“YOU”RE a signalman?” said a preacher to a man whom he found deeply troubled about his soul. The man had been pointed out to him after the preaching amongst a number of other anxious persons. He had been told his occupation, and requested to speak with him. After lifting up his heart for a moment in silent prayer, the preacher sat down beside him and said―
“You’re a signalman?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You know what a junction is?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you’ve reached a junction tonight in your life-line, and it is very possible, if you pass it,
“THERE MAY NOT BE ANOTHER.”
The signalman seized his meaning, turned there and then to God, repented, and believed the gospel.
Now, my reader, if you are not converted I want to say to you, “You have reached a junction.” Another year has just closed. You stand at the opening of a new one. Up to this point you have traveled on the broad road that leads to destruction (Matt. 7:13). I raise the caution signal in front of you. There may not be another junction on the track down which you are being rushed as fast as time can take you.
You are in darkness. “He that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth,” Jesus said (John 12:35). May the light of this message
OPER YOUR EYES,
that you may see your danger.
You are blinded, too. “The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ... should shine unto them” (2 Cor. 4:4). May its glorious light open your eyes; it will show you your awful danger. At the same time it will show you that there is a Saviour for you in the glory of God, who once died for the ungodly. That very light once shone on the chief of sinners, in the height of his dire enmity to Jesus. At one stroke it laid him prostrate at the mercy of his Victor, and revealed Jesus to him in that glory as the One whom he was persecuting, in the person of His people. He had reached the junction of his life. Which road should he now take? What should he do? Do? He was helpless. He would no longer resist the pricks of an accusing conscience. Can you?
DARE YOU?
He could do nothing but make an unconditional surrender to his Conqueror, own Him his Lord, and place himself completely at His disposal, His willing slave from that moment; to find “the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant,” as he himself afterward wrote, and testified that “this is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation (of yours, dear reader!), that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief” ({vi 29711-29712}1 Tim. 1:14,15). You are in danger, I wave the danger signal before you.
“TURN YE, TURN YE!
for why will ye die?” You are fast hurrying toward the brink of a precipice, at the foot of which is the lake of fire! That precipice may lie bore you in this very year you have now entered. Decide, therefore, now.
“A point of time, a moment’s space,
May land you in your heavenly place
Or shut you up in hell.”
W. G. B.