OUTSIDE a certain Hall, where preaching was going on one Thursday evening, a dear Christian was trying to get men and women in. She, spoke to a gentleman who was passing, saying, “Will you come to the preaching tonight?”
He answered, “ I am going down.”
She looked him in the face, and replied, “WHERE?”
Ah! where? He passed on; but, my reader, where are you going?
The days and years tell is how we are going, but do you know where? You have only a short life on earth, and all your interests in this scene must cease when life departs. We bury our dead, we take their places, and do their work, but they are gone. They left their palaces, and their huts; their stately homes, and their squalid abodes; they disappeared from the throne, the council chamber, the mart, the workshop, and the home. They are gone, never to return. We are following on, and soon we too, shall be summoned to the presence of our God.
Why in the madness and infatuation of sin should you grasp so eagerly what you must give up so soon? Why are you so occupied with that which is before you but a day? Life is like gazing on the shifting scenes of a panorama; we gaze upon a scene depicted on the glowing canvas; it attracts our eyes, our gaze is rivetted upon it, when lo! it passes away, and another scene takes its place.
And so with our lives. Like the shifting canvas of a panorama, earthly scenes go by; this day delights us, but lo! it makes way for another; there is pleasure in the morning, and sorrow in the night; a blue sky at noontide, and thunder when the vesper song is sung. And soon the prompter’s bell will cease to ring, and the blank curtain of death will descend to hide it all.
You have only a life interest in everything here; it behoves you to think of that which is beyond. This life is but the prelude to that which is to come; time but the opening door to the infinitude of eternity.
And yet sinners, in the madness of their unbelief, leave God and eternity out of all their calculations. BUT YOU MUST HAVE TO DO WITH GOD. Are you prepared to meet God? You know you would not be fit to stand before an earthly sovereign with rags upon you. Can you dare think of meeting God, covered with the filth of sin? What does the Psalmist say? “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” Is your transgression forgiven? Is your sin covered? If not, you are afar from God by sin and wicked works; without God and without hope in the world.
Is it not madness to remain in this state when Christ has died for sinners? His precious blood was shed so that sinners might have their sins blotted out, and be made nigh to God.
A man blew out his brains the other day in the bar of a public-house, and another man cut his throat in the parlor of an inn. An aged woman drank two bottles of brandy between Sunday morning and Tuesday, and then fell down dead. This is the penalty of sin-judgment overtaking the sinner. And how long will you escape? Yon may die suddenly-you may go at any moment. Will you be mad enough to leave the question of your soul’s salvation unsettled?
Go down upon your knees now, and ask the Lord to save you, and HE WILL. “Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out,” are glorious words.
The Saviour loves to save; the Redeemer loves to redeem; the Son of God loves to bring the outcasts home to God.