We were distributing Bibles and gospel tracts on the Grenadine Island of Canouan. As we passed a cemetery, a headstone caught my eye, and I asked the driver to stop so I could take a better look. Chiseled in the granite marker was an engraving of an alarm clock. Underneath was the following inscription:
“The clock of life is wound but once!”
This is a line taken from a poem which reads:
The clock of life is wound but once,
And no man has the power
To tell just when the hands will stop,
At late or early hour.
To lose one’s wealth is sad indeed;
To lose one’s health is more;
To lose one’s soul is such a loss
That no man can restore.
From the dates given on the stone, the lady who was buried in the grave had almost reached her ninetieth birthday, and I am sure she was a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.
What about the “clock of life” for you? When will the hands stop? Will it be “at late or early hour”? Who can tell? Are you prepared for the next life where there is no time or clock? Remember what the Bible says in Hosea 10:1212Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you. (Hosea 10:12). “It is time to seek the Lord.”