So it came at last. Often had God warned him in various ways. A godly son, with wife and family, lived next door, and often felt deep distress at the old parent's ways, and besought him to turn to the Lord. Jesus, and flee from the coming wrath. But he heeded it not. He preferred drunkenness and vice to the things of God. He eared not for his soul, and turned a deaf ear to the message of God's love to sinful, guilty men.
Two years ago he was nearly killed, and when prostrate on a bed of suffering he vowed that if ever he were raised up it should be to serve God. He recovered, but it need hardly be added that his resolutions utterly failed; for he believed not God's word, that "all flesh is as grass," and he knew not that he was "without strength." As health and vigor were restored, he returned to his former habits of vice and profligacy. In scenes of drunkenness, quarreling, and fighting he was often taking part, and he went on, careless as to his former vows, and apparently without any concern for his soul. For some time Gad bore with his evil ways; but at length the fatal moment came; for God is not mocked. One morning he left home in his usual health and spirits; but he had not long commenced his customary employment underground, when suddenly, without a moment's warning, a heavy lump fell upon his back, and instantly crushed him. In a: moment he called out for his godly son, who happened to be not far off, and on his arrival the old man exclaimed., "James, I shall die I shall die!" for he felt he had only a short time to live. He was taken up, and conveyed as quickly as possible to his home, where he lingered for about an hour, perfectly sensible to the last, under the care of his loving and pious son, refusing to hear a word about God's way of salvation, but thankful for anything that ministered in the least to his bodily ease or comfort. As is often the case, the agony of pain he was enduring seemed wholly to absorb his thoughts. How solemn this is, and how forcibly this narrative brings before us the inspired declaration, "He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy." (Prov. 29:11He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy. (Proverbs 29:1).)
While I write, preparations are making for the funeral, and, according to the custom of these parts, hundreds of his fellow-workmen will this day follow him to` the grave. All will be clone as decently and respectably as circumstances will allow; but how few consider the Savior's words, that "all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth." It is one thing to die and be buried, but the awful reality is, that after death is judgment!
It is to be feared that such cases are far from singular. Many who read these pages may be sensible how often they have been besought by kind friends or relatives to come to the Lord Jesus, and find peace with God through His precious blood. They look back on times of weakness and illness, when accident, fever, or other disease threatened to lay them in the grave; they remember the solemn resolves they then made, and the little result that followed. They cannot forget how they trembled at the prospect of death and the grave, and tried to banish the thought of judgment to come from their minds. The kind interest of Christian friends, their loving persuasions to turn to the Lord, and their earnest, thrilling prayers, rise often before their minds. And yet, dear reader, you are spared. God's longsuffering has borne with you to the present hour. You have not yet been cut off. You are still within sound of the voice of divine mercy, living in a day when the gospel is still preached, often hearing that the way to glory is still wide open, and plainly marked by the Savior's blood. Then why are you not saved? If God, against whom you have so sinned, continues to call, why do you not answer? If the ambassadors of Christ are still instructed to say, "Be ye reconciled to God," how is it that you continue at enmity with Him? Do think of this. It is God who so loved as to give His only begotten Son to die for sinners, and it is the activity of divine love that by the gospel bids you, as a sinner and an enemy, to be reconciled to God. How blessed this is! brought into the fall brightness of unclouded glory in God's most holy presence, at perfect peace with Him through the blood of Jesus! for He has made peace by the blood of His cross. God and the sinner who believes happy together, every question of sin settled, the conscience purged, and the heart at rest in God's presence, and all through the death of Jesus; as we read, "When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son.”
Dear reader, have you thus had to do with God face to face? Have you taken your true place before Him of an enemy? And are you so satisfied with the death of Jesus, as God's just judgment of sin, and vindication of all His righteous claims, and the full outflow of His love toward you, that in confidence you have drawn nigh to Him by faith, and known present peace through our Lord Jesus Christ?