THE population of the world is approximately fifteen hundred millions, and it is calculated that about thirty-three millions die in the course of a year, ninety thousand each day, four thousand each hour, and one person every second of time. Death cares nothing who his victims are, or what they are doing when he comes for them. Whether they are well, or whether they are sick; whether rich, or whether poor; whether young, or whether old, all classes are taken, and no one knows in the morning if he will see the end of the day. Every day the newspapers contain a long list of those who had died the previous day. Every day funeral processions pass before our eyes, families are plunged in grief, and to everyone the warning is given: “Prepare to meet thy God” Amos 4:1212Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. (Amos 4:12).
But man is so constituted that what is daily occurring does not impress him; he accustoms himself to these warnings constantly transpiring, much as the traveler on a journey to the whistle of the locomotive, and although he may die at any moment, he lives really as though he was sure to live forever.
“I well remember,” said an old man one day, “that when I was a young boy a voice within me said to me:
‘My son, give Me thine heart’, ‘Now is the accepted time.’ But the devil whispered in my ear,
‘You can think of that later. Wait till youth has passed; take your pleasure now.’ My relatives and my companions said the same thing, so that I waited until I should become a man.
Then the same voice within me said:
‘Seek ye the Lord while He may be found.’ ‘Today is the day of salvation.’
‘What folly,’ replied the other; ‘attend to your business first; later, when you have made a position for yourself, you can attend to this.’ I saw indeed that everyone about me acted thus. I waited until I should have obtained mature age.
“I was soon there. Again something said to me:
‘Today, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.’
“‘Not yet,’ cried the other, you haven’t much time to work. Wait till you are old, and you will then have nothing else to do.” “I have waited. Today I am old. The spring, the summer, the autumn of life have passed. The winter is here and I am not saved.”
This confession recalls the history of a women who was in the habit of saying:
“I shall only need five minutes at the last to ask for mercy, and I am sure the Almighty will grant it.”
Although she thought she was sure, yet she never had the five minutes. One day her son rushed out of the house to find a minister.
“Come to my mother,” he cried. “Come quick, she is dying.”
The minister ran. When they reached the place they found the woman, with haggard looks, sitting on the bed. When he entered she looked fixedly at him and cried out:
“Ah, minister, I am lost! I am lost!” Then she fell back on the pillow. That was the end.
If God were to say to you, dear child, “This night thy soul shall be required of thee,” where would you go, —to heaven or hell,—to be with the Lord Jesus Christ or to be with the devil and his angels?
ML 04/27/1924