“SHALL I draw up the blind a little?” asked the nurse, and the invalid had answered, “Ah, yes, let in the light, I am going into the light,” and she lay back and slept. When, a little later, they turned to the sick bed again, they found it was even as she had said, she would waken no more to earth’s clouds and dimness—she had gone into the everlasting light.
“Very touching and beautiful,” you say, my reader. “When my time comes I should like to die like that.” But are you converted? because if not you will never die like that, It is true that you may pass away very peacefully, unconscious from weakness, or soothed by opiates; you may sleep quietly into eternity, but you will not go into the light. Do you ask, “Why not?” Because you are not a child of the light; you have never come to the light. Had you done so, your deeds would have been reproved, the burden of your sins would have pressed upon you, you would have seen your lost and ruined state, and would have fled to Jesus, who alone can save. It has not, however, been thus with you; amiable and educated, benevolent and religious, you have gone on contentedly in the darkness, loving it more than the light, and as the stone in your hand falls to the ground when you let it go, so surely must your spirit, freed from its earthly tabernacle, descend into the darkness.
But, because God is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and of great compassion, you are not there yet; and it may be, this little paper has been brought before you that you may be awakened and concerned while there is still hope. You can never have seriously pondered the unspeakable griefs of a Christless resurrection.
Picture to yourself this—to have died unconverted, and then to waken, as it seems to you, from a short, uneasy sleep (for I do not think time is counted in the grave) to find that ages have rolled away, and that the Judge sits on the great white throne, to find again the frail tenement you left so long ago, ruined by self-indulgence, wasted by disease, or worn by old age, and which you had thought scattered to the four winds of heaven, or turned to ashes by fire, or left in the bosom of the boundless ocean, and to be clothed therein once more, its infirmities unchanged by time, and then to hear the terrible words you once read so carelessly— “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still, and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still” (Rev. 22:1111He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. (Revelation 22:11)).
Oh, reader, I shudder as I write such words, horror takes hold on me. I would not choose thus to alarm you, but “knowing the terror of the Lord,” I would persuade you. This surely were terror enough, and yet it is only the first step into a lost eternity; what of the others—the blackness of darkness, the weeping and wailing, the regrets, the remorse, the unwelcome company of the devil and his angels?
You will not imperil your soul any longer? Earnestly you will ask, “How may I be saved? No labor would be too great, no penance too painful, if only I may save my soul from so terrible a doom.”
And now, when you see your need of Him, how sweet to point you to the precious Saviour, who has done all. His was the labor, His the pain, that salvation might be yours. You know well the story of the cross, only until now you have never heeded it, how the Lord Jesus went down into the darkness that He might bring you into the light, and how He has waited so patiently, so graciously until you should turn to Him in simple faith, believing that He will receive even you, and He will. Has not He said, “Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out”? (John 6:3737All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. (John 6:37)). Oh, come, then, as you are; delay not one moment, and having come to Him, follow Him, and it shall be made good to you that “he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:1212Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. (John 8:12)).
L. R.
LONG before man is to be judged for his sins, God unfolds two things: first, that forgiveness is offered to every soul that believes in His Son; and secondly, that He sends the Holy Ghost to dwell in the believer. Is not that wide enough, broad enough, to take you and me in? Is not forgiveness of sins the very thing you need and desire? That is the very thing God proclaims to you.
W. T. P. W.