“I have nothing to expect, sir, but condemnation.”
These were the words of a dying man, as he tossed about on his pillow.
The moment had come when he was face to face with DEATH. Nothing before him but a dark ETERNITY. What a prospect Moreover, to add to all this, he was suffering intense physical pain. His nurse sought to do all that lay in her power to alleviate his sufferings.
"Oh! don't talk to me of pain," he cried bitterly. "It is THE MIND, nurse, THE MIND!”
Conscience was at work reminding him of his sites, his godless life. All came vividly before him. “I knew it all the time, and every time, that A Penalty must follow Sin.
Yet I have done wrong, knowing that it was wrong; first with a few qualms, brushing aside conscience, and at last with the coolness of a fiend.”
Very few are the men who will dare to say that they have not sinned, and full well they know that a penalty must follow sin. Is this not so in your case, reader? How solemn to meet a holy, righteous God with an unforgiven, sinful past! "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap." (Gal. 6:7.)
“Sir," said the dying man to his Christian friend, "I have not lived one moment of my life for Heaven, for God, for Christ. No, not one moment!" Could you say any more?
What a confession from a man who was just about to be ushered into the presence of the God against whom he had sinned.
How death brings men to their senses! Levity and frivolity flee from its presence! Men are eventually forced to view things as God sees them! SIN, that has coiled itself around the heart, at last becomes a stinging serpent and a biting adder. THE TRUTH is forced out at last.
“Oh! yes," said the dying man, " Christ died for sinners. My intellect is so clear, sir, clearer than ever before. Here the poor fellow's voice grew louder, until it became shrill and concentrated as he shouted in anguish, "I can almost see into eternity. I feel that unless Christ is believed on, His death can do me no good.”
Eleven o'clock came, and the dying man, aroused by the striking of the clock, looked round and caught the eye of the nurse and his Christian friend.
"It's awfully dark here," he whispered. "My feet stand on the slippery edge of a great gulf. Oh, for some foundation!”
As the dying man stretched out his hand, as if feeling for something sure, his Christian friend in response, said quietly, calmly, lovingly, "Christ!”
No wonder the prophet of old wrote:
"Behold I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.”
That size foundation is Christ. No other foundation will stand when the floods of death beat with overwhelming fury at thy heart's door. No one, and nothing short of Christ and His atoning work will do. Thousands can sing:
“On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand.”
What do you think was the response of the dying man as his friend bent over him with the one word, CHRIST? To his horror he replied, "NOT FOR ME." Oh! the immeasurable woe wrapped up in that awful answer. Words cannot describe it.
The end came, and just as his soul was wrenched by the hand of death from the tenement of the body he exclaimed, "I shall fall. I am falling," and he was gone.
And why have I narrated this true tale of one who once adorned society? I want to warn you to "flee from the wrath to come." I want to warn you not to put off this important question till a death-bed, when the devil has such power to press despair upon the heart, when the life has been ill-spent and the body is racked with pain or borne down by weakness.
Oh! now in the days of your health and youth come to the Savior. Aye, and if this meets the eye of a decrepit old sinner, there is mercy for you. God's grace follows you even upon a death-bed. Will you spurn such mercy, despise such grace?
Trust CHRIST, and eternal gain and happiness and peace with God will be yours.
“How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation? (Heb. 2:3.) C. I. A.