At the close of a brilliant and successful career in the political arena, Benjamin Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield) wrote this striking epigram: "Youth is a mistake; manhood a struggle; old age a regret.”
In the days of his youth he had been an eager candidate for honor and fame. Manhood saw his ambitious dreams realized, his efforts crowned with success, and he himself struggling to maintain the high position he had won. Old age crept on; the curtain of death dropped on the story of his life. Evidently he knew something of its regret, and—all unconsciously, perhaps—his saying was but a nineteenth-century echo of the words of Solomon, uttered at the close of a life of worldly glory and pleasure: "All is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun?" Eccl. 1:2, 32Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. 3What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun? (Ecclesiastes 1:2‑3).
Though Disraeli's words are true, they are not the whole truth. His epigram stopped at old age; but he himself did not. Old age gives place to death, and "after death the judgment.”
Friends, will you be as the myriads who, in leaving this world, have reviewed their past, full of sin and folly, anticipated with dread the future, and discovered when too late that they had made a mistake for eternity? Have you left God and His Son out of your life? If so, you have wasted TIME and face a lost ETERNITY.
Between a misspent life and a lost eternity, there is a wasted opportunity. But, thank God, that opportunity is yet your own. Since your soul's destiny is at stake, I appeal to you with all my heart to take at once your bearings in view of eternity. You have sinned. Eternity is just ahead. Now, in the day of opportunity, God offers you a choice: SALVATION —or DAMNATION: which?
Look past that solemn hour when you must enter into eternity. Now is the sowing, then the reaping, sure, bitter, and eternal
"For He
Whose word on earth was 'Come,'
Shall say, 'Depart! Go, lost one, go!
Reap the sad harvest thou didst sow,
Join you lost angels in their woe;
Their prison is thy home.'”
BUT
What an unspeakable mercy is this opportunity of yours, and how great your mistake if you miss it! Upon the cross Jesus reaped the bitter consequences of sin, in love to sinners; and the fact that God has raised Him from the dead, and seated Him in highest glory proves the value of the work that He has done. Will you choose Christ? Trust Him now. Trust Him and you will never have to look back and say: "My youth was a mistake; my manhood a struggle; and my old age a regret.”