YOU must be saved from your sins, or you will go from the years of time to the eternity of hell. The world you live in is shrouded by the darkness of sin; and your sins have helped to make it dark. You, as an unbeliever, are “sitting in darkness, arid the shadow of death.” You have, upon your brow, the word SINNER written — for “ALL HAVE SINNED.” You may have thought, by deeds of human righteousness, to win favor from a holy God; but the effort has been, and will be, vain, for it is written, “ There is none righteous, no, not one.” There is no exception to this universal word. It is also written, “By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight.” In His sight, recollect, the God with whom you must have to do.
You may have thought your knowledge of right and wrong was perfect, and your understanding t could not lead you astray; but you have been walking “in the light of the sparks of your own kindling” — for the testimony of God declares, “There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.”
Your way, as a sinner, has been, and is, the way of sin, the way of death, the way to hell. You have gone with the many, away from God; and God, looking at you and them, says, “They are ALL gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is NONE that doeth good, no, NOT ONE.” If God says this, it must be true, and God has said it. What, then, of the path you tread? You may have been treading it with a light heart, and in fancied security; it may have seemed a right path to you; but “there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Human reason is a light that leads to the bottomless pit, and the thoughts of man are but evil continually.
Every one is born into the world a lost sinner, “born in sin” — yes, born afar from God. Have you never thought of these things, and has not the shadow of your sin ever crossed your heart? “The soul that sinneth, it shall die;” and there will be no exception made in your case. And what is it to die?
Ask the lost in hell, to whom hope will never come; ask your own heart, as you ponder over the solemnities of eternity.
You must leave this world very soon. If my reader is old, his feet are on the threshold of eternity; and in middle age, men and women die; and many young men and maidens never pass the bloom of youth. Then let the question come earnestly from your heart now, “How can I be saved?”