Dedicated To The Men of God Who Preach the Word of God As It Is To Men As They Are

"Preach The Word"

Sermon by
Dr. R.A. Torrey

WHAT WILL THE
VERDICT BE?

So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.
-ROMANS 14:12.

I TAKE MY TEXT FROM PAUL'S EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS; IT IS A
very searching and extremely startling text. There is no diffi-
culty in preaching a sermon from that text; it is a text that
preaches itself. There are many solemn passages in the Bible.
I do not know a more solemn passage than this, "So then every
one of us shall give account—of himself—to God."
Were you ever in a courtroom when a man was on trial for
his life? Were you ever there when the jury brought in its
verdict? The jury file in and take their places. The prisoner sits
there trying to hide his anxiety and to appear unconcerned.
The prisoner's mother sits there with no attempt to hide her
anxiety, scanning the faces of the jury to see if she can tell
whether the verdict will be for conviction or acquittal, longing
to get even some faintest hint of hope for her beloved boy.
The judge sits on the bench and even he looks nervous. The
clerk of the court asks the jury, "Have you reached a verdict?"
and the foreman of the jury arises and replies, "We have."
Then the foreman of the jury announces the verdict. What a
moment of suspense! Will it be acquittal and will the prisoner
go free, or will it be conviction and will the prisoner go to the
gallows? Were you ever there at such a time? Awfully solemn,
was it not?

But that is not so solemn as it will be when you and I
stand face to face with God and each one of us gives account of
himself to God and God pronounces the verdict that will de-
cide our eternity, yes, our eternity. It makes a thoughtful man
shudder just to think of it! "So then every one of us shall give
account of himself to God." I cannot think of anything more
solemn than that, and the man who is not set to thinking by it
must have a very torpid brain. You may try to laugh it off, and
may think you are very smart in doing so. Listen, my friend,
you are playing the fool. Your own best self tells you that you
are playing the fool. "So then every one of us shall give account
of himself to God."

Carefully notice three things God tells us in the text: first,
who is to give an account; second, to whom we are to give ac-
count; third, of whom we are to give account.

I. WHO Is To GIVE AN Account?
Who is to give an account? "Every one of us." Or, as the
Revised Version puts it, "Each one of us." Each particular one
of us "shall give account of himself to God." There is not one
single exception. I think that the average man has a sort of sub-
conscious feeling that he will be an exception to the universal
rule. He believes that other men must give an account of them-selves
to God but not himself.
 

As I look back on my own past I can see how that was practi-
cally the feeling I had. If you had come and asked me directly
the question, "Will you have to give an account of yourself to
God?" I presume I would have answered, "Yes, of course." But
while I would have answered the specific question in that way,
all the time my practical feeling about it was that while others
would have to give an account, I would not; it was always the
other man that would have to give account of himself, not I.
I did not really take it home to myself, and therein I played the
fool. God assures us that "every one of us shall give account of
himself to God," and when God declares anything you and I
had better take it home to ourselves.
 

The richest man and the poorest man will have to give an
account of himself to God. There may be a man reading this
who is worth a good many thousands of dollars, possibly hun-
dreds of thousands; it may be a million or more. You will have
to give account to God just as much as the pauper. Now, that
is not so in this world. It is very hard in this world to bring a
millionaire to account. If a common laboring man violates the
law of the country it is not long before he is before the judge,
but if a millionaire violates the law of the country it takes the
whole detective force of the country to hunt him down, and
when you hunt him down you have not got him.

It is not so with God's court, the millionaire will stand no
better chance in God's court than anybody else. And the poor-
est man as well as the richest will have to give account of him-
self to God.

The man of culture, the man of genius, the man of extraordi-
nary ability, the great scientist, the great philosopher, the great
university professor, each will have to give account of himself
to God just as much as the common, illiterate man of the
streets.
 

We have a way in our day of thinking that a man of genius
is exempted from those canons of right conduct that are sup-
posed to apply to an ordinary man. If a man is a great artist, or
a great musician, or a great actor, or a great opera singer, or a
great movie star, a man of extraordinary genius in any way, a
great many people will say when his conduct is not just what
it should be, when his social purity is not what it should be,
"Oh, he is a great artist; he is a great poet; he is a great mu-
sician; he is the most remarkable singer of the day. You cannot
apply the ordinary laws of conduct to a man of such extraor-
dinary genius as he has." It will not be so then; in that day,
"Every one of us shall give account of himself to God." No
matter how high you may rise in the realm of culture, or in the
realm of art, or in the realm of genius, you will have to give the
same strict account of yourself to God as ordinary men. On
the other hand, no matter how low you may sink in the intel-
lectual scale, you will have to give account of yourself to God.

Some of you may never have had many advantages of educa-
tion or culture or position, and you think, "Well, I am not as
responsible as if I were one of the leaders of thought. A man
who knows so little as I, who has so little responsibility as I,
I am not responsible." Yes, you are. You are just as responsible
for what you have as the other man is for his larger position:
"Every one of us shall give account, of himself to God." No
matter what your social position, you will have to give account
of yourself. There is not a man or woman who will not have to
meet God face to face some day and give account of himself
to Him.

II. To WHOM WE ARE TO GIVE ACCOUNT
Notice, in the second place, "to God." There are certain facts
about God that make that statement exceedingly solemn.
There would be nothing very solemn about our giving an ac-
count of ourselves to one another. Most of us could give about
as good account of ourselves to others as they could give ac-
counts of themselves to us. The solemn thing is this, that every
one of us is to give account of himself, not to some fellow
mortal, who is, just as erring as we are, and just as imperfect
and sinful as we are, but "every one of us shall give account
of himself to God."
 

There are two facts about God that make it a very solemn
thought that we must give account of ourselves to Him.
 

1. The first fact is, that this God to whom each one of us is
to give account is an infinitely holy God. As John puts it in 1
John 1:5, "God is light and in him is no darkness at all." God
has never sinned. He has never sinned, even once in the small-
est point, and therefore God cannot look upon sin, even the
smallest sin, with the slightest degree of allowance. I suppose
Isaiah was one of the holiest men of his day and yet when
Isaiah met God in that vision of his, he cried out, holy though
he was in man's eyes, "Woe is me for I am undone; because
I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a peo-
ple of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, Jehovah
of hosts" (Isaiah 6:5, Revised Version).

Job was a peculiarly
upright man, and he stoutly maintained his integrity day after
day against his three friends as they brought one accusation
after another against him But when Job once came face to face
with God, he no longer tried to defend himself, but covered his
face and cried, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear;
but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and re-
pent in dust and ashes." John was the beloved disciple, he
seemed to be more like the Lord than any of the other disci-
ples, yet when even John got one glimpse of the Lord Jesus
Christ in the glory, he "fell at his feet as dead" (Revelation
1:17). This absolutely holy God is the One to whom you and I
are to give account. To me it is an unspeakably solemn thing
to think that I must give account of myself to such a Being.
 

2. There is a second fact about God that makes it very sol-
emn to think that we are to give account of ourselves to Him,
that is, God is all-seeing. He knows every thing. He knows
your every act, both your public acts and your private acts.
He knows not only the actions that your fellow men have seen
but your acts done when you were alone and your acts done
in the dark, acts done under the cover of night. He knows also
your every word. You have never spoken one word but He has
heard it. Not only that, He knows every imagination of your
heart; He has seen it, seen it clearly and vividly and thor-
oughly; seen it in every detail. Such is the Being to whom you
and I are to give account of onrselves. It is absolutely impossi-
ble to deceive Him. It is absolutely impossible to hide any-
thing from Him. It is a very easy thing to deceive your fellow
man. You can make your fellow man think you are a great deal
better than you are. You can show your best side and cover
up your worst side. But you cannot do that with God. You can-
not deceive God; you cannot hide anything from God.
 

You can deceive me. I may ask you, "Are you a Christian?"
You say, "Yes, I am," and I will believe you. You can tell me
you have never been very bad, and I will believe you. All the
time you may know that you are lying and that there is rot-
tenness in your heart. You can deceive me and you can hide
things from me; but you cannot deceive God, and you cannot
hide anything from God, and it is to God that you are ulti-
mately to give account of yourself.

III. OF WHOM AND OF WHAT WE ARE TO GIVE ACCOUNT
Now, notice of whom we are to give account. "So then shall
every one of us give account of himself to God." Most people
would rather give account of somebody else. The one of whom
we are to give account is just the one of whom we do not wish
to give account, of ourselves. The one thing that every one of
us dodges as long as we can is a frank, full, honest, searching
discussion of ourselves. We are perfectly willing to discuss our
virtues, real or imaginary; but when it comes to the searching
discussion of ourselves as we really are, of our acts, of our
words, of our thoughts, all of them, we evade it and avoid it.
We are ready to discuss everybody else. Oh, how willing we
are to discuss others; but when it comes to discussing ourselves
we change the subject.
 

When one comes to talk with you and presses matters home
about being a Christian, you say, "Yes, but there are so many
hypocrites in the church." It is the other fellow you want to
discuss. You are perfectly willing to give account of the hypo-
crites in the church but you are not willing to give account of
yourself. But in that day that is soon coming you will not have
to give account of the hypocrites in the church, but you will
have to give account of yourself. The only person you will have
to give account of is the very person of whom you would rather
not give account. But God says, "So then every one of us shall
give account of himself to God."
 

A friend of mine was walking one night down one of the
busiest streets in Chicago and met another young man. He
walked up to this stranger and asked, "Are you a Christian?"
The young man laughed in his face and said, "Indeed, I'm not.
I don't take any stock in Christianity. I think the whole thing
is a humbug. My father is a minister, but I think the whole
thing is a humbug, there are so many hypocrites in the
church." My friend stepped up to a lamp post and opened his
Bible to Romans 14:12 and asked the young man to read it.
He read, "So then every one of us shall give account of himself
to God." He turned pale and commenced to tremble. The
hypocrites had all vanished from sight. He saw but two per-
sons, God and himself. He saw God seated on His judgment
throne and himself ,standing before Him. He saw that he had
to give an account, not of the hypocrites in the church, but of
himself, and that to God. And right down on one of the busiest
streets in Chicago, West Madison Street, he dropped on his
knees under that lamp post and cried to God for mercy.
 

Oh, that I could make you feel this text like that. Do not be
bothered about the other man. 'Do not bother about the hypo-
crites in the church. Leave them to God. They will have to
give accounts of themselves to God, and the Bible tells us that
they will be sent to hell for all eternity. Forget them. Think
about yourself. Remember that you will have to give account
of yourself. To whom? To God. May God drive that home to
every one of you.
 

And concerning what shall we have to give account to God?
We must give account of five things:
 

1. First of all, we must give account of our use of our time.
There is nothing that God has bestowed on any one of us that
is more valuable than time. Time is opportunity, and, rightly
used, it can redound abundantly to the glory of God and the
good of our fellow men, for the true improvement of ourselves
and our eternal welfare. And you will have to give account of
how you have used your time—give account to God. There
are some of you who have lived many long years and have not
accepted Christ. You will have to give account of every year
you have wasted by not accepting Christ, for-every year out of
Christ is a wasted year. Some of you have lived thirty years.
forty years, fifty years, sixty years, seventy years, without ac-
cepting Christ! You will have to give account of every one of
those wasted years—give account to God.

2. We shall have to give account to God for the use of our
talents. God is not going to hold us responsible for ten talents
if He has given us but one, but the man who has but one talent
is just as responsible for the use or misuse of that one talent as
the man who has ten talents is for the use or misuse of his ten.
 

3. Each one of us will have to give account to God for our
use of our money. Money is a sacred trust. Your money doesn't
belong to you, it belongs to God. You are merely God's stew-
ard. We all feel that way about the man who is very rich. We
see a man rolling in wealth, and we see him using it for his
own aggrandizement, for his own ease, pleasure, indulgence
and sin, and we say, "How can a man with such vast wealth
squander it on his great suppers, when people are starving all
about him for the necessities of life, when the common people
are clamoring for libraries, colleges, hospitals, and all kinds of
things they sorely need? How can he squander it on himself?
He will have to give account of it to God." Yes, he will. But so
will you have to give account of your use of your money to
God. You are just as responsible for the right use of your little
as that man is for the use of his much. If you have but ten dol-
lars you are just as responsible for that ten dollars as he is for
his ten millions. God will not ask anything beyond your ca-
pacity. God will not ask yoti to account for anything you do
not possess, but God will ask you to account for every penny
that you do possess.
 

4. We shall have to give account to God for the use of our
tongues. The tongue has a tremendous power for evil or good.
How much good any man can do by the right use of his
tongue! How much evil any man or woman can do by the
wrong use of their tongue! Take an obscene tongue. Oh, the
mischief that a man can do with. a dirty tongue! I do not speak
about women with dirty tongues, for these females who have
dirty tongues are not women. I do not merely say that they are
not "ladies"; the female who has a filthy tongue is not a
woman. Thank God, there are not very many females in this
country that have dirty tongues. A woman who has a filthy
tongue is a hideous monstrosity.
 

Are you renowned as a man who "has a stock of very rare,
rich, racy stories"? If you are, you ought to be heartily
ashamed of yourself and you ought to go home and wash your
mouth out with soap and water and never let it be a sewer
again. Take some of these old men in our cities, supposed to be
respectable (only supposed to be, for no man who tells ob-
scene stories is respectable), and these old pigs with their
filthy tongues get a lot of young men, sometimes even boys,
around them and pollute the imagination of these lads by flier
filthy stories, so that they will suffer for years. There are many
whose imaginations are cursed to this day by the story some
rotten old scoundrel, perhaps in high society, told years ago.
If a man should turn a sewer into the channel through which
this city gets its water supply, we would arrest him and put
him in prison. But these men turn the sewer flowing from the
cesspool of their rotten, stinking hearts into the springs of life
in the imaginations of those young men and boys, and pollute
the supply of the water of life.
 

How much harm can be done by a gossiping, slandering
tongue! How many a heart has been broken by a woman who
could not control her tongue! How many a home has been
broken up by a woman who was skillfully telling lies, and mak-
ing a husband and wife suspect each other! I would rather
have a case of smallpox next door to me than to have a woman
there with a gossiping tongue. Yet some women who make a
great pretense of piety have a gossiping tongue that is break-
ing many hearts. You will have to give account for it to God.
How much harm can be done by an unbelieving tongue!
 

How many a man has read a few lectures by Ingersoll or has
taken the Truth Seeker or some other fool paper or magazine
and has got hold of a few infidel arguments, and everywhere
he goes he scatters his infidel nonsense among young men who
are only too glad to take it up without thinking the matter
through. And these young men have given up their faith and
with their faith their morals have gone, too; for when a man's
faith goes his morals usually go into the discard also.

When I was in Melbourne, Australia, man after man who
had made shipwreck of life came to me and said, "I owe my
downfall to the influence of such and such a man," naming the
most notorious infidel there was in Melbourne. And you men
of some culture and education who are thoughtlessly sowing
the seeds of unbelief in the minds of young men, to reap a har-
vest of moral infamy, will have to give an account to God of
your infamous conduct. Some of these flip university profes-
sors and high-school teachers who, without thinking things
through, are giving voice among their pupils to their infidel
notions, and thus undermining the faith of their scholars, will
have to give account to God of their damnable conduct. I
know of two professors who have shipwrecked the faith of
countless young men and women, and it has taken these young
men and women years t6 get on their feet again.
 

On the other hand, what a power there is for good in the
tongue, the power to comfort the one who is broken-hearted,
the power to comfort those in deep sorrow, the power to speak
a word of encouragement!
 

When I went to Chicago to live, there was a young man
there who was utterly discouraged. He was working hard for
only $12.50 a week, and he was also discouraged in his Chris-
tian life. One night I gave him a few words of encouragement
and got him out into the clear light. That man got on his feet
in consequence and has made a great success of life. I will not
attempt to say how much money he has made, but I know one
instance of his giving $18,000 for foreign missions in a single
year. Years ago I knew of his having given away, in all, over
$135,000. Just a few words of encouragement put him on his
feet, and there is not a more Useful man' in Chicago today
than he.
 

There are lots of discouraged men in many places to whom
you may give just the right word of encouragement at this aid-
cal time, and in the coming years they will be builders of com-
merce just because you put them on their feet. What a power
for good there is in a word of warning! Many a young fellow
going wrong has had just the right word of warning spoken
to him at the critical moment and been saved.

What a power there is in a word of testimony for Jesus
Christ! A justice of the Court of Appeals in New York State
arose one night and gave a word of testimony for Jesus Christ,
and almost every lawyer in that city was converted. Some of
you men of prominence, if you would just open your mouths
at this critical time and go in and out of the business offices
witnessing to what Jesus Christ has done for you, would see
people saved ,by the thousands. If you do not do it you will
have to give account to God for your gross neglect of duty.
 

5. But there is one thing above all others for which we will
have to give account to God, and that is for what we do with
Jesus Christ. When God sent His own Son down into this
world to pour out His life's blood on the Cross of Calvary as
an atoning sacrifice for your sins and mine, God laid upon you
and me the most stupendous responsibility, the responsibility
of rejecting or accepting Him, and every one of us must give
account to God for what we have done with Jesus Christ.
Could you give a satisfactory account of what you have done
 with Jesus Christ if you had to give account tonight? Do you
suppose in that day when you will have to give account of
yourself to God that you can give a satisfactory account of
what you have done with Jesus Christ? You cannot unless you
accept Him very speedily. You cannot give a satisfactory ac-
count of yourself to God unless you accept Jesus Christ now.
Even if you accept Him a week from now, you might have ac-
cepted Him today, and if you wait until a week from today
you cannot give a satisfactory account of what you have done
with Jesus Christ meanwhile. Every one of us will have to
give account of himself to God, of what he has done with his
time, talents, opportunities, his money, tongue, and, above
all, what he has done with Jesus Christ. To me the thought is
overwhelming.

I see people go out of meetings laughing
talking and careless, as if there were no eternity. I see
and women walking up and down the street utterly carel
of what is going on. I wish I had a voice that could be hea
by everyone, then I would cry aloud, "Every one of us sh.
give account of himself to Cad."
 

Some years ago a beautiful young mother in New York City
left a little child in the garret of a tenement house while she
went to the store. The child was asleep. When the mother re-
turned, she saw the tenement house on fire and the smoke roll
ing out of the windows. She broke through the crowd, dashing
up the stairs: and into the room where her baby lay sleeping
She grasped some blankets and wrapped them around the
child so that it would not inhale any of the smoke, and the
dashed down through fire and smoke to the open air. The child
was saved, but the mother was frightfully burned. For man
long weeks she hovered between life and death, but at last she
recovered. One day she asked for a looking glass, and when
she saw herself in the glass, her face so marred that the vision
was horrible, she almost fainted to think that she was doomed
to go through life looking so hideous. "But," she said, "there
one consolation. When my baby grows up to womanhood
will lave me all the more for these scars. She will know I en-
dured the suffering and got all of these scars because of my
love for her." The daughter grew up into rarely beautiful
womanhood. She was not only a lovely young woman but po-
sessed a most charming personality, and she had hosts of ad-
mirers. One day there was an excursion from New York up
Hudson river. The daughter was on the front deck, the cent
of a throng of admirers. The mother was on the rear deck
taking care of the wraps and baskets. She saw her beautiful
daughter surrounded by a coterie of admirers. Some did
called her to the front deck and as she passed near her daug-
ter she heard a handsome young man say to her, "Who is the
woman with that hideous face?"

The daughter replied in a to
tone, but not se low that the mother failed to catch it, "I do not
know her." What do you think of such a daughter as that?
 

But, listen, the face of your Saviour Jesus Christ was "more
marred than the sons of men"; they plucked the beard from
His face; they blindfolded Him and spit in His face; they put a
crown of thorns on His brow and struck it until the blood went
down that spittle-covered and disfigured face. Yes, they laid a
cross on the ground and laid Him on His back on the cross and
stretched out His arms on the arms of the cross. A Roman sol-
dier took a nail and placed it in the palm of His right hand,
then lifted a hammer and let it fall, and the nail went crushing
through His right palm. Then they put another nail in the
left hand and lifted the hammer again. It fell, and the nail went
crushing through His left palm. They put a nail at His feet and
lifted the hammer again. It fell, and the nail tore through the
tender flesh of His feet. Then they lifted the cross and plunged
it into a hole in the rock and left Him hanging there, bruised
and aching, His heart breaking, wounded for your transgres-
sions, bruised for your iniquities, and the chastisement of your
peace laid upon Him. Yes, He bore it all for you and for me,
and you are ashamed of Him. He is no more popular in your
set, it may be, than He, was in Jerusalem, and you are ashamed
of that Saviour whose face was marred for you, who was
wounded for your transgressions, bruised for your iniquities,
upon whom the chastisement of your peace was laid. You say,
"I do not know Him." You deny Him by your words or by your
actions. You deny Him by never publicly confessing Him. You
are denying Him by your daily life. And you are denying Him
by your refusal to accept Him and confess Him right here and
now. Remember, "every one of us shall give account of him-
self to God."

 

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