A servant of God received an urgent call to visit a dying man. A few hours before, this man had been the picture of health, robust and powerful. Without a moment's warning, he had been stricken down and now was near death; and he was without God and without hope.
Upon entering the room the Christian found the dying man's sorrowing family and friends, hurriedly gathered, surrounding his bed. Amidst the most profound silence he knelt down at the bedside to ask God to come in in this awful extremity and save this poor soul; but not a word of prayer could he utter! In another moment he heard, as it were, the departing spirit cry out in death, and immediately this Scripture flashed into his mind: "And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments." Luke 16:2323And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. (Luke 16:23).
Oh, dear reader, this was a man who had had many opportunities of being saved; he was one who, being often reproved, had hardened his neck, and was thus suddenly destroyed, and that without remedy (Prow. 29:1).
Let me ask: Are you treading in this man's footsteps, stifling your convictions, resisting God's Spirit, trifling with God's Word, and exhausting God's patience? I beseech you, stop once again and consider what you are and what you have done, and hearken to this soul-stirring word: "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." Isa. 55:77Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. (Isaiah 55:7).