LIFT me up to see the fields once again, Father, the fields in which we reaped the corn a month ago.” The dying man’s request was granted, and then exhausted by the effort, he sank back upon his pillow, and covering his face with his hands mournfully said, “The harvest is passed, the summer is ended, and I am not saved.” The closing words were repeated slowly with a trembling voice, and then he lapsed into unconsciousness from which he never woke.
That night he entered eternity, I fear, poor fellow, by the gaping door of procrastination. Once and again he had been awakened to see himself a sinner, in need of a Saviour, but he was so fully occupied with football and other amusements, that he seemed to get his convictions stifled as soon as they arose, and soon forgot all about God and eternity. After a short, unsatisfactory career, he was laid down to die, and passed away into the eternal world as I have told you. What an end for a bright young fellow such as he was! What a death! What an eternity!
Are you following in the same course? How will it be with you when you come to die? Pause a moment and think. He was not ignorant, for his early years were spent in a godly home, where they taught him the truth of God, and sought to lead him to the Saviour. But he did not like to be restrained. He would be his own master; so he left his father’s house, took lodgings for himself, and went in, heart and soul, for pleasures of every kind. Very soon he showed indifference to the things of God, refused to go to hear the Word, and became a scoffer. Then he was brought home to die, and after a short illness, he passed into eternity.
ML-10/21/1962