"Peace! Peace!" he quietly whispered in the ear of the dying man. As he stood gloating over his poor deluded victim, he repeated, "I am the 'messenger of peace' to you. All is well; you need not worry. You know the Bible well. You cried to God to deliver you out of your pain. Soon you will pass away out of this suffering. Then all will be well.”
Thus said Satan to a man who for years had served him well, and who was now about to pass into eternity. This, reader, is no picture drawn by human imagination, but a solemn fact in the history of one whom the writer knew intimately for fourteen years.
He was what even men of the world would call bad. His poor wife had been hurried to an early grave, and he, the victim of drink and debauchery, was now about to follow her. He was also a scorner and reviler of God's Word and God's people, notoriously profane and untruthful.
Cancer of the throat seized him; but he would not believe that it was so. He cursed the doctor, threw away the medicine, declared that everybody wanted to kill him. He fought with all the intensity of a life-and-death struggle against the ravages of the disease; but at length he had to succumb. Too weak to move about, he was succumbing to the spreading poison, and at last he was forced to admit that there was no hope of recovery.
Was he terrified at the prospect of death? Alas, no! Satan had a gospel of his own, and he knew well how to lull with his deadly opiates the conscience of his wretched victim. "Peace! Peace!" he preached, when there was no peace. In just such a state has many a poor deluded sinner passed unawakened out of this world, for "the wicked have no bands in their death.”
Often did I pray that I might be the bearer of a message of hope to the poor fellow. But weeks of his illness passed on without opportunity for the accomplishment of my desire. Alarmed for his eternal safety, even his companions in sin besought me to call to see him, though they well knew how he had previously ridiculed both my Master, and His message.
But how common is this, to find even the ungodly anxious about the eternal destiny of others. They will seek frantically for a preacher or priest to read and pray with the dying, vainly supposing that the very presence of such will help to save the lost soul. How many poor deluded souls have passed into a lost eternity with the sacrament on his dying lips, or extreme unction just administered!
At last I found my way to this poor man's death bed. There he lay, dying in the prime of life, dying without God, without Christ and without hope in the world! I entered his darkened room. A sedative had just lulled him to sleep; and as I watched the pallid, deathly features, and listened to the labored breathing, deep sorrow wrung my aching heart.
Presently he awoke in a violent fit of coughing, and I feared that he might then pass away. As soon as he had sufficiently recovered, I spoke to him of the love of Christ, and of his own need of such a Savior. He assented to all that I said, and then added that he felt that it was now all right with him, for he had prayed! Anxious to know if his prayer was a cry for mercy, I asked him what he had prayed for. "Oh, that the pain might be less," he replied.
I then read Rom. 3, as a description of his lost condition; and Job 33, which shows God's ways with man: how He chastens him with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain, so that his life abhors bread, and his soul dainty meat; yea, his soul draweth near unto the grave, and his life to the destroyer. And all this in order that he may own, "I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not." Then God can say, "Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom.”
"Ah," he said, "I know every word of that Book." And he looked quite serene and secure; he was resting on that knowledge.
He then told me, as I had heard before, that about three o'clock that morning the pain has ceased, and he felt that his end was come, and that he was being wafted into heaven! "Alas!" thought I; "what an awakening! Instead of the holy paradise of God, he may find himself in the deep dark gloom of the eternal abode of the lost.”
In vain was it that I set before him his lost condition as a sinner. He had prayed; that was sufficient. Indeed the devil's gospel. After a few more brief hours he passed away.
Oh, what an awakening was his when a week ago last Saturday he left this scene and knew the terrible truth! The hell he had ridiculed in days of health must now be his abode, and that forever and forever!
"Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish: for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you." Acts 13:4141Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish: for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you. (Acts 13:41).
Reader, God is preaching peace by Jesus Christ, a peace procured at the enormous cost of the shedding of the blood of His beloved Son. Satan too is a messenger of peace; but his so-called gospel leaves out repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
To whom are YOU listening? God or Satan?