"I have nothing to expect, sir, but condemnation; nothing to expect but condemnation."
The speaker spoke with difficulty. He was a large man of massive features, just stricken down in death. His nurse, sought as quietly as possible, to alleviate his sufferings, which were very great.
" Oh, don't talk to me of pain!" he cried bitterly. "It is the mind, woman,-the mind! "
Slowly and deliberately he said: '" I knew it at the time,-every time. I knew it,-I knew that a penalty must follow sin; yet I have done wrong, knowing that it was wrong, first with a few qualms, then brushing aside conscience and at last with the coolness of a fiend. Sir, in one minute of my life I have not lived for heaven, for God, for Christ; no, not one minute."
" Oh, yes, Christ died for sinners; but my intellect is clear, sir, clearer than ever before, I tell you." His voice became shrill and concentrated. " I can see almost into eternity; I can feel that unless Christ is believed on, His death can do me no good."
Soon after, he said, "I have been following up the natural laws, and I see an affinity between them and the great laws of God's universe. Heaven is for the holy; without, all are dogs and whoremongers. There 'tis a distinction, it's all right, all right."
After eleven o'clock, roused by the striking of the clock, he looked around, he caught the eye of his nurse and of his christian friend.
" It is awfully dark here," he whispered, " my feet stand on the slippery edge of a great gulf! Oh, for some foundation!" He stretched his hand out as if feeling for a way. " Christ," gently whispered his friend. "Not for me! " And pen cannot describe the immeasurable woe in that awful answer.
Can any one read this thrilling incident, and not be moved to the deepest depths of his moral being? Can a true believer in the Lord Jesus read it and not with adoration, heartfelt and solemn, bless God that his feet stand firm upon "the Rock of ages?" Can any mere professor of Christianity, read it and not tremble, as his conscience tells him that his feet are but resting upon the quicksands of time, through which he may sink at any moment to meet an unknown God, and to stand before a judgment seat with sins all unforgiven? Can any skeptic read it and not, in spite of himself, find his heart quail before the stupendous and awful realities of an eternity, for which, even with one true thought, he is unprepared,-utterly without foundation of any kind.
The scaffoldings of human wisdom, whether religious or atheistic, are as airy nothings when the presence of God and eternity are brought to bear upon them. The foundations of time all secure and strong while the pulse of life beats full, avail naught in the dread hour of death. The frown of " the king of terrors," well named for an unbelieving soul, abashes all false confidences then. When the dark billows of death, with their deepening and resistless tides surge in upon the struggling soul, vainly does it seek to keep its foothold upon the shores of time. Vain is the strength of man, or the help of man in that hour, one foundation alone stands then, " other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is CHRIST JESUS."
The soul that has built on this foundation, stands firm, amid the crash of all created things, and in the dissolution of soul and body. With peculiar force at such a moment does the voice of the living and eternal God, " still and small," sound its comforting and assuring utterances in the believers ear, taking away all doubt and uncertainty. Satan may do his utmost to distress and harass, the flood may rise, and the storm beat vehemently upon the house, but founded upon a rock, it cannot be shaken, and the heart reposes in peaceful joy upon the word of Him who has said, "Behold I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation, and he that believeth on Him shall not be confounded."
But He who gives this solid ground for the foot of faith to rest upon, solemnly declares as to all other foundations, "I will lay judgment to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place." Isa. 28 Oh! Christless soul, be warned ere it be too late, turn now to Jesus, lest thy death-bed utterances be but the des pairing, cry " Oh, for some foundation!"
"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away," says Jesus to His own, and though according to nature "it is appointed unto man once to die, but after this the judgment," Jesus speaks thus now to those who believe in Him, " Verily, verily I say unto you, he that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life."
God has anticipated for the believer the judgment due to sin. Christ has been in that judgment, and has borne the wrath of God for all that are His. They have "redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins," and they are far removed from all danger and ruin, and are now in a risen Christ the other side of death and judgment. They can peacefully exclaim, with the apostle, " There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus," and amid the storms of life, or in the hour of death, can sing:
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus Christ, God's righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus' name.
On CHRIST, the solid rock I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.
When darkness seems to veil His face,
I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.
On CHRIST the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.
His oath, His covenant, and blood,
Support me in the 'whelming flood;
When all around on earth gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.
On CHRIST, the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand.