as your story. God must pluck us from the fire. We have no other hope. There is no plan that we can devise, which will free us from the flames. Unless God reaches his hand down into such a hopeless situation and saves us, we are doomed. Pray that God might be gracious to sinners such as you and me.

Humans who are dead in their trespasses and sins do not like to hear such a message. Edwards congregation wanted to have their ears tickled. It is still the same today. We see it here in this forum.

 

Wonderful thread tyn! I thoroughly enjoyed the analogy of the Old Indian and I will use that for sure. What a humbling experience and lesson this all is and I pity those who would try and use it to argue Calvinism vs. Armenianism. At some point, we must come together and take scripture to mean exactly what it says regarding this issue. We were ALL dead in our sins and tresspasses and there is but one way to be quickened or made alive. With some assistance, a dying man can take his much needed medicine to keep him alive, but once dead, no assistance will suffice. He must first be made alive again. I once heard Steven Lawson tell a story from one of his seminary classes where the professor asked the class "What can a dead man do?" He was expecting the answer to be nothing I'm sure, but one student spoke up and said "Stink". Nuf said.

 

Maybe pity is the wrong word. That is one argument that will never cease and I know is necessary. There just seems to be a need for recognition of this truth.

 

One of the things I've noticed that's easy for us to do, and I noticed my thirteen year old son doing this Sunday morning, is to judge someone's salvation before we know anything about them. My son was getting upset at what seemed a lot of people running around on Easter morning with no place to go, going into stores with pj's and flip-flops on, and there we were on our way to church. I tried explaining to him that we have no idea who is saved or isn't, who knows the Gospel or doesn't, or who may just be living in a backslidden state. Whether it's an old Indian or a mom in curlers with three kids coming out of the Walmart, we don't know the full truth until we've had a chance to know them. We charge in on our horse of righteousness to save the world when something else entirely may be needed. The simple art of asking questions eliminates a lot of presumption and opens the door to real and genuine conversation. I suspect the Indian might have been able to school the missionary.