IF you think it will be time enough to repent just as you are leaving this world you are making a grand mistake, most people die as they live.
A young fellow had often been urged to repent. His reply was, “Oh, I have only to say ‘Lord save me’ just as I am going to die, and it will be all right.”
He was crossing a crowded street, a cab knocked him down. “The devil take you” were the last words he uttered as his soul passed into eternity.
Mrs. W. was a wicked woman living an ungodly life, but whenever spoken to about her soul she used to say, “Oh, I intend praying when I come to die.” The day came when death claimed her. Someone who waited upon her was asked how she died. She replied, “Mrs. W. always intended to pray, and when she was taken ill she tried to do so, but she found praying very hard and swearing very easy, so she died swearing.”
God never promises you salvation on a dying bed. There is only one day when God saves people. Yesterday has gone away from you forever, you cannot recall it. Tomorrow, death or the coming of the Lord may settle your doom. Today is the only one you can be perfectly certain of salvation. “Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your heart.” A death-bed cannot in itself affect a bad heart. Even supposing you have a death-bed, and have “time to repent,” it may be that the pains of your body will be so great that you cannot think of your soul.
I called to see an old widow who was dying. “What about your soul?” I asked. “Oh,” she said, “thank God! He saved me before I was laid on this bed of sickness. Had He not done so, I am in too much pain and suffering to think of anything else.”
Beware of the devil’s lie, “Time enough to repent and change when the pains of death get hold of you.” Now is the accepted time.
H. N.