III. And now to conclude, will you in the last place, PICTURE YOURSELF AS DYING NOW. Antedate for a very little while your last day. Suppose it to have come. The sun has risen. “Throw up that window! let me see that sun for the last time!—this is my last day! ” The physicians whisper with one another. You catch some syllables, and you learn the sad news that the case is hopeless. Much has been done for you, but skill has its limit. “He may survive,” says the physician, “perhaps another twelve hours, but I hardly expect it will be so long as that. You had better gather his friends together to see him. Telegraph for the daughter; let her come up and see her father’s face for the last time in the world.” Yes, and now I begin to feel that the hour is coming. They are gathering round my bed. “Farewell! to you all, a last farewell! A father bids you follow him upwards to the skies. ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth.’ My hope stands fast and firm in Christ Jesus! Farewell! Farewell! I commend you to him who is the Father of the fatherless and the husband of the widow.” But the hour draws nearer still. And now the lips refuse to speak. We have a something to communicate—a last word to a wife. We mutter through our closed teeth, but no audible sounds are heard, no words that can be interpreted. We breathe heavily. They stay us up in the bed with pillows. And now we begin to understand that expression of the hymn, “The cracking of the eyestrings.” Now, we cannot see. Strange to say, we have eyes still, but we cannot see. If we want anything we must feel about us for it; but, no, we cannot lift our hands. They begin to hang down. We can still hear, and we hear the whisper the question, “Is he dead?” One of them says, ” I think there is still a little breath.” They come very near and try to hear us breathing. That can hardly be heard. What must our sensations be in that solemn moment! There is a hush now in the room. The watch alone is heard ticking, as the last sands drop from the hour glass. And now, the last moment is come. My soul is severed from my body. And where am I now—a naked, disembodied spirit? My soul, if thy hope be sound and real, thou art now where thou hast longed to be; thou art in the presence of thy Savior and thy God. Thou art now brother to the angels. Thou standest in the mid-blaze of the splendor of divinity. Thou seest Him, whom having not seen, thou hast loved; in whom believing, thou hast rejoiced with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
Ah, but there is another picture, the reverse of this, I cannot attempt to draw it, I will give you but the rough outline of it—a crayon sketch without the filling up. Yes, you are dying; and bad as you have been, you have some that love you, and they gather round you. You cannot speak to them. Alas! you tell them more than if you could speak, for they see in your face that clammy sweat, those staring eyes. They see tokens that you have a vision of a something which would not bear to be revealed. You try to be composed; you quiet yourself. The doctor assists you to be damned easily: he drugs you, helps to send you to sleep. And now you feel that you are expiring. Your soul is filled with terror. Black horrors and thick darkness gather round you. Your eyestrings break. Your flesh and your heart fail. But there is no kind angel to whisper, “Peace, be still.” No convoy of cherubim to bear your soul away straight to yonder worlds of joy. You feel that the dart of death is a poisoned dart, that it has injected hell into your veins; that you have begun to feel the wrath of God before you enter upon the state where you shall feel it to the full. Ah, I will not describe what has happened. As your minister it may be, I shall have to come up and see you in your last extremity, and I shall have to say to the mother, to the children, to your brothers and to your sisters, “Well, well, we must leave this in the hands of a Covenant God.” I must speak as gently as I can, but I shall go away with the reflection: “O that he had been wise, that he had understood this, that he had considered his latter end.” My heart, as I go down the stairs, shall ask me this question, “Was I faithful to this man? did I tell him honestly the way to heaven? if he is lost, will his blood be required at my hands?” I know that with regard to some of you the answer of my conscience will be, “I have preached as well as I possibly could the Word of God, not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but with a desire to be simple and to come home to the heart. I must leave the matter there. If they are lost, oh, horror of horrors! but I am clear of their blood.” Ah, my hearers, I hope it will not be so with you, but that each one of you, dying, may have a hope; and rising again may possess immortality, and ascend to the throne of my Father and of your Father, to my God and to your God.
And, now, if there is any impression upon your minds, any serious thought, let me send you away with this one sentence. The way of salvation is plain: “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damped.” Believe—that is, trust—trust the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved. My God the Holy Spirit enable you to trust him now, for with some of you—and mark this last sentence—with some of you it is NOW or NEVER.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
