By the Editor
March, 1922
WE have prayed before our emptying shelves of Testaments, and God is answering our prayers in a most wonderful way. Our warmest thanks to our dear friends who are helping us in this work for God. The shelves are filling.
May the following piece, with its stern significance, arrest many a sinner on the road to eternal death.,
Driven Down to Hell
A man who had been anxious about his soul had a dream He fancied he passed along through dark corridors, and as he went door after door slammed behind him, cutting off all possibility of retreat; and at last he came to the end of the passages, and in front of him he saw a burning pit; and as he was impelled to move nearer and nearer to it, he saw hands reaching up from the flames ready to clutch him and drag him down; and just as he was close to their embrace, he awoke. Awoke with the horror of hell upon his soul! Awoke with the perspiration standing upon his brow, and his heart throbbing with fearful terror! Had the dreamer died, he would have awaked in hell; but the sleeper awoke to find that he had one more call to escape the lake of fire. From the warning of that dream he fled to Jesus, and was saved.
Judas was driven down to hell. Satan knew well his betting sin, and caught his soul in the golden web. When Judas sold the Lord for thirty pieces of silver, we may he sure he did not think that Christ would really die. The devil must have whispered in his ready ear, “Take the money; Jesus will escape as He has escaped before.” And Judas doubtless thought of the power of Christ. He remembered how He had pasted through the people when they sought to thrust Him over the brow of the hill on which their city was built. He knew He could walk upon the sea, and still the raging storm. He had seen Him raise the dead, and cast out demons, and cleanse the lepers. He must have imagined that Christ would exert His powers for His deliverance now, and this was what he wanted. He wanted Christ to live and the money to be his, his avarice to be satisfied, and Jesus of Nazareth to free Himself from the shouting and blaspheming crowd around Him. He watches the unfolding of events. The hours of darkness pass away, and the morning dawns of the most awful day the world has ever seen, or will see. Judas sees Jesus bound, and hears that counsel has been taken against Him to put Him to death. He watches with straining eyes, and wildly throbbing heart; and to his horror Jesus does not try to escape. He sees Him led as a sheep to the slaughter. Why does the not break the bonds? Why does He not drive His foes backward as in Gethsemane? Why do not the twelve legions of angels come and deliver Him? No, He is meek and passive in the hands of His enemies, led on to judgment and to death. Fiercely the flames of remorse begin to burn about the heart of the traitor. It comes home to him with awful significance, “I have sold Jesus, and Jesus is going to die.” What shall he do? He is in awful despair. Satan leaves him now. He has led him on to face the awful storm alone. And this is what Satan always does — leaves his victims to despair. This is what he will do to you, if you continue his slave; he will lead you from sin to sin, until at last you are sinking into the despair of hell, and he will then rejoice over you in the horrible torture of a lost soul.
Judas repented himself. What must his thoughts have been? His despairing eyes tried to pierce the darkness of his future. “What shall I do?” is still his cry. We can fancy him saying, “Shall I go and tell John all about it, and ask him to speak to Jesus? Or shall I ask for Peter, and see if he can help me? What shall I do? What shall I do?” And, there is no answer to this despairing cry. He is wandering around the borders of hell, and its torments have begun for him on earth. At last he says, “I will go to the chief priests and elders, and get them to take back the money.” He hurries off swiftly with the money in his hand; he presents himself before them. His dark face is flushed with the fearful struggle, and his words come hoarsely from his laboring chest: “I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.” He holds the money out toward them. We can fancy him crying, “Take it back — this accursed silver — it is burning; into my heart; take it back.” They hear his impassioned tones, they know full well that Christ is innocent, but what care they for Judas or his pleadings? They fix their cold eves on the terror-stricken traitor, and from their sneering lips the answer comes, “What is that to us? See thou to that.”
“See thou to that.” His sin is driven home deeper and deeper upon his soul. There is no hope for him. The skies above are darkening with the awful wrath of God; he dare not look up. Earth has no gleam of relief; he is being hedged in by the awful barrier of his doom. What next? For one brief moment we can see him stand with horror on his brow; and then he dashes the pieces of silver down upon the temple floor and rushes out. Where is he going? Let us follow him. On and on he goes, and in his track are the fiends of the bottomless pit. He presses on, and I can see him tearing his hair; and then he stops his ears as if to shut out the words, “See thou to that.” At last he halts, and with the nervous haste of the suicide he hangs himself. This is his awful end — the doom of the suicide. “He went to his own place.”
Oh, what a life! Oh, what a death! Oh, what a future! Do you shudder at his fate? Then what of you? Will you take warning from him and come to Christ? Fancy Judas down in hell, remembering all the words of Jesus, the hours he had spent in His company and the opportunities of blessing he had lost forever. And what will your thoughts be if you commit soul-suicide, and go from the light of mercy’s day to the darkness of the lost; from a very heaven of opportunities to a hell of regrets?