"Oh, of course, I intend to be saved sometime! But what's the hurry? I'll take my chances. Remember the dying thief!" a young man said carelessly at the close of a gospel meeting.
"Which thief'?" asked his questioner.
"Why, there were two, weren't there! I mean the saved one," was the reply.
"Yes, one was saved and is in heaven now. The other, who had an equal opportunity for salvation, is waiting in hell. What assurance have you that you will not spend eternity as he will, rather than as the other?"
The young man saw the danger of waiting until the eleventh hour, and that night he received the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Savior and was saved for eternity.
But thousands like him forget that there were two thieves. They remember the mercy of God that saved the one, while forgetting the judgment of God meted out to the other. Carelessly, they wander on hoping to be saved at last, but oh, how many to whom the gospel is presented are cut off in their sin and damned forever! They have ignored the patience of God too long and rejected His grace until it is too late.
Which thief are you like?
The saved thief believed on the Son of God, and is with Christ now.
The lost thief scorned the Savior, and is in the depths of woe.
You must be with one or the other for eternity.
"Because there is wrath, beware lest He take thee away with His stroke: then a great ransom cannot deliver thee." Job 36:18.