HH, Sir Godfrey Gregg D.Div
“Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:” Matthew 25:41
“Depart!” There is no word, I may be specific, which passes Christ’s lips with such unwillingness, or which it more grieves His tender soul to utter than the awful word “Depart.”
There is a ring of finality and hopelessness about the word! It is like the clang of a closing door — a door which, you know as you hearken, will not be opened again forever and ever.
It means, so far as I can unfold and expand its gloom and sadness, that the heart is shut outside of every gracious influence. The pleading Holy Spirit leaves it. It is left by the pitiful and loving Saviour. It is left by the Father, who has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. It has banished itself into the blackness of darkness. The gate of the City of God is barred and locked, so firm, so fast, and it is on the wrong side of the gate. Oh, I shudder as I attempt to interpret the mournful word — I cannot see far, I dare not send my plummet down, into its fathomless abysses!
But Christ will never say “Depart” to me unless I have said it beforehand to Him. When He called, I refused. The world absorbed me. Or I was befooled by a darling sin. Or I did not see my need. Or I was not melted by His love. Once, twice, seventy times seven, a thousand times, He stood and knocked at the door of my heart. And always I turned a deaf ear — always I said: “Depart.”
Ah, let me not write my own sentence of doom. Let me not compel Jesus the Saviour to lift and unsheathe the sword, whose hilt is as sharp for Him as its blade is for me!
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