Asleep on the railroad tracks! How could anyone be so foolish?
Certainly not you! Not me! But-it happens.
Recently a young man was stretched out across the tracks, his head resting on the rail. A freight train was on the track, and the engineer frantically blew his whistle and struggled to brake and stop the train. He knew he could not stop in time, and there was no response from the teenager on the tracks.
Suddenly, at the last minute, the sleeper sat up groggily, a second before the train hit him and hurled him off the tracks. Stunned paramedics reported that his last-minute response was all that kept him from being decapitated by the braking train.
Airlifted by helicopter to the hospital, he was in for a long siege of repair of broken bones and then rehabilitation, but he lived. He will have another opportunity for life on earth and a chance to receive eternal life as well if he will turn to the Savior.
There was once another man-call him “Jim” who slept on the tracks. On his way home one night, very late-and very drunk-Jim had to cross a railroad track. His foot caught on a rail and he stumbled and fell. There he lay on the roadbed, and for some hours he slept, unconscious of his danger.
Suddenly Jim was aroused. Someone had seized his shoulder and he was quickly dragged to one side. Thinking that it was a police officer, Jim muttered “go easy” and promised to go with him quietly. Then a voice cried out to him to lie perfectly still. To Jim’s horror, the next instant a freight train rushed past, car after car, with clicking, grinding steel wheels. Jim was just barely out of their reach!
Now Jim was wide awake and thoroughly sober. Well he might be! Had he remained another minute on those rails his Christless soul would have entered eternity-a lost eternity. Deeply conscious of the inevitable death that must have been his had not that friendly hand rescued him, he staggered to his home. The thought of what might have happened haunted him. He could neither eat nor sleep, and it was impossible to work. Filled with terror, he felt as though hell had opened before him like a yawning pit.
He felt, too, that God had spoken to him, and he could not close his ears to that voice. If it was a warning from God, there must be a purpose in it a purpose of blessing to poor Jim. So he reasoned, and so he found. To escape from that terrible eternal destiny, he could not rest until he had made certain the salvation of his soul and his destiny settled forever. He received the Lord Jesus as his own and only Savior, and at last his restless heart found peace in believing.
If still unsaved, you too may be sleeping on the brink of eternal doom. May God in mercy awaken you to a sense of your danger before it is too late. “Now it is high time to awake out of sleep” (Rom. 13:1111And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. (Romans 13:11))!