“I am quite young yet; may I not wait until I am older?”
NOT if you value your soul. Of course, it is obvious that you may choose to wait.
Only remember that every hour sees your prospects darkening, and there is a proverb which says, "He who hesitates is Lost." And why this strange anxiety for delay? Is it not because you have a totally perverted idea of the Gospel? To you it is as a noxious drug, a kind of nauseous black draft— to be taken eventually, of course, since your life depends upon it; meanwhile to be placed on the shelf as long as safety permits. The very word "Gospel," however, means "good news," and my Bible says, "As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country." (Prov. 25:2525As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country. (Proverbs 25:25).) Dip the glass in the crystal spring, and offer it to the thirsty traveler. Does he say, "May I not wait?" Ah! if you but knew the depth of your guilt and need, how eagerly you would seize God's proffered mercy and deliverance from sin's penalty and power. If you miss it in your youth you are not likely to find it in your old age.
“I believe in making the best of both worlds.”
A tempting creed, truly, but one that is not so easy when it is a question of putting it into practice. An old fable tells us of a certain dog which, crossing a stream on a plank, bearing a bone in his mouth, saw the bone reflected in the water, and, considering that two bones were better than one, he eagerly snapped at the shadow. With what result? Only this—that he lost his bone and the shadow vanished. That dog's creed was evidently, "I believe in making the best of both bones." Put into practice, however, it meant that both were lost.
Friend, have you never yet discovered that this world is but a passing shadow? "The world passeth away, and the lust thereof." (1 John 2:1717And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever. (1 John 2:17).) Make the best of it if you will, but see how quickly it slips through, your fingers. You die, and in eternity you will discover with awful dismay that in making the best of the shadow you have missed the substance.
“Time enough to repent when I am on my death-bed.”
The fact of the matter is just this. You are being grievously duped by the devil.
You may never have a death-bed. Yours may be a sudden death. A few faltering steps, a fall, a sigh, and then in a moment death. Time for absolutely nothing!
And if you were to die thus suddenly you would discover that it is emphatically not the time or place for the settlement of eternal questions. But—the dying thief! at the eleventh hour! True; yet remember, as a case it stands alone, a solitary exception; and, further, with nothing to show he had ever enjoyed an opportunity before. It was his last chance; it probably was his first. How many neglected opportunities will rise against you in the Day of Judgment?
But are not death-bed repentances common? No, very rare. I will tell you, however, what is sadly common,—death-bed fright. Beware lest you join the multitude whose history runs thus: A wordly God-forgetting life, a death-bed of scare and anxious forebodings of judgment, prayer, perhaps sacrament-taking, a few penitent expressions, death, and a drop into a lost eternity. One word more. “God... NOW commandeth all men everywhere to repent." (Acts 17:3030And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: (Acts 17:30).)
“But what about the heathen?”
There are some folk who find in the heathen excellent raw material for the manufacture of shields of unbelief wherewith to turn aside the keen edge of the sword of the Spirit and their own consciences. Are you one of them? To reject God's salvation because you don't understand the destiny of the heathen is about as sensible—or otherwise—as the procedure of some drowning man, who flings from him the friendly lifebelt because he cannot fully comprehend the principles which govern its floating properties.
Nothing will happen to them except what is perfectly right and just, and you too have to (stand before God of perfect justice. What will become of you? Transfer a little of this concern froth the heathen to your own case; for what with your sins, sins against light and knowledge, hell must be your portion, and no mistake. Weep not for the heathen, weep for yourself.
F. B. H.