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 trouble. 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 I 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.
Consumption of the throat seized him; but he would not believe that it was so—cursed the doctor, threw away the medicine, declared they wanted to kill him, and fought with all the intensity of a life-and-death struggle against the ravages of the disease; but at length he had to succumb. Unable to move about, dropsy set in, 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 t peace I" he preached, when there was no peace; and thus many a poor deluded sinner has passed unawakened out of this world, for "the wicked have no bands in their death.”
Often did I wish that I might be the bearer of a message to the poor fellow. But weeks of his illness passed on, without the accomplishment of my wish being fulfilled. Alarmed for his safety, his companions in sin besought we 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, and sending hither and thither, for a servant of Christ to read and pray with the dying, vainly supposing that the very presence of such will help to save the dying! How many a poor deluded soul has passed into the lake of fire with the sacrament on his dying lips, or extreme unction just administered!
I at last found my way to this poor man's dying bed—dying in the prime of life, dying without God, without Christ, and without hope in the world! I entered his dying chamber. A composing draft 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 lest he should then pass away. As soon as he had sufficiently recovered, I spoke to him of Christ, and of his need of a Saviour. He assented to all that I said, and then added that be felt that it was now all right with him, for he had prayed Desirous to find out if his prayer was a cry for mercy, I asked Min what he had prayed for. “Oh, that the pain might be less," he replied.
I then read Rom. 3 and Job 33, as a description of his lost condition and showing 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 profiteth 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 secure; he was resting on that.
He then related to me, what I had heard before, that about three o'clock that morning the pain had ceased, and he felt that his end was come, and that he was being wafted into heaven! "Alas!" thought I, “what an awakening! when, 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 het before him his lost condition as a sinner. He had prayed; that was sufficient. Alas! the devil's gospel. But a few brief hours, and he passed away.
Oh! what an awakening was his, as on last Saturday week the veil was thrown aside, and the terrible truth was out! 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 which ye will in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you.”
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?
H. N.