TIME flies indeed. Another year has well-nigh ran its course, and we are hurrying on with tremendous speed. It seems as if we were borne on the wings of time more swiftly than ever. Events, too, appear to crowd upon each other in such quick succession, as if men were being hurled into eternity with leas time to think than formerly. Hospitals and asylums are multiplying, and grave-yards are filling with great rapidity. Multitudes are being drawn into the vortex of eternity at a terrific rate, and though men are busy with invention to conceal the real character of death, to garnish the places of graves, and to banish true thoughts of the judgment of the great white throne awaiting those who die in their sins; nevertheless the fact remains unaltered, that eternity, with either its endless misery and darkness, or its unchanging holiness and joy, are vividly spread out before our minds, and coming nearer to us every moment. Every eye must see Jesus. Everyone must either meet Him as a Saviour, or as a Judge.
In much affection then would we ask each reader of this paper the searching question, Where does this moment find you? You will readily admit that you are going on to eternity; on which road then are you now traveling? Is it with the many on the broad road which leadeth to destruction? or are you certain of having entered in at the strait gate, and that you are treading with the few the narrow way which leads to eternal glory? It must be one or the other. There is no middle path. You are either saved or lost; forgiven, or still in your sins; in Christ, or out of Christ! You have either fled for refuge from the impending wrath, or you have not! Do think of this. It is all-important. Give it your most serious consideration. The point is vital. Eternal consequences hang upon whether you have believed on the Son of God for salvation, or whether you have not believed.
You have activities. You are not still. You are treading one of these paths. We ask, Which is it? If Jesus were now to come from heaven for His saints to meet Him in the air, would you be caught up? or would you be left behind for judgment? Or, if the divine sentence should go forth concerning you, “This night thy soul shall be required of thee;” how would it find you? Are you ready? Would it find you saved? Have you now peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ? Are you certain that your sins are forgiven? Do you know that you are accepted in Christ? so that if the earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, you have a building of God, a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens? In a word, do you clearly see that Christ is your righteousness, your life, your everything before God?
Do well consider these things, dear reader. Be perfectly sure about the matter. God points you to Christ crucified and risen as the only way. You may rely upon God being true to His own word. Anything else is unworthy of your confidence. A sandy foundation of popular religiousness may suit this trifling generation; but it will not stand by you in a dying hour; it will vanish like smoke before you when standing on the brink of eternity, and nearing the all searching eye of the living God. A solid rock, a sure foundation, such as is presented to you in the word of God, in the accomplished and accepted work of Jesus, will suit you then. You will find then that the precious blood of Christ gives perfect peace, because God declares that you are “now justified by His blood.” The sacrifice of Christ having fully met the claims of God, and your need as a sinner, will give full rest to your conscience, and fill your whole soul with joy. “Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
But alas! alas! how many spend their days in trifling away their time, if not in directly opposing the truth of the gospel, and find out their mistake when it is too late. “Too late! too late!” is much more frequently the bitter wail of a dying bed than most are aware of. How many will be forever gnashing their teeth in the misery of outer darkness with the unceasing consciousness of having neglected this great salvation; of having refused God’s glad tidings concerning the infinite value of the sacrifice of Christ for guilty sinners!
Dear reader: Refuse not our affectionate entreaty once more to lay this momentous matter solemnly to heart. Do you not see that, however amiable or virtuous you have been, you stand convicted before God in refusing His Son as your Saviour? This is the point. But however you have trifled with God’s truth and your immortal soul, thank God you are yet out of hall; you are still within sound of the glad tidings of God’s message to man; that “By Christ all that believe are justified from all things; for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (See Acts 13:3939And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses. (Acts 13:39); John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16).)