It is a figure, no doubt, just as very many of our expressions are figures―a step means about thirty inches, and thirty inches from death is certainly near enough!
But, at the time of which David speaks, he was in imminent danger of sudden attack by Saul, so much so that his life was in constant jeopardy. He was not safe for a moment.
That is quite true, and therefore he carried his life in his hand, expecting death constantly. Hence he spoke of “a step,” that is, of being uncertain of an hour. But if that were true of David in his sufferings, is it untrue of you or myself in our circumstances, be they what they may?
Depend upon it, dear reader, there is not one of us who is more than a step from death―not one of us who can be sure of tomorrow. Youth, health, strength are no preventatives. Death despises the bloom of youth, invades the realm of health, and quickly weakens the greatest strength. Its power Isaiah 16sistless. No skill is able to ward off its terrible stroke. “There is no discharge in that war.”
Think then of being so near the brink! A step from death means, you know, for the unsaved one a step from judgment, and a stop from hell! How awful to contemplate, aid yet it is divinely true, just one little narrow step from time with all its fleeting pleasures into eternity, and for the godless soul that eternity undone. How appalling!
Here today, gone tomorrow!
Time today, eternity tomorrow!
Pleasure today, pain tomorrow!
Hope today, despair tomorrow!
Sin today, judgment tomorrow!
A swift transition from all you hold dear on earth to the dark remorse of a lost eternity!
Oh! godless soul, awake! It is forever! It is eternal.
“When the gain thou Nast hoarded is slipping from thy grasp,
When thou standest needy and alone,
When thy cold hand no longer its wonted props can clasp,
Oh! then, who will listen to thy moan?”
That moment hastens! That dread solitude approaches! You must cross the river alone! Of what avail then is a single earthly honor. All is fled! health, wealth, friends, props of all kinds one by one, and YOU ARE ALONE!
I am most anxious, my dear unsaved reader, that you should face these coming facts at once. Take warning and come to Christ for salvation. To be forewarned is to be forearmed, if, indeed, the warning be only taken.
Take the warning. Believe me, to be once in hell is to be in hell forever! I know that people speak of a “larger hope,” as they call it, by which they mean that, somehow or other, the damned may escape from their prison, and, after enduring punishment for a period, longer or shorter, they shall be relieved.
That is a delusion.
God speaks in Ephesians 2 of the unsaved having “no hope” in time, how then can they have it in hell? Impossible! The idea of a “larger hope” is, alas, one of Satan’s clever nineteenth-century lies.
That rich man of Luke 16 enjoyed no hope―not one ray of hope that he should be liberated from his doom. He asked for a drop of water, a small petition indeed―but he asked too late. His doom was fixed forever! Hope, larger or smaller, is unknown in hell. Again, friend, I beg you to be warned. Perhaps you may ask me, If the unsaved are without hope now, how can they ever be saved?
Well, whenever a sinner has lost all hope in himself, and has fallen into utter despair; when, in other words, he pleads a completely lost condition, then it is that a Saviour God can meet him. “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” That is the charm of the gospel. If you own yourself to be good for nothing, then, friend, you are just fit for the blessed Saviour.
Only a step from death! Yes, but so too are you but a step from salvation! How near! Oh! friend, take it! Come to the Lord. Come now!!
And then instead of being but a step from hell, you shall be but a step from heaven! What a difference!
Your sins pardoned! Your soul saved! Your conscience purged! Your heart happy! Your prospect bright! Your eternity secured! What a Saviour! What a salvation!
J. W. S.