“IT’S awful to think that it is forever.
“These were the words of a young man who had just left a gospel meeting. The preacher had been pressing upon his hearers the realities of eternity, and this young man being unconverted, these two words “for ever” set him athinking.
Has the reader ever considered these two words? They are well worth pondering, whichever way we look at them. If this should meet the eye of one who is going on, careless and heedless, to destruction, we would like to put a question to that one.
Have you ever calmly considered that the road you are on will end in the “lake of fire,” and it will be “forever”? What a terrible thought! Without God! without hope! “Forever.” On the other hand, did it never strike you that you are missing something which is really worth having?
“Remember, two paths are before thee,
And both thy attention invite;
But one leadeth on to destruction,
The other to joy and delight.”
As a sinner, you deserve what lies at the end of the road you are on at present; but “God who is rich in mercy,” having found a ransom in Christ, His well-beloved Son, can now say, “Deliver him from going down to the pit.” That blessed One having settled the whole question of sin, God can, and does, now offer to every sinner who will receive it a full and free salvation, and it too is “forever.”
That milk-and-water sort of gospel that we hear proclaimed in this day― “Saved today, and lost tomorrow”―is not God’s salvation. He saves “with an everlasting salvation.” “I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever; nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it; and God doeth it that men should fear before him” (Eccles. 3:1414I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him. (Ecclesiastes 3:14)). What a contrast between the two. Forever in the glory of God, singing the praises of the One who loved you, and gave Himself for you; or forever in the lake of fire, bewailing your own foolishness in being there.
Dear reader, if you have never faced the matter before, face it now before it be too late. Plant your foot firmly down, saying, in answer to that last scripture we have quoted, “By God’s grace, not I.”
A. C.