A young couple drove their sport-utility vehicle (SUV) up the winding road to Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic National Park for a day of snow skiing. The night before several inches of snow had fallen in the mountains, but a road crew had worked hard in the early morning hours to clear the route to the ski run.
At an elevation of a few thousand feet they drove through a long, dimly lit tunnel that had been drilled through the solid rock of the mountain. After exiting the tunnel, the road had a dip and a bend in it. They were driving along when the unthinkable took place. The SUV hit a patch of ice and began sliding toward the edge of the steep mountain. The driver stepped on the anti-lock brakes and turned the steering wheel hard to one side, but nothing he tried was able to stop the vehicle’s slide on the ice. They watched wide-eyed with horror as the distance, foot by foot, disappeared between them and the edge of the road. The car hit the low bank of snow on the narrow shoulder of the road. With a frightening lurch the front wheels slid into the space over the edge of the mountain, and the chassis landed with a thud and then scraped to a rest on the shoulder of the road. The vehicle came to a halt, part on the road and part suspended in space over the mountainside.
Thoughts flashed through the minds of the two people in the car of unfastening their seatbelts and leaping clear, but when the car slipped forward a little, such thoughts were quickly forgotten. They were too scared to move. The slightest movement might upset the delicate balance and send them careening down the mountain. With death staring them in the face, the pair was in a desperate situation.
You, too, if you have not been saved from your sins, are in a situation every bit as desperate as theirs. Death, “the king of terrors,” is certainly lurking somewhere in your future. Life, at best, is very brief, while eternity after death is forever. If you don’t know the Lord Jesus as your Savior, no matter how comfortable your situation in life is, you are tottering on the brink of disaster!
God, whose unalterable nature is holy, just and good, must hold every person accountable for the sins they have committed. “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Heb. 9:2727And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: (Hebrews 9:27)). He will not trivialize it. He will not excuse it as “normal” or “natural.” He utterly abhors sin.
His wrath hangs over every person who refuses to turn away from their sin and to believe on the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. If they die without that all-important change of heart and mind toward the Lord Jesus, they will suffer God’s wrath forever. “These shall go away into everlasting punishment” (Matt. 25:4646And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal. (Matthew 25:46)) is a plain statement the Lord Jesus made in reference to those who leave this world without ever coming to repentance toward God. Repentance is a wholehearted change; it is a turning away from the sin we once loved, and a turning to God whose love and grace we had once spurned.
God’s desire is for all souls to come to Him and to receive the salvation He freely offers. He is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” The good news of the gospel presents what Christ has done so that men may not have to face Him in the judgment. It tells of a wonderful Savior who passed through the unfathomable suffering of Calvary’s cross so that sinners might be saved.
For six long hours the Lord Jesus was nailed to the cross. In the first three hours He suffered cruelly at the hands of men. During the second half of that time, the sun refused to give its light. God’s wrath in an overpowering flood fell on His beloved Son.
You, who are in danger of passing out of this world and into a lost eternity, will you not stop and consider what Christ has done to save your soul? Does His suffering on the cross mean nothing to you? Will God’s warnings about the awfulness of sin and eternal punishment fall on deaf ears in your case? Tottering on the brink, must you fall into the depths of hell because of your own stubbornness and hardheartedness?
Some people think that God couldn’t make souls suffer for all eternity in a place called hell. In a certain sense they are right. God isn’t making people go to hell; people are making themselves go to that awful place by their rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ and His offer of salvation. Souls who reject Christ will suffer for all eternity, and they will have only themselves to blame.
There is no hope for sinners who do not accept the Savior. There is no way to escape hell and enter into heaven without the Lord Jesus Christ. You may have all kinds of success while on earth. You may have the job of your dreams, a family that your neighbors envy, and achieve wealth and fame, but without Christ you will be lost forever. You are tottering on the brink of a lost eternity. The time to receive Christ is NOW! “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)).
The SUV hung on the cliff for a few seconds. Then it slipped forward over the edge. Falling, it rolled end-over-end, smashing against rocks and trees. The glass windows shattered into thousands of little pieces, flying by their faces. The roof and sides of the vehicle were bashed over and over again; the occupants would have been thrown from the vehicle and crushed if it were not for their seatbelts. The car tumbled nearly 450 feet down the mountain before the roof of the car got wedged between two big trees. The couple remained trapped in the car for nearly two hours on a mountainside too steep to climb without ropes before a passerby noticed the skid marks on the side of the road and stopped to investigate.
At first he could not see the car, so he called out: “Is anyone down there?”
“We need help!” came back the barely audible reply from below.
Quickly this man called the park authorities on his cell phone, and they promptly sent out a search and rescue team. Using ropes, they lowered themselves to the wreck and managed to bring the couple back up to the road. Miraculously, neither of them suffered worse than minor cuts and bruises. A week later the mangled car was hauled off the mountainside by a helicopter normally used in logging operations.
The couple was fortunate indeed to survive the fall down the mountain. But no one—no one—will ever escape the horrors of hell if they die without faith in the Savior. Won’t you receive Him as your Savior so that eternal life might be yours?