ANYONE passing through the busy streets of the old-fashioned city of B― recently might have read these words, “LEST YOU FORGET,” placed in conspicuous places with the object of attracting the attention of pleasure seekers to what was then taking place at a certain place of amusement.
But just for a moment let me use them in another way altogether. Let me remind you that you are living in a world that is very much at ease without God and without Christ. Let me further remind you that its history will be closed with the most awful judgments possible. It is true the rightful Heir has been rejected, but not the less certainly will His claims be asserted presently. As King of kings and Lord of lords will the now rejected One take His rightful place and reign supreme. “Lest you forget,” my reader, let me ask how you stand in relation to that quickly coming day.
Then there is another thing I should like to ask. Has it escaped your notice that your life on earth hangs on a very slender thread, or; to use another figure, that it is but as a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanished away? When you arrange that this day six months you will do so-and-so, are you not forgetting this? The rich farmer who thought he could safely reckon on having many years to “eat, drink, and be merry” made a woeful blunder. Death was that night on his very doorstep. And are you certain that the same unwelcome visitor may not be at your door even as you read this? Have you not had many reminder’s, nay, positive intimations of his approach? And yet you act as though he were at some immeasurable distance away. Lest you forget until fatally surprised, let me remind you that God has said: “It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment.”
Close to the workshop in which I was once employed was a bridge that crossed the river.
This bridge having done service for some years, it was decided to replace it by a new one. Accordingly a number of men were employed to this end.
On a certain morning these men could have been seen leaving their homes in the best of spirits to enter upon their work. Soon after they had started I saw on the other side of the bridge one of the party, a comparatively young man, carrying out his duties. Suddenly, without the slightest warning, he fell over the side of the bridge into the river below. A solemn hush came at once over his fellow-workmen, for what solemnizes like death? Hastily they go to the rescue, but their efforts are all of no avail. In falling, as it proved afterward, he had struck himself and sunk. Every endeavor was made to find the body while there was hope of life, but all was in vain. When the body was found the spirit had returned to God that gave it. Thrice happy if in life those favorite lines could have been truly claimed by him: ―
“O happy day, that fixed my choice
On Thee, my Saviour and my God;
Well may this glowing heart rejoice,
And tell its raptures all abroad.”
But we cannot say. Surely the glad message of the grace of God had sounded at some time or other in his ears, but how he had treated it is another matter. All we know is that he suddenly dropped the things of time and found himself amid the realities of eternity. We only bring the mutter before you, dear reader, lest you forget the day of your own departure, for, perchance, the whirlpool of this world’s business or pleasure so overpowers you that you imagine you have no time for these things.
But there is one thing more. Let me, in the yearnings of the Saviour’s love, remind you, lest you forget, that when they have laid your dead body beneath the sod you will not have ceased to have to do with it. It will be raised again! If you turn to Revelation 20:5 you will find these solemn words: “But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished!” It may never have occurred to you that there will be two resurrections. Those who die in the Lord will have part in the first, and those who die in their sins in the second. It is of the latter John speaks when he says, “the rest of the dead.”
In which shall you have your part, my reader?’
“Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power.” Blessed and holy! Do those words describe you as you read this? If not, it is high time to consider. If you spend your little span of time in forgetfulness of these things, let me remind you that the second resurrection will bring no mercy to you. Nothing but judgment and no mercy then. Now it is nothing but mercy and no judgment. May grace at once arrest you and give you to seek His mercy! Hear the heavenly proclamation― “Through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins.” Do you say, “What man?” It is the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for many. “By Him all that believe are justified from all thing” (Acts 13:39).
May God awaken you and cause His voice to be heard in your soul even now, “LEST YOU FORGET” that “he that, being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy” (Prov. 29:1). J. S.