“AND now why tarriest thou? Arise and be baptized,” was the question and injunction addressed by Ananias to Saul of Tarsus at Damascus, and I wish to pass the query on to you, dear unsaved reader. “Why tarriest thou?” Why are you still unsaved? a stranger to grace and to God—why?
Are you afraid of your companions—of what others will say? Yours will be the coward’s doom, i.e., “The fearful... shall have their part in the lake of fire, which is the second death” (Rev. 21:88But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. (Revelation 21:8)).
Are you held back by considerations of what you will have to give up? Or, in other words, does some idol, wrapped in Satan’s tinsel so as to hide its true character, struggle to maintain its, supremacy in your soul and to exclude Christ? Cast it out, it is but an idol, a hideous idol. “Why tarriest thou?” Arise! cast it out. Why should it rob you of Christ and salvation.
But again, you may say, “I mean to be saved some day.” Yes, some day, so did Felix! so did thousands now keeping company with the rich man in hades. “The way to hell is paved with good intentions,” someone has said. They make it easy walking, but the end of the way comes, the gulf of an eternal hell lies across the path, and remorseless death hurls the helpless procrastinator over the brink. “Why tarriest thou?” this is the road you are on. O soul get off it this very hour; “thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.” Why should eternal justice have to brand you as the fool who meant to be saved, but put off and was lost—lost forever!
“Decide for Christ today,
Procrastinate no more;
Now mercy pleads, soon wrath will burn,
The Judge is at the door.”
Oh! what answer can you give to God when He asks, “And now why tarriest thou?”
If thy hapless soul stand before His judgment bar, unblest—the summer ended, the harvest past and thyself not saved, what wilt thou answer Him? Ah! thy speechless lips will refuse to utter a word, and self-condemned thou shalt pass to thy doom. But arise! it is still the day of grace, the Saviour waits to receive thee, in spite of thy long slighting of His person, in spite of thy cold procrastination.
In accents of mercy and tender entreaty He is asking thee “Why tarriest thou.” He is saying in mournful regret, “Ye will not come to Me that ye might have life.”
O soul, give Him the joy of receiving thee, the joy of blessing thee. Let fears, idols, delays go; tarry no longer, thy precious soul is at stake, thy eternity is in the balance. Flee to Christ, receive Him, confess Him, live for Him, wait for Him. Then shall Christ’s love, Christ’s joy, Christ’s home be thine, and thou shalt be forever satisfied. “Arise, why tarriest thou?”
F. H.