(A Letter to an Anxious Soul by one now with the Lord. — No. 3.)
MY DEAR FRIEND, ―I am much obliged by your kind letter of yesterday, and thankful to find that the Lord still keeps your attention awake to the all-important subject of your soul’s salvation. I am sorry that you are still a stranger to the peace which the Gospel brings; but it is a mercy to be kept from the false peace by which Satan, in a thousand ways, deludes poor souls, and draws them onward to perdition. But bare of settling down, or even of remaining, in your present state. “Remember Lot’s wife.” She set out with her husband from Sodom to escape the awful judgment which God was bringing on that guilty city. But her heart was still there; her affections clung to Sodom, and that which it contained; and so, looking behind her she was turned into a pillar of salt. She became thus an abiding memorial of the terrible consequences of relapsing from an awakened into a careless state. Oh that God Himself may impress upon your heart the warning addressed to Lot, and to each one of his family — “Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed” (Gen. 19:1717And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed. (Genesis 19:17)).
You say, “I believe that I shall not die without the Lord.” I also earnestly hope that you will not. But it is not safe to trust such hopes as this. You are at this moment, and, should you be spared to read this letter, you will at the moment of reading it, be either a child of God or a child of wrath. There is no middle state, be assured. “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life” (1 John 5:1212He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. (1 John 5:12)). Now, you either have or have not the Son of God. Which is it, my friend? If, by believing in Him, you have the Son of God, you have life. In that case it is no longer a question of your hoping or trusting that you will not die without the Lord: you have the Son, and have life already. But if you have not the Son — if your heart clings not to Jesus as your only hope and refuge, you have not life; and should you continue thus, there is no promise anywhere that before you die you shall receive it. All the promises center in Christ, and relate to the present moment. “Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” “Today if ye will hear His voice, harden not your heart.”
How uncertain is human life! When I left home a few weeks ago, a lady, a friend of ours, was confined to her room, though not to her bed, by indisposition. I heard of her repeatedly while I was away; and on the day of my return her sister called here and seemed quite cheerful about the invalid, judging her to be so much better than she had been. This was about four in the afternoon. At eight the same evening the invalid was sitting by the table, and her sister reading to her a chapter in the New Testament. At nine o’clock she was a corpse! What a sudden and solemn change! We have every reason to believe that for years our departed friend had been a true believer in Christ, and that she is now happy with Him. But suppose she had not been, what possibility of fleeing to Him when thus struck with death? Do not rest, my friend, a day or an hour without Christ. God makes you welcome to Him, and all the value of His precious, atoning blood. You are welcome to Him now. “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” But then it is “him that cometh.” Come, then, to Christ, and come at once. Delay not another day or hour.
It is always a pleasure to me to hear from you; but do not trust in any man, or in what any of your friends can say to you, or do for you. Look only to the Lord Jesus, and to the blood He spilled on Calvary. It is that which cleanseth us from all sin. All that anyone can do is to point you to Jesus and His blood; and to pray God to lead you, by what is said, to look to Jesus, to rest on Jesus, to cling to Jesus, to rejoice in Jesus. The Lord grant this as to you, and that I may soon hear from you, that Jesus is precious to you indeed.
Yours, &c.,