TURNING over the leaves of an album in a house I visited recently I saw a photograph of a man pointing to a board upon which was the word eternity in large letters. Knowing the man I inquired about the extraordinary and interesting picture. He had for years been a faithful servant of Satan, but having been by the grace of God, converted he ran as boldly now after Christ. In the same town lived a photographer, a decent man, but an open scoffer at the Lord and His word, the scriptures of truth. His infidelity was unmasked; and it Was a current report that his wife had died upbraiding him for being the cause of the loss of her soul.
One day the christian presented himself at the studio with a large board underneath his arm, saying that he had come to get his likeness.
The infidel, glad of a customer, proceeded forthwith to adjust his camera, when he was told that he must also allow the board which contained the word “eternity” to form part of the picture.
He stoutly refused the terms but was firmly told, “You must do the board or you do not take my likeness.” Besides, he was informed that there was a wife and children who would also get their portraits, provided he obediently represented the unwelcome word.
Afraid of losing so many customers he at last complied, giving a faithful carte of the man and the word “eternity.”
Often had the Christian spoken to him of the awful results of unbelief, and urged submission to the Lord Jesus Christ, and his earnest wish and prayer was that the little testimony to a future state should be blessed to the soul of the poor deluded man.
How do you, dear reader, feel in view of eternity, that never-ending state of bliss or woe? Unsaved, unwashed from your sins, unrelieved from your load of corruption, you brave an awful doom. The sentence is already pronounced that “he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.” There is, blessed be God, not only a door of escape from wrath and the present power of sin, but an entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Jesus, the Truth, says in John 10:9, “I am the door by Me if any man enter in he shall be saved.” Jesus is the Deliverer from coming wrath (1 Thess. 1) and “By Him believers can say, We have access into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Rom. 5:2). Through faith in His name you can be saved this very moment. Believe and live. “He that hath the Son hath life, he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” Accepting Jesus, confessing Jesus, and living to Jesus may you henceforth be able, to say, “the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
T. R. D.