“He will.... gather His wheat into His garner, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
IN the recent terrible railway disaster in Paris, we are told that when the people in the train were warned of the danger they were in, and told to get out of the train, they laughed and made light of the whole matter. They refused to believe that there was any real danger, but thought they were the victims of a practical joke. They were incredulous when the stationmaster and guard asked them to alight from the train. The passengers thought they knew best, and declined to obey.
They stopped and demanded their money back. Some of them even threatened the guard and struck him, when he tried to persuade them to leave the train. The result was that many who might have been saved from the awful disaster perished.
We think this very foolish, but how many of us abuse those who try and teach us the way of life? How many of us refuse to listen to the Word that tells of salvation? Does it not seem absurd to you and I, dear reader, that any reasonable human beings could be so obstinate as to turn a deaf ear to the warning cry of “Fire!” and to refuse to leave the place without their halfpence? But oh, are we not, a great number of us, just as foolish? Do we not sacrifice our precious immortal souls for the trifling things the world can give us? When we are urged to forsake our sins and repent of them, for the time is short, and to flee from the wrath to come to the only true and living God, even our Saviour Jesus Christ, do not some of us laugh incredulously, preferring in our ignorant blindness to go on to certain death as these poor French travelers did, rather than turn to the Saviour for pardon and deliverance? while others say, “There is plenty of time, I don’t think there is any danger.”
Oh, reader, “why will ye die?” You will not be able to say in the end that you had never been warned. You will not be able to say, “Why did no one caution me?” You have been cautioned. You have been told to escape quickly while there is yet time, just as those foolish travelers were. Will you, like them, refuse to believe until it is too late for escape? They believed in the end. When they saw the flames and the smoke, then they were obliged to acknowledge that what they had been told was only too true, but then it was too late. Too late! How sad those words are!
Amid shrieks and groans and entreaties to be saved, all of which were of no avail, they were crushed, burnt, and suffocated.
Do we ever consider that when we refuse to accept God’s salvation we are grieving the Holy One, who is waiting to take us home to everlasting life and happiness; and while we are grieving Him, we are pleasing the evil one, whose whole efforts are directed towards ruining our souls, and dragging us away to the place of darkness and despair? Oh, let us pause to consider this ere we go further.
“The day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.”
Only those will be able to stand in that day who have accepted Him, and confessed Him here on earth, and trusted to His saving grace that they may be washed in His precious blood which He shed for them, and which alone can take away their sins, and blot them out of God’s sight. May you, dear reader, truly be able to say―
“Just as I am, without one plea
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidet me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come!”
E. S. A. S.