We four young Christians were spending a few days on the West Coast and arranged to go one day to an island for the purpose of giving out gospel tracts and preaching the gospel in the open air. We happened to be wearing peaked caps, something like a naval officer’s, and with briefcases and papers we arrived on the island looking decidedly official.
We knocked at a door, but could get no answer. At the next door the same thing happened, and the next, and the next. On first arriving we had seen people here and there and doors open, but now every door was closed and no sign of a living person to be seen. What did it mean?
Giving up trying to get an answer to our knocking, we decided to try what effect a hymn would have. We began to sing:
“The Lord’s our Rock, in Him we hide;
A shelter in the time of storm!
Secure whatever ill betide;
A shelter in the time of storm!
“Oh, Jesus is a Rock in a weary land!
A weary land, a weary land;
Oh, Jesus is a Rock in a weary land,
A shelter in the time of storm!”
The effect of our singing was magical. Doors were flung open; the people came out with smiles and listened appreciatively to the singing.
Explanations followed. The hour of our visit was unusual: it was morning and midweek. The island, whose only industry had been mining, had recently changed hands. The new owner demanded the payment of rent from the inhabitants. Their cottages had been built by their ancestors, and they had lived rent-free from generation to generation. They had determined to resist this innovation as unjust.
The owner had given them six weeks’ notice, and this notice expired on the very day our party landed on the island. Naturally, they thought that we must be the eviction officers.
When they discovered our object was not to turn them out of their earthly homes, but to invite them to a heavenly one, they welcomed us and our message and we had a very happy day with them.
Do you know that you, like those islanders, are under notice to move? The eviction officer is death. Closed doors and refusing to answer a knock might work for the cottagers, but you cannot evade your destiny. Are you ready for it?
Though you are under notice to go, here is an invitation for you to come. Go, you must; come, you may! You have no option as to the eviction, but this only emphasizes the urgency of the invitation. Refusing the invitation means that you are in danger of spending eternity in the lake of fire. Accepting the invitation and trusting the Saviour as your own assures you of an eternal home in the Father’s house. Death then could only come, not as an eviction officer, but as the messenger of God, your Father, summoning you to an eternity with Himself in heaven.
“Repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:2121Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. (Acts 20:21)) are the two hinges on which the door of salvation swings open. Accept the Lord Jesus as your own Saviour. Decide now, and do not wait till the great eviction officer, Death, flings you—a poor, lost, doomed sinner—into an eternity of despair.