Among the many tombstones that stand at the head of the graves in a wind-swept churchyard by the sea, there is a white marble cross which bears this short inscription:
"NOW I SEE.”
That is very true. The eyes that close with the weighty sleep of death upon them lose sight of earthly things and awake to realities. Withdrawn from a whirl of occupations, the departing spirit enters a solitude where knowledge is definite.
For a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, eternal ecstasy begins at once. The Lord takes His own to Himself, and in His company is perfect joy. Whatever was dim and indefinite before is such no longer; he is with Christ. "Now I see.”
For an unbeliever, there can be nothing but misery. God as Savior, the source of all mercy, is unknown, unloved. There is nothing now to help an unbeliever to forget or to blind his eyes.
"Now I see"—the awful reality of the unavoidable judgment of God.
Reader, while life and health are yet yours, we beseech you to put your trust in Him whom Stephen beheld in Acts 7:5555But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, (Acts 7:55), the One to whom even now many an eye is raised, believing Him to be there, and seeing Him by faith.
Everyone who knows Him can speak of the preciousness of His love that opens the eyes both of the body and soul, so that the enlightened one can say, "Whereas I was blind, now I see." "Behold, I see... the Son of man"—Jesus.