Do not fail to read every word of this paper, as it is an Appeal regarding your safety at that terrible day.
WILL YOU BE READY?
"IT Thou at My right hand until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool" (Psa. 110:1.) Thus spake the Father, as the Son entered heaven with the marks of the world's hatred upon His blessed person. (Rev. 5:6.) Nigh two thousand years have come and gone since then, and time, with lightning wing, is speeding us toward that awful moment when the Son will rise up in resistless might to fulfill the Father's decree. Christ is coming to make His enemies His footstool. Art thou washed in His blood? If so, thou art His friend. If not, thou art Christ's enemy, and when He comes in power and great glory it will be to crush thee, as His enemy, beneath His feet (Matt. 25:31-46; Rev. 19:11-21.)
Oh, the terrors of the Christless at that coming! The coming of the Man whom the world once crucified, whose love it has not ceased to scorn, and whose blood it has even treated with proud indifference. Men who never prayed before will then, in their soul's deep terror, cry to the rocks and to the mountains, "Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?" (Rev. 6:16, 17.)
Vain prayer! The Lamb's arm of judgment shall then reach all who would not take salvation from His hand of love.
Then will forever cease the gay song, the careless laugh and the mad whirl of gaiety, in which the poor victims of the devil are indulging, and an eternity of weeping and wailing will take their place.
Then will forever be suspended the world's pleasures and business, with the allurements of the one, and the wear, hurry and bustle of the other, which so often shut out God, and leave men no time to think of their soul's deep need.
Then will forever be arrested the world's boasted progress, and man in his mad career of proud indifference to the claims of God brought face to face with Him whom God has constituted Judge of quick and dead. (Acts 10:42.)
Reader, before that terrible Day of Judgment comes, Christ is coming to take to His bosom His blood-purchased Bride, that is, every believer in Him. If Christ were to come this moment, would you rise to meet Him? (1 Thess. 4:15-17.) Are you ready? Are you saved?
Christ is coming, and one of two things will happen to you when He comes: you will either be caught up to be forever with Him, or else left behind for judgment. Think of it, left behind for judgment!
Jesus said, "As it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man." (Luke 17:26.)
How was it in the days of Noah? A world of sinners, heedless of God's warnings, and unprepared for His judgment, was in a moment swept away to eternal destruction by the terrible waters of wrath.
So shall it be when Christ comes. Multitudes will be unprepared, because unwashed in His blood, and hence will be damned throughout eternity.
Will you be one of them?
There will be terrible crying and waiting in that day, reader; men and women crying out for mercy, and wailing because no mercy can be can be found. Will your voice thus be heard?
The myriads who have listened to the gospel of God's grace, and turned carelessly away, will realize then that the day of grace is past, and that their doom is forever fixed.
Will you be one of them?
Oh! mad lingerer on the brink of that lake wherein dash and roar the flaming waves of eternal judgment, I warn you that Christ's coming is no mere fancy of a disordered mind. (Rev. 20:15.) Already there are to be heard the muttering-s of the approaching tempest. How Barest thou, then, trifle with the solemn question of thy soul's salvation! I adjure thee by Christ's
dread appearing, by the love that thou hast for thy soul, by the fear of hell's eternal torment, to fly this moment for refuge to that Saviour who still cries, "Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out." (John 6:37.)
Yes, Christ is coming again, coming as Judge, and yet there reaches us His voice of grace, borne along the centuries from the distant past, still pleading with the sinner in the tones of the tenderest love "Come unto Me,.. and I will give you rest." "He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life." (Matt. 11:28; John 6:47.) But even as we listen the voice changes to a voice of sorrow, and we hear Him sadly say, "And ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life." (John 5:40.)
Reader, are those words of grief prophetic of the doom of thy Christless soul? Or wilt thou this instant hasten through the shadows of impending judgment that even now gather round thy path, to the feet of Him who died that thou mightest live, and who, in patient grace, still lingers to receive thee and forgive thee through the virtue of His blood?