“I WAS once in a certain place where several people were getting what you call ‘converted.’ Indeed, I was within the toss of a halfpenny of being converted myself; but it all passed off again, and I have never been troubled with those kind of feelings since.”
So spake a fashionable lady as she sat at dinner with an officer in the army, as gay and thoughtless as herself. Alas! to be so close to the blessing, and yet to miss it! If that lady should ever reach eternal perdition, what unutterable remorse will the memory of those flippant words bring her! “Within the toss of a halfpenny of being converted”! Whatever her words might have really meant, they left the heart-saddening impression that she had been once amongst the “almost persuaded.” But there had been no real work wrought in her soul. Felix “trembled,” but it only made him wish to get away from the searching light of the truth― “judgment to come.” “Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee,” were words which made only too apparent his true condition. But we are not told that he ever “trembled” again under the word of God, or ever found “the convenient season” he presumed upon.
“Near to the door, and the door stood wide,
Close to the port, but not inside;
Almost persuaded to give up sin,
Almost persuaded to enter in;
Almost persuaded to count the cost,
Almost a Christian, and yet lost.”
A Christian man still lives in the north of England who was once as near to damnation as the lady just spoken of was near to salvation. He had spent all, at least to his last halfpenny. How should he spend that? He was despairingly miserable at the moment. But could he not find a short way out of it? “Oh, yes,” whispered his old master; “you have just got enough to pay the bridge-toll. Pay your halfpenny, and jump from the bridge into the river below, and end your misery.” He obeyed. The solitary coin was paid, the bridge was reached. Now for it! End your misery! But wait, whispered another voice, will it end your misery? “AFTER DEATH THE JUDGMENT”! Jumping into the jaws of death will not end your misery. It was enough. He fled from the bridge. God had spoken; his precious soul was ultimately saved, and today he is a rejoicing Christian.
Truly, if we may use the poor worldling’s words, he was literally within the “toss of a halfpenny” of eternal damnation, yet, through grace, he missed it, and his old master missed him. Thrice happy he!
Are you aware, my reader, that you are getting perilously near—not, perhaps, to your last halfpenny, but to your last half-hour of gospel opportunity? Have you yet seen nothing in Christ to attract you? Nothing in your own deep need to drive you to Him? Well, remember, as a general rule, people die as they live; and remember that SALVATION MISSED IS DAMNATION REACHED. If you continue in your sins, EARTH ONCE LEFT IS HEAVEN FOREVER LOST.
Are you feeling the burden of sin? Are you realizing the world’s emptiness? Are you discovering what a dupe of the devil you have been? ―what drudgery his service is? Oh, turn to God from your idols. He will bless you.
Are you longing for deliverance, sighing for peace? The precious blood of Christ is all you need for a guilty, upbraiding conscience; His changeless love is enough for the cravings of an aching breast.
There are, no doubt, tens of thousands in hell this moment of whom it might be said, They were once near salvation, very near, but they missed it. May such never be true of you. “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2). “Be it known unto you... that through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: and by Him all that believe are justified from all things” (Acts 13:38,39).
Let “this Man” have your confidence. God has raised Him from the dead, and glorified Him. He has God’s full confidence, for He has committed all things into His hand (John 3:35). Let Him have yours. “Whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins” (Acts 10:43).