PERHAPS, my reader, you have heard it! It may be that, for the very last time in your life, you have heard the invitation, “Come unto me.” Never more may your ear hear its welcome sound the next moment may be your last on earth, and your first in hell!
That call―so long, too long, slighted―will sound never more, in tender tone entreating the sinner to believe and live. All is over; and naught remains but self-reproach―the most tormenting―as you realize, for the first time, that you trifled with God’s mercy just once too often! That call―so sweet, so patient, so clear―to have been so long despised!
This will be one of the bitterest dregs in the cup of woe. It is not only that you have sinned against Almighty power, and rebelled against Divine authority, but, alas, you have closed your ear to the call of loves. The last call has sounded! How solemn, how terrible! Ah, what would not that soul in torment give, could he hear, but once, the word so common, so well-known now? What would the multitudes of the damned give, ―had they ought to give, ―just to hear the message of heaven to earth, “Come?” But no; that word can never break the eternal monotony of their awful doom. No gospel is proclaimed there. No fountain of the water of life flows there. No voice of hope rings its glad-some note there. All is over! No Christ, no God, no hope! only judgments the word “Come” was intended for earth, but not for hell; and therefore their state is fixed forever.
Certain it is, that the call is heard once for the last time.
Noah preached for a hundred and twenty years to the people who lived before the flood, but once he preached to them for the last time, ―and the flood came! For eighteen hundred and fifty years has the gospel of God’s infinite grace been proclaimed far and wide, but the last proclamation will come, the evangelist will bend his knee in prayer for blessing on the message he is about to preach, ―once for the last time! and the ear of the sinner will hear that message, once for the last time!
Yes, for the last time!
Reader, is it possible that you have heard for the very last time? And, oh, how often have you listened to the message during the months of the year now so nearly run out! But, as you read these lines, once more, just once more, does the same call sound in your conscience. Soul, escape for thy life! look not behind Delay is dangerous that “convenient season” is on the wing! It may be now, or never! A moment too late, is an eternity lost! Why delay? why halt?
Sin demands speed; judgment hastens; time flies; eternity approaches! Behold that great white throne I list the awful sentence! Ah, soul, flee! flee!! A tender bosom still bids thee welcome; ―
the blood of Christ still cries for pardon But the Judge is at the door;—the coming of the Lord draweth nigh!
Once more, ― “Come!” J. W. S.