A careless, ungodly man, who had bitterly opposed his Christian wife, one Sunday morning swung his ax on his shoulder and started off to cut down some trees.
As he looked around he saw a tree dead and dry, with its leafless branches extending into the air, and he said to himself, "I will cut that tree down, it is dead and dry, fit only to burn." At that moment the though rushed into his mind, "Am not I a dead tree fit only to burn?”
He tried hard to banish the thought, but it was an arrow from the bow of the Almighty. He went to the tree, and struck a few blows with his ax. But the thought still rankled in his heart, "Am not I a dead tree fit only to burn? Will not God say of me, 'Cut him down, for he cumbereth the ground?’”
Again and again he tried to drive away the unwelcome and harrowing thought. But there it stuck, a barbed arrow fixed in his heart, and he could not get it out.
He used his ax with increasing vigor but every blow seemed to deepen the conviction of his own spiritual deadness. At last he could endure it no longer; he shouldered his ax, returned to his home, went up to his room, and fell on his knees before God, confessed his sins, his ungodly life, and cried for mercy. With a penitent and broken heart he implored forgiveness through the atoning blood, and looking to Jesus he found peace which can only be had by believing on Him.
Reader, are you a dry tree, a barren professor, fit to burn? There are many who have a name to live who are dead. They have a lamp—but no oil, no reality.
"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." John 3:36.