Ezekiel 7:2 - Homiletics.

The end is come.

I. THE END THAT SURELY COMES . Time is broken into periods; and every period, long or short, has its certain end. The tale of life is written in many chapters, each with its own appropriate conclusion; in some cases the conclusion is violent, abrupt, and startling. We are surprised out of an old settled course. The mill stops suddenly, and then the silence is alarming. There are the greater epochs of life, when a whole volume of experience is closed, and another must be opened, till at length we reach Finis. But every day has its sunset. Every year runs out to December and dies its wintry death, in spite of all the festivities of Christmas. Youth is fleeting; its sweet springtime fast melts, its blossoms fade and fall. Life itself runs out and reaches an end. As each period goes it vanishes, never to return. Thus Christina Rossetti writes—

"Come, gone,—gone forever;

Gone as an unreturning truer;

Gone as to death the merriest liver;

Gone as the year at the dying fall,

Tomorrow, today, yesterday, never:

Gone once for all."

1. There is an end to the day of work. "The night cometh, wherein no man can work." The opportunity will pass. Let us make the most of our strength and time while we have them.

2 . There is an end to the freedom of sin. The orgies of mad self-indulgence will not last forever. They burn themselves out in folly and shame. Then comes the end, and after that the reckoning.

3 . There is an end to the discipline of sorrow. The pain will not last forever. The doubt and mystery and darkness are not eternal. The Christian pilgrimage is long and weary, but it is not an infinite, endless course. The wilderness is wide, and the goal far off. But the way will end at last in the heavenly city, the home of the soul.

II. THE END THAT SHOULD COME . There are some things which we should do welt to end, yet still they are with us.

1 . An end should come to our life of sin. The old sin has been our companion for years, a bad companion, corrupt and corrupting. It is time we and it parted. It is time we turned over a new leaf and began a better way. The old self has lived too long. Let it die and be buried.

2 . An end should come to our indecision. "How long halt ye between two opinions?" This hesitation has lasted too long. "Choose you this day whom ye will serve."

3 . An end should come to the gloom of doubt, the coldness of half-hearted service, the lethargy and paralysis of an unspiritual religion. "The night is far spent; the day is at hand;" "Awake, thou that sleepest!"

III. THE END THAT MAY COME . We contemplate possible endings which we would fain avert, but which seem to be approaching.

1 . Some of these endings are within our power, and should be kept off. We should guard against an end to our early faith and zeal. Ephraim's goodness, which was like the morning cloud, was soon dissipated. Of some it must be said the end has come to their fervent devotion and self-sacrificing service. Once they were bright lights of the Church, but they have waned, and are approaching spiritual night.

2 . Some of these endings are beyond our control. The home circle may be broken, the dear countenances of the loved may smile upon us no more. For the old fulness of friendship we may have left only blankness and vacancy, and a bitter sense of loss. The very freshness of our soul may be lost too, and thee we look back to the old sweet years, and wonder how we could have taken them so quietly.

IV. THE END THAT WILL FEVER COME .

1 . There will never be an end to the righteous Law of God. Right and truth are eternal. We can never outlive their claims. If we continue forever in opposition to them, their pains and penalties must be always ours.

2 . The love of God will never end. Modes of Divine operations may change as circumstances alter, and new dispensations may succeed to old dispensations—new covenants taking the place of old covenants. But God does not change. There is no end to him. He abideth faithful. In the wreck of the universe the Rock of Ages remains unshaken. Love in his essence, God never wearies in helping and blessing. There is no end to his grace. "The mercy of the Lord endureth forever." Whenever the helpless, penitent prodigal returns, he will find his Father waiting to welcome him.

3 . The eternal life can have no end. The body dies. Happily there will be an end to that. But the life in God abides forever. In that life many things thought to be ended here on earth will be recovered and will revive. Thus our past experience is not utterly lost. It lives in memory and in what it has made us. A German poet writes -

"Yesterday I loved;

Today I suffer;

Tomorrow I die.

But I shall gladly,

Today and tomorrow

Think on yesterday."