A FRIEND of mine was relating to a company of us the account of a man’s life and death, who, like a good many more, had lived an infidel, but who did not die an infidel.
In life he had refused the Holy Scriptures as the Word of God; reason, corrupt though it was, was to him a much better guide than the sacred Bible, that had guided so many thousands into the haven of eternal rest. But such men have to die; like other men they come under the divine sentence, “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Heb. 9:27); and “there is no discharge in that war,” They have to succumb to the inevitable―that is, to die. “There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit: neither hath he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those who are given to it” (Eccl. 8:8). The prince and the pauper, the rich and the poor, the young and the old, have to lie down and die; and the tremendous question is, What comes after death? Some would say, Nothing! or at least they hope so; for their creed is, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” But God says, “After death comes the judgment.”
A snail might as well contend with an elephant, as for man to contend with the awful reality of God, sin, death, and after this the judgment. And supposing he contends in his life with all the powers of his being, he gets old and wrinkled nevertheless, and he dies, and fulfills the divine appointment. He goes hence, and, as far as earth is concerned, is seen no more; but taking up the sacred volume, the Word of God, we read, “But after this the judgment.” He is but a creature after all, a responsible creature, who has to do with God, and in dying he but enters eternity to give an account to his Judge. “As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God” (Rom. 14:11, 12). What folly to resist the Almighty! and how absurd to murmur against that which is inevitable, because man is a sinner, and which is fully in accord with the principles of justice!
Would the murmuring and reasoning of a condemned criminal change his sentence, or alter his doom? Not in the least. It is the inevitable consequence of his crime, and of the laws of justice. Thus it is with man, “It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment.”
But the Word of God does not stop there. It goes on to say, “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” (Heb. 9:28). But the infidel, who denies the Word of God, refuses to own his own responsibility, and therefore knows nothing of the consolations of the Gospel, and the peace-imparting power of the blood of Christ. He is left to the wild waste of the imaginations of his own unsubject mind. As well might a ship put to sea without rudder or compass or chart. Thus left, no wonder the sinner when he dies goes down into eternal darkness; for to live without God, and in the denial of His Word, can only ensure a death without Him, and eternal judgment beyond.
The man whose dying words are at the top of this article thus lived and thus died. In life he had professed to be at perfect peace, and that his principles gave him the greatest satisfaction; but when the closing moments came, and the veil was removed from his eyes, and he saw the fearful mistake of his life, then it was he was heard to say, to the astonishment of his wife, “Awful! awful! awful!”
Yes; a life of sin without God is awful! to die in one’s sins is awful! and how fearfully awful must it be to discover that there is nothing before the soul but the blackness of darkness forever!
Beloved reader, ponder these words, and, if unsaved; flee to Christ the sinner’s friend, and be saved, and thus thy prospect will be the glory of God forever (Rom. 5:1-3).
E. A.