NOT all our readers, perhaps, know that this solemn and soul-subduing word occurs only once in our English Bible. Embedded as it were in its very center, we find it in the fifteenth verse of the fifty-seventh of Isaiah. It is God Himself who uses it, and speaks by it to every one of us: “Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth ETERNITY, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.”
ETERNITY is the home of God. He ever has, ever does, ever will inhabit it; and there, as He tells us, He would have others dwell with Him.
No one word can tell us more fully and characteristically who and what God is — He is “the ETERNAL GOD.”
No one word speaks so solemnly and so comprehensively to us as to ourselves. Creatures of time, we must all go into ETERNITY. Either to dwell with God in “ETERNAL life,” in His home; or with the devil in “ETERNAL punishment,” in the “lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Let each of our readers ask him or herself seriously this question: “Shall I, in ETERNITY, dwell with ‘Him who inhabiteth ETERNITY,’ or where?”
But more, no one word appeals so powerfully and effectively to the conscience as this word “ETERNITY”; and we believe no one word has been so used of God to arrest the careless, and be the means of their conversion to God, with all its blessed consequences.
The apostle Paul tells us, “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” The apostle James, speaking of God’s sovereign action towards us in grace, says, “Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth.” The apostle Peter reminds us we are “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the WORD of God, which liveth and abideth forever.”
It is God Himself who makes His own voice heard in the soul by His written Word, and with Him one solitary word of that written Word is enough. The two instances we are about to relate are striking proofs of this, as well as of the sovereign mercy of God to poor rebellious, unbelieving sinners.
1.
A lady of fashion, wholly given up to worldly pleasure, utterly godless, and unconcerned about her soul, returning home from a ball about three in the morning, as she passed to her bedroom through the adjoining sitting-room, where her patient Christian maid was awaiting her return, glanced over her shoulder to see what book she was reading to beguile the tedious hours. It was the Bible, and with contemptuous astonishment she exclaimed, “Poor dull soul!”, and passed on to her room.
Her maid followed her mistress to help her to unrobe, and having completed her services retired to her own room, which opened into that of her mistress. She had not been long in bed when she was aroused by sounds of distress issuing from her mistress’s room, and, going to the door, she inquired what was the matter, and if she could do anything for her. Her mistress replied that nothing was the matter, and that she needed nothing, requesting her maid to go back to her bed.
Doing as she was told, she had hardly composed herself to go to sleep when again groans and sighs aroused her, and she heard her mistress restlessly tossing herself about in her bed.
Going again to the door of her room, she asked if she was not feeling ill, and begged to be allowed to do something to relieve her, but her mistress, in an annoyed voice, replied that she was quite well, and requested her to go at once back to bed and not be concerned about her.
For a time there was silence, but before long she again heard her mistress restlessly tossing about in her bed and groaning deeply. Getting up she this time passed to the bed-side of her mistress, and said, “Madam, I am sure you must be ill, or something is greatly distressing you.” With a burst of tears her mistress, no longer able to retain her self-possession, replied, “I am not ill, but I am in great distress of mind, and you are the cause of it.”
“I, madam!” exclaimed her astonished maid; “I am very sorry; I am sure I do not know in what way I have offended or distressed you.”
“It is all that book of yours,” rejoined her mistress;” I just glanced over your shoulder, as I came in, to see what you were reading to amuse yourself with, and my eye caught sight of the word ‘ETERNITY,’ and I have not been able to get it out of my mind ever since. It seems burned into my brain, and the more I try not to think about it, the more it seems to force itself upon my attention. I can’t tell what to do with myself for anxiety. I don’t love God; I am afraid to die; I can’t bear to think of ETERNITY; I feel I am going to hell. Oh! what shall I do? You have been the cause of my distress; can’t you try and do something to relieve me?”
Lifting her heart silently to God in deep thankfulness, her maid quietly replied, “Dear madam, you need not be afraid of God and ETERNITY. If only you put your trust in the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that He died on the cross for you, is risen from the dead, and is now at God’s right hand to be your Saviour. Turn to Him in your distress, for He says, ‘Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out.’”
With many such words she tried to comfort and compose her mistress, but for the moment without effect. God was doing His own work of contrition effectually in her soul, and for some days she remained in great distress of mind, but eventually God led her by her maid’s means into peace and salvation, through the knowledge of the forgiveness of her sins. Shortly after she came out fully on the side of Christ, and left the world and its delusive pleasures behind her forever. The word ETERNITY had done its work.
2.
On one of the steamers of the St Lawrence River, in Canada, a servant of the Lord was giving away gospel tracts to his fellow-passengers. He offered one to a gentleman who was standing near him. He took it, glanced down its first page, and then deliberately tore into small pieces and tossed it over the side of the boat into the river under the eyes of its giver. He was a professed infidel.
At the next landing-stage, as he passed over the gangway to land, the tract distributor, who was standing close by, whispered in his ear, “The Lord will have to say to you about the way you have treated that tract.”
The gentleman, with a contemptuous sneer, passed on, and going to his hotel, soon in the company of riotous companions forgot all about the incident. In the small hours of the morning he went to his bedroom, and as he was unbuttoning his waistcoat a small triangular piece of white paper, thus set free, floated on to the floor. Stooping down, he picked it up to see what it was. On it was printed one word, and that one word was “ETERNITY.” He tossed the bit of paper into the fire, and, completing his undressing, was soon in bed. But not to sleep. Scarcely had he laid his head on his pillow when a voice seemed to sound in his ear the word “ETERNITY.” Turning his head on to the other side, again the voice sounded in the other ear, “ETERNITY.” Vainly he endeavored to evade this constant sounding in his ears of this word “ETERNITY.” He tried to think of something else, by distraction to free his mind from the thoughts this word suggested. It was all no use: God was speaking to his soul. As Elihu said to Job: “God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not.” So was it in this case, but at last he did perceive that GOD was speaking to him. His infidelity passed away, and he realized he was in God’s presence, with all his sins upon him calling for vengeance from the God he had despised, and so long sinned against. His agony of soul was complete. For two days sleep forsook his eyelids, and, like Saul of Tarsus, he could “neither eat nor drink.”
On the third day he went to hear the gospel at a mission-hall, and believing “on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification,” he found peace with God, confessed “with his mouth the Lord Jesus,” and from that time devoted the remainder of his life to the service of Him who had loved him and given Himself for him. Knowing that he had ETERNAL LIFE himself, and that he would surely dwell forever with Him “that inhabiteth ETERNITY,” he loved to insist on those precious words of our Lord Jesus: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, HATH ETERNAL LIFE, and shall not come into judgment; but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24).
C. W.