A TRAIN stopped at one of the small stations between Edinburgh and Leith. We had just taken our seat, and the train was about to start again, when three young ladies came rushing into the station and got into the same compartment. They were just in time. A few seconds more, and they would have been too late.
After they had recovered breath a little, they began to chat about having so nearly missed the train. They were talking in a very frivolous manner, and yet the words of one of them struck me forcibly. They were these: “We were taking it so easy, too, we never thought it was so near the time.”
I could not help thinking that that will be the substance of the wail of many a soul in a never-ending hell. They never meant to be there. They meant to be saved some day; but they took it easy. They never thought it was so near the time, till God cut them off in their sins, when they woke up, to find that they were forever too late. What a wail will burst from their lips when they first realize that they have trifled away so many opportunities of having salvation, and now their last chance is gone forever.
Dear reader, in love we say to you, Be warned. You are not too late yet, but you will soon be. It is very near the time when the last call of mercy will sound in your ears. If these ladies had missed their train it would have inconvenienced them a little, and no doubt they would have been disappointed, although in half an hour they would have got another; but if you wait until the master of the house has risen up and shut to the door, there will be no after-train to Glory for you; you will be forever too late for God’s salvation.
Seeing, then, that you run such a great risk in waiting, we would advise you, dear unsaved reader, to have the question of your soul’s eternal salvation settled now. You may only be like these ladies, “just in time.” God has said, “Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:22(For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.) (2 Corinthians 6:2)).
Why reject or neglect the Saviour any longer? He is worthy of your trust. Surely it is not too much that you, a sinner on the road to an eternal hell, should bow before God and own that you are a sinner. He knows it already better than you do, but He wants you to take your true place before Him. He will do all the rest. He will save you; for “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:1515This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. (1 Timothy 1:15)). He will cleanse you, for “the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:77But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. (1 John 1:7)). He will keep you as you pass through this scene, where, if you are out-and-out for the Lord, everything will certainly be against you, for the testimony of the Holy Ghost in 1 Samuel 2:99He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness; for by strength shall no man prevail. (1 Samuel 2:9) is, “He will keep the feet of His saints”; and, better even than being kept here by Him, in a little while, we know not how soon, it may be even as you read this, “the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:16,1716For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:16‑17)).
If you wish to share the blessedness of that moment, dear reader,
“You had better come to Jesus,
And that just now.”
A. C.