WHILE a train on its way to Weymouth was waiting at D. station, a gentleman came to the door of the carriage in which the narrator was seated, and, addressing some friends of his own inside, said: “I have just discovered that I have got the wrong ticket.”
This information set every one in the carriage looking at their tickets, as you may suppose, and it was then ascertained that two other persons beside the speaker at the door had wrong tickets, all three having been obtained by one person, who in all probability had, when applying for the tickets, pronounced the word “Weymouth” in, such a way as to be misunderstood. However that may be, the tickets were from the wrong box, and utterly useless to their holders, as they soon found on reaching their destination. It was in vain they argued that the right amount had been paid; the tickets, when the time came for them to be examined, were found to be wrong, and the whole amount had to be paid over again. Remonstrance only led to the remark that they should have taken the trouble to examine their tickets in time to exchange them, and that whether the fault lay with the person who gave them out or he who received them, the loss must fall on themselves as the fruit of their own neglect. I dare say this reasoning seemed very hard, but it was just; for although there is no excuse for those who give wrong tickets, there is certainly none for those who receive them. Now, this little incident reminds us very forcibly of the condition of too many who are traveling with railroad speed onwards to eternity. In a little while the train of time will stop with them forever. Every tick of the clock, every instant, brings each traveler nearer to his destination, and then will come the solemn moment when, if he has till then neglected to look into this question, he will discover to his dismay that he has the wrong ticket! Whose fault will it be if he has to pay the full penalty of his gross and willful neglect?
In the case of the travelers referred to, the tickets were useless, you know, because the right name (“Weymouth”) was not on them. He who took them for himself and his friends knew perfectly well that no other name would avail, yet neither he nor they ever thought to look at the name they bore. Now, few are so ignorant in this land of Bibles as not to know that “there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved” than the name of JESUS, “neither is there salvation in any other” (Acts 4:1212Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)). Yet, knowing this, they remain indifferent about it. Some say “there is time enough yet” to look into the subject, others not so careless about the matter, yet grossly negligent of the truth, are content with “religion,” “good works,” “prayers,” anything but the one only NAME of the Son of the living God, and with these “wrong tickets” they travel on, regardless of all consequences until it is too late!
Can any folly be greater or more willful? And if God is just, what must be the result? Surely, His dear Son deserves better treatment than this! “He died the Just for the unjust that He might bring us to God,” yet those I refer to will not be brought by Him, but take some other name, or thing, or way, in their indifference to all He suffered when He came to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. I say that if God is just (and we know He is), just to His own dear Son, such persons deserve to pay the full penalty of their evil deeds. Look at Him on the cross! who shall tell His anguish when He cried, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” Consider Him in the garden of Gethsemane when looking onward to this hour, “His sweat was as it were great drops of blood, falling to the ground,” yet those who know these things pass on heedless of all He has borne for sinners, and are content to travel with the “wrong ticket” rather than take the trouble to look. Yes; they have but to look, and if they look in time all will be well. How incredible, and yet how true! Had the persons referred to in this narrative only looked at their tickets in time, they would have been spared the penalties they paid. When the serpent-bitten Israelite lay dying on the sands of the desert, incapable of doing anything, probably incapable of even uttering a prayer or a cry, he had but to look at the brazen serpent, and one look was life (Num. 21:99And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. (Numbers 21:9).) And what saith the Lord? “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3) “Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth” (Isa. 45:2222Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. (Isaiah 45:22)).
Reader, have you a “wrong ticket?” If you have not CHRIST, whatever else you have is worthless. Prayers, religiousness, good deeds, falsely so called (for how can any deeds be good that set God at naught?) all are so many wrong tickets; and when the solemn moment comes for examination,— the time of judgment, the only destination they can consign you to will be the lake of fire, for it is written, “Whosoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast into the lake of fire.”
The friend, who witnessed the little incident above given, desires your everlasting blessing, and has sent the narrative to us that thousands may have their attention drawn to this all-important question before it is too late. What is your destination, HEAVEN or HELL? To the former, one Name alone will bring you in safety; the latter is, alas, the terrible end of all who travel with THE WRONG TICKET.