IT is an easy matter to denounce persons whose sin is patent to everyone. The vicious, the drunkard, the swearer, the swindler, and such like, are all well-known; their sins are open. Notice, “some men’s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment.” (1 Tim. 5:2424Some men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after. (1 Timothy 5:24).) These persons are, as it were, condemned by their neighbors around as being amongst those who cannot expect to enter heaven. But what about you, reader?
In this brief article we are not concerned with the above class so much. Rather are we concerned about another class of person altogether—the kind, the amiable, the generous, the thoughtful, the moral, yea, and even the religious, but without Christ. They seem almost entirely blind to the fact that there is an eternity to face, and that they must spend it in heaven or in hell. They go along from day to day, from month to month, year in and year out, in absolute unconcern in regard to the future. If such a thing, indeed, crosses their mind it is soon banished and forgotten. And let me ask again, What about YOU?
Oh! that God might wake up such before it is too late, before they are awakened up in eternity.
Observe the verse already referred to above. “Some men’s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men THEY FOLLOW AFTER.” It would seem as though the Spirit of God through the Apostle Paul wished to emphatically draw attention to the fact that although some men’s conduct and actions obviously condemn them in the eyes of their fellow-creatures, judged according to an earthly standard, yet there are others whose conduct might almost be without reproach among their fellow men, but who, nevertheless, are going to be awakened to their true condition before God one day, their sins eventually rising up and condemning them.
Yes, it is true, some men’s sins follow after. I tremble for you as I think of your hurrying maybe to your awful fate, and yet careless and indifferent as to it.
Oh! be warned in time I entreat of you Your sins are following you; YOUR SINS are following you. Be they many or few, as men, speak, if you have not come to. Christ there one sin that you cannot deny—that of neglecting the great salvation which has been provided for you.
Your sins will not be going beforehand to judge you, nor will they be following you, if you put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Come to him now. Slight His love no longer, “Knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep.” (Rom. 13:11)
L. A. A.