A Leap in the Dark

 •  7 min. read  •  grade level: 5
“Then, to you, death will be a leap in the dark?”
“Well—yes, just so; I suppose it will be.”
The one who made this terrible confession was a shoemaker, of middle age, slowly nearing the grave under the dread power of consumption. Worse than this, he was an infidel—a determined, avowed skeptic. I had been asked to visit him in his attic quarters by an old friend, also a shoemaker, who was through grace a Christian and anxious about his unbelieving acquaintance. This friend got his permission for me to call by saying that, as a doctor, perhaps I could give him some prescription that would relieve his sufferings. He begged me to go, told me of the sadly darkened state of the poor man’s mind, and urged me to put Christ before him if I could.
After I had carefully examined him, he asked me if I thought he could be cured. To this I had to answer that I was sorry to tell him that I did not think he would recover.
“Then, how long do you think I have yet to live, Doctor?” he said.
“A few months, perhaps a year,” I replied.
He made no reply, and the stolid look of indifference on his gloomy face was in no way changed by my remark. As he said no more, I continued: “And are you ready to die, Mr. Foster?”
“Of course I am—as ready as you or any one else.”
“And what has made you ready? Are your sins forgiven, and all washed away in the precious blood of Christ?”
“Oh, that’s all stuff. I don’t believe in any of that nonsense. I’m a free-thinker.”
“So I regret to see. But your being a free-thinker will not fit you for God’s presence.”
“I tell you I don’t believe in a God at all; so I shan’t have to meet Him.”
“Your not believing in Him will not help you to evade the solemn certainty of having to meet Him. The Scripture says, ‘So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.’”
“But I don’t believe in the Bible. It’s only fit for old women who can’t reason. No reasonable man believes in it these days.”
“Well, I am not an old woman but, I trust, a reasonable man. Yet I confess that I believe the Bible to be the Word of God. I believe it heartily from cover to cover.”
“And what good has it done you?”
“Untold good, thank God. It has given me the knowledge of Himself in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. I know from its blessed pages that my sins are all forgiven and that I have eternal life. Though I am sure of nothing for a moment in this life, I am quite clear and happy as to the future were I to die or the Lord to come.”
“Oh, that’s all a delusion. Nobody knows anything about the future. How can they? No one has come back from the dead to tell us what comes after death.”
“That is a great mistake. Why, the One who died for me is the very One who has come back from the dead to assure me of my future blessedness as the fruit and consequence of His death for me.”
“I don’t believe a word of it. No one can know what will be after death.”
“Then, to you, death will be a leap in the dark?”
“Well—yes, just so; I suppose it will be,” was his rather hesitating reply.
“Ah, my friend!” I exclaimed, “I am far better off than you, through God’s infinite grace. If I should die, death will be to me a leap in the light.”
“How do you make that out?”
“Because I am in the light now. Christ is my Light. He said, ‘I am the light of the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.’ And He said, also, ‘Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light... I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on Me should not abide in darkness.’
“Both you and I are alike sinners before God, but the difference between us is this you do not believe in the Lord Jesus, so you are walking in darkness, and know not whither you are going—that is, to judgment and the lake of fire. I do believe in Him, am out of darkness, walking in the light, and knowing clearly where I am going— ‘to be with Christ; which is far better.’ Don’t you think now that my portion is better than yours? All I can say is, that a man who takes a leap in the dark when he might take a leap in the light must be a fool. What say you to that?”
He paused a moment or two and then replied, “Well sir, I never looked at it quite in that way before. I won’t say that there’s not some reason in your argument.”
With this our interview closed. I left him with my heart lifted to God that His Word might do its work in his heart and conscience. I never saw him again.
Nearly twelve years have passed since then. Last June his friend who had asked me to visit him called to see me and said, “Do you remember, many years ago, visiting an infidel shoemaker?”
“Perfectly, and also what took place between us two. What became of him?”
“He died in the City Hospital a year after you saw him.”
“Died an infidel?”
“Oh, no! Thank God, he died a happy Christian, confessing his faith in the Lord and giving a bright testimony. He dated the beginning of the change in his heart from that morning you saw him. Something you said to him about a leap in the dark struck him, and he was never happy till he found the Lord.”
“The Lord be praised!” was my fervent response, as I heard with deep joy of the Lord’s grace to one who seemed so fortified in unbelief. It is, however, but another illustration of His goodness and of the truth of His Word. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” Isa. 55:8-118For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. 9For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. 10For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: 11So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. (Isaiah 55:8‑11).
And you, my dear reader, are you still in darkness, or is Christ your light? When you pass into eternity, will it be for you a leap in the dark, or a leap in the light?
I beseech you most affectionately not to put these queries from you. Answer them honestly before God. If you cannot reply, “To me death would be a leap in the light,” turn to Jesus now. Trust Him as you read these Fines, and all will be light. “I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on Me should not abide in darkness,” He says. He tasted death, that we might live; endured the darkness, that we might enjoy the light; and sustained the judgment of God, that we might be freely justified. “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.”
Again, “But now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation.”
W. T. P. W.