WHAT a very important and momentous question, my reader! Eternal issues hang upon it. Every other question sinks into utter insignificance in comparison to it. Have you ever sat quietly down for five minutes alone and given it your earnest consideration? “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
Mark, it is your soul the Lord speaks about. You may be far more interested in what ministers to the comfort of your body, and heedlessly overlooking your soul’s eternal well-being.
How many there are in an avaricious age like the present who, forgetting their soul’s interest, and in their eager pursuit to grasp the world, are like the stewardess on board the “Central America.” It is said that when the gallant ship caught fire, and was sinking, she ran to the cabin passengers and collected all the gold she could. She then tied it to her apron round her waist. A boat was ready to start. In her eagerness to be saved she sprang from the deck, missed her aim, and shot head first into the briny sea. Like a cannon ball the weight of her ill-gotten gain dragged her down as effectually as a millstone would have done.
Little matter if your body were devoured by wild beasts, eaten by sharks, or burned to ashes in the flames if you had not a deathless soul! Your soul shall live forever, and your existence shall run parallel with God’s existence.
Did it ever strike you that the same word which is used to describe the eternal existence of God is used to describe the eternal duration of the punishment of the damned?
In Revelation 10 the Prophet of Patmos tells us of an angel he saw in vision, who “aware by him (God) which liveth forever and ever” (ages of ages). In the same book, chapter 14, the same writer tells us when speaking of the final doom of the wicked, “The smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever” (ages of ages).
Think, oh! think of the ages of ages. Think of your immortal existence. Think that your existence forever must be either in bliss or anguish. No power in heaven, earth, or hell will stop the great wheels of eternity as they roll their courses throughout the ages. If you die impenitent and meet God in your sins, all the anguish of your tormented soul will not make judgment relax its awful grasp, or move God’s heart to have mercy upon you, or put a stop to your wearied existence. Think of desiring to die and death fleeing from you. As sure as God’s unimpeachable record is true, the truth of all I have brought before you you will surely prove if you do not in time “flee from the wrath to come.”
Paul admittedly had one of the mightiest intellects that ever man possessed; one of the biggest and tenderest souls that ever throbbed within a human bosom; one of the strongest wills that ever governed a mortal man. He certainly was no fool, nor yet was he a knave.
The profundity of his wisdom in dealing with and unravelling the most difficult problems of human destiny is admitted even by his enemies.
To prove the truth of what he believed and taught he suffered all kinds of insults, contumely, scourges, and prison bonds, and even death itself. From his sudden and Marvelous conversion until the moment he was led from Caesar’s judgment bar to the scaffold for the truth he preached, his life of self-sacrifice was all of a piece.
Nothing but the deepest earnestness and the greatest sincerity characterized him. Surely such a man is worthy to be listened to. He says, “Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.”
Another has graphically and forcibly said: “I need not stand here to argue it. There is something within you that is ever telling you, ‘I am immortal: stars shall die but I am immortal.’ You feel your existence on earth is only a part of your being. The slab on the tomb is only the milestone on which we read of infinite distance yet to be traveled.
“The world itself will grow old and die. The stars will burn down in their sockets and expire. The sun, like a spark struck from an anvil, will flash and go out. The winds will utter their last whisper, and ocean heave its last groan, but you and I shall live forever.”
Reader, allow me to put the question lovingly yet solemnly to you, Where shall you exist forever?
P. W.