Satan does not like people, especially those on the threshold of life, to think about death, and offers to all a multitude of varying attractions to keep them from looking ahead. God’s words, quoted above, show that He desires that they should be wise with that true wisdom which does not simply take everything at its face value, but weighs it in the light of eternity.
There are two worlds that claim the attention of all, especially those who are starting the journey of life. The first is the tangible world around us, of which Satan is morally the god and prince, with its alluring tales of ambition and progress, religious and otherwise; but which, in spite of all its fair appearance, is yet spoken of in Scripture as “this present evil world;” and the unseen world of which Christ is the Head and Center, with its glorious and incorruptible future, but involving a pathway of present trial and suffering to reach it.
Unquestionably the person who goes in for the former will get the best time materially now, but everything here is passing away and what of the latter end?
We desire to draw the reader’s attention to two extracts from the writings of two different men, each of whom was a real exponent of the world for which he lived, and the amount of satisfaction it could afford.
The following lines were found among the papers of the late Professor B—, at the close of a life of devotion to the quest of honor and fame, a life which would, no doubt, be highly commended by the children of the world. The lines speak for themselves with a seriousness and intensity which cannot be overstated, and stand as a solemn warning to all who would walk ambition’s glittering pathway—
“Why labor for honor? Why seek after fame?
Why toil to establish a popular name?
Fame! aye, what is fame? a bubble—a word,
A sound, that’s worth nothing, a hope that’s deferred;
A heart-sickening hope that’s too often denied
Or withheld from the worthy, to pander to pride.
Then out upon fame! let her guerdon be riven,
Nay—hold—let me strive as I always have striven.
Out, out upon fame! too late will she come,
Her wreath mocks my brow, will it hang on my tomb?
Too much have I labored, too willingly gave
My thoughts to the world AND HAVE EARNED BUT A GRAVE.”
Such lines need no comment and we would turn from them to an extract from the last writings of one who had renounced the most ambitious career, to take up the cross and to follow the Lord Jesus into the place of rejection. At the end of a life of trial and suffering, such as few are called upon to undergo, he was cast into a Roman dungeon. Almost all his earthly friends had forsaken him, he had appeared once before that cruel tyrant Nero, and before him lay the lions or perhaps some other fiendish torture, truly it was “a latter end” to be naturally greatly dreaded.
But what had HE earned? No thoughts of the grave filled his soul when he wrote to his young friend Timothy, as follows—
“I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing” (2 Tim. 4:6-86For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. 7I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: 8Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing. (2 Timothy 4:6‑8)).
Again no comment is needed, the language of Paul the apostle is too sublime to require human praise.
In conclusion, we would earnestly ask every reader of these lines to ponder well the striking contrast, remembering always that he cannot serve two masters,
“Choose you this day whom ye will serve,” God or the world. He wants you to be wise, to understand the truth, and to consider the latter end of these things.