I was in Viet Nam, back in the late sixties, with the First Infantry Division and many times we came face to face with death. Once I was in a machine gun bunker with two other soldiers. Inside our bunker was a cot for one man to sleep on while the other two kept watch, a 30 caliber machine gun and a telephone which connected us to the command post. There was no door; you entered the bunker through an opening on the back side.
The officer in charge of the guard was not to come out to the bunkers unless he first called to inform us. One night while we were gazing out into total darkness, talking to one another, I heard a footstep behind us! Someone was outside our bunker!
At that moment I felt I was a dead man; the Viet Cong had slipped in behind us! I swung my own rifle around to shoot, but it jammed! And it was not the Viet Cong at all but the officer of the guard. He had come out to check our guard post but had neglected to call us first.
In remembering that night, two scriptures come to my mind: "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?" Heb. 2:33How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; (Hebrews 2:3). That officer's neglect almost cost him his life. For you to neglect so great salvation, offered through the finished work of Christ on Calvary's cross, will cost you your soul.
The other scripture is found in Amos 4:1212Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. (Amos 4:12): "Prepare to meet thy God." At the time of that incident I was not prepared to meet God. I did not know the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior. Had that footstep really been that of a Viet Cong instead of the officer, I would not be here now to tell of it. In that moment of decision, in what seemed the face of death, God was far from my thoughts.
I tell you this story to warn you if you are among those who have neglected "so great salvation." Don't put off for another moment which is so vital.
That incident in Viet Nam happened twenty years ago and I still remember it as if it happened yesterday. The Word of God tells us that when we leave this world we'll take our memory with us. Where will you be? Will you be remembering in a lost eternity the gospel you rejected? Don't let that happen. Come to Christ before it is forever too late. "Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out." John 6:3737All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. (John 6:37).