"The Sin of Unbelief."

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SOME little gospel books had been, a few minutes before, handed round to the strangers in the compartment in which I was traveling, when a man on my left raised his head from perusing his little book and said, I don’t think the sin, of unbelief is so bad as you people make out. If I live as best I can, I expect it will be all right with me when I die.” I made answer― “It does not matter what you think or what, I think, but what GOD says. You will find in Revelation 21:88But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. (Revelation 21:8) list of the sinners cast into the lake of ere. There are eight classes enumerated, and amongst them are murderers, sorcerers, whoremongers, idolaters, and liars. You would shrink from making friends of such as these; yet in front of these classes, as if to point out and give prominent to the worst classes, are the fearful and unbelieving.”
Here the train stopped, and our conversation came to an abrupt end.
If any of my readers think with this traveler that the sin of unbelief is of small account, beware!
If there will be one sin in the dread, judgment-day that will dwarf other sins, however hideous they may be, it will be the sin of unbelief. One sin shut man out of an earthly paradise, and so one sin will shut you out of a, heavenly paradise, If you lived nine hundred and sixty nine years like Methuselah, and spent it highly religious life, praying, and reading your Bible, going to places of worship regularly, giving alms in a munificent manner, and doing all you could to earn the favor of, God in your own strength, and passed an unbeliever into eternity, with only a record of one sin against you, you would be forever found in the lake of fire. Awful judgment! “He that believeth not is condemned already” (John 3:1818He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (John 3:18)).
It is an awfully solemn thought that there will not be one unbeliever in hell. Men scout now the idea of everlasting torment and the idea of a hell, but when they pass out of time into eternity―Christless souls―they will find all the unbelief of infidelity withered up. “The devils... believe and tremble” (James 2:1919Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. (James 2:19)).
If you believe now, salvation, with all its present blessings and future joys, will be yours. But if you refuse to believe on earth, you will be forced to acknowledge the truth of these things in eternity, for it is written, “As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God” (Rom. 14:1111For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. (Romans 14:11)).
Be wise then, dear reader, and close in with God’s most wondrous offers of mercy and grace, for “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” But, “the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation” (2 Peter 3:1515And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; (2 Peter 3:15)). A. J. P.