A BOY named Michiel Adrianzon was in imminent peril. During the workmen’s dinner-hour he had climbed their ladders and reached the golden ball of the church steeple upon which he had sat waving his hands to those below. The men, returning to the work, had removed their ladders, and were gone, Soon he thought of returning, and then found what a dilemma he was in. Nothing seemed before him but death, unless he could hold on till help arrived from below.
Have you ever been in such a strait? Perhaps you are more careful than the daring boy of whom we speak. You would not risk your life in such a foolhardy fashion as this, but possibly without knowing it you are already placed in some such position as to your soul. You have gone, on from day to day without a thought—living, like the rest of the world around you, without care as to eternity—with no concern on account of your sins and the judgment to come, drifting down with the tide to everlasting doom, “without God and without hope in the world.”
Can you retrace your steps? Can you undo the past? It may be you have prosed yourself to amend in the future, that your turning-time will come, and then all will be well. But what about the past? You cannot go back and unmake your history, and yet God requireth that which is past. Your whole history has been entered in His books of judgment, and the day draws on apace when you must give account of yourself to God, and then all your secrets must come out.
What lies behind you?—a past blotted and blurred by sin, smudged and smeared by evil of varied kinds. You have lived for self and cared naught for the claims of God. The voice of conscience has been hushed as far as possible, and you have occupied yourself with this world’s pleasures and refused to bow to the claims of the Lord who has bought you. Are you crying now,
In grace He waits to bless, for He delights in salvation, and even now if you turn your eye to Him He will save you, “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.” Luke 15:1010Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. (Luke 15:10).
ML-08/25/1935