The Wreck and the Island

 •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 6
 
MAN in himself is born to die. He comes forth in bloom and freshness like a flower, to droop and wither away under the very influences which at first he successfully resists.
Man in his history is like a ship at sea, at first riding triumphantly over the waters in which he at last (be the voyage long or short) sinks and disappears! "Death hath passed on all men, for all have sinned." (Rom. 5:1212Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (Romans 5:12).) "It is appointed unto men once to die" (Heb. 9:2727And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: (Hebrews 9:27)), and however brightly or usefully man may pursue his course here, mastering the power under which eventually he will succumb; yet the time comes, when he must bow to the power of death. Man in his brightest day is but the ship in trim, with all her sails set; but it must become a wreck sooner or later; and the greater or grander the ship, the greater the wreck. The end of man must be wreck, for he is a sinner, and death is the wages of sin. Death is the judgment on man.
God so loved the world, that He sent His Son, who was not a man until He came here. He enters on this scene, born of woman, in order to bear the judgment resting on man. He went under the sea of death and judgment,-the very sea in which man is sinking, and rising out of it in the power of His own life, He is now the Island, for every one who believes in Him to land on. Believing in Him I leave the wreck, or the ship which is doomed to be a wreck, for-the Island, and then, in a new region, I enjoy peace, and receive life in the Holy Ghost from the Lord Jesus Christ. If you do not believe in the Island, you continue on the wreck; but if you do-if you believe in Christ, who has risen out of death and judgment-you will abandon the man who is under judgment, and, like the thief on the cross (Luke 23:4141And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. (Luke 23:41)), you will say, and I indeed justly (I, the man-the wreck), I receive in condemnation the due reward.... but-this man (Christ) hath done nothing amiss. I leave the wreck for the Island.
"This man" is the one for me for evermore, my life and eternal portion. J. B. S.
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