AN aged Christian was dying. By her bedside stood one very dear to her. She was deeply concerned about his precious soul. She knew the world was his snare, so she pleaded, "Give up the world! What is the world worth when you come to die?”
Whether he heeded the message or not, I do not know; but little more than a year rolled away ere he had to leave the world. No lingering illness, no death-bed. One moment sitting on his chair reading, almost the next in eternity. On his tombstone is written, "Died suddenly." What was the world worth when death claimed him? What will the world be worth when death claims you? Nearly everybody has a little world of his own. I do not know in what particular circle your world is; but whatever it is you must leave it.
Let us visit four people who are leaving their little world. One of them lived only a few miles from the aged Christian of whom we have spoken.
The first one is a woman who had lived for the world—death had come to rob her of her all.
A servant of Christ went to visit her. The first words which fell on his ears were, "Lost, lost!" In vain he poured into her ear the good news of Jesus, the Savior of the lost.
With a wild piercing cry, wrung from her terrified breast and alarmed conscience, she passed into eternity. Her last words were, "Tell me, oh tell me! am I lost? Am I lost?" What was the world worth when she came to die?
Another woman is dying. Listen to what she is saying, "The world is nothing, nothing," and she waved her hand as though to put every thought of it away from her. The advent of the King of Terrors had stripped it of all its false glare and glitter, she saw it in its true character, estimated it at its right worth— "Nothing, NOTHING.”
Have you?
In the light of an endless eternity, and in the certainty that you are in a world you must leave, let me ask you to ponder my Lord's question; "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”
We will now enter the sumptuous apartment of a man whose life has been spent in amassing wealth.
“Doctor," said he, "I will give you half of my hardly earned fortune if you can prolong my life!”
“Impossible. I could not do so if you gave me the whole.”
The rich man died and was buried, and men applauded the skill and perseverance with which he had risen from poverty to affluence, forgetting that "when the tablet of human fame comes to be reviewed for God's approbation what a revolution there will be," for "that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God." But tell me what was his golden world worth when he came to die. He brought nothing into the world. He took nothing out. He went into the next world as poor as the poorest beggar.
Come with me to another death-bed. It is that of a man who estimated the world at its right worth before he came to die. He had turned to the Savior as a poor lost sinner, and had found in Christ enough for time and eternity. What is his dying testimony? "One grain of faith in Christ is worth a mountain of gold.”
We plead with you to follow his example. Faith in Christ will bring you pardon, peace, life everlasting and mansions in glory. It will give you what the world can never deprive you of. Even death itself will be but a door out of this world into a better. As you leave this world behind, a new and eternal world will burst on your enraptured vision. Joys unfading, pleasures unending, praises unceasing, wealth beyond tongue or pen to picture will be yours, for, joint-heir with Christ, you shall share all that scene of displayed glory on earth, and the wealth of affection in His Father's house on high.
Again we urge, "Give up the world," lest death finds you with the world's tendrils so closely entwined in your very being that you cannot give it up if you would. What solace will the gaming table, the dancing saloon, the theater, or the house of the strange woman afford you as the beatings of your pulse get weaker, and the cold death sweat, with its clammy dampness, bedews your brow, and the doctor says, "I can do no more, he cannot live through the night"?
What an awful awakening it was to the rich man in Luke 16! One moment in hell sufficed to open his eyes to the worthlessness of the world he had left, and the horrors of the place he had reached. He no longer doubted an eternity of torment, or rested in the vain imaginings of a larger hope. Listen to Heaven's declaration. "Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed; so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.”
What a pathetic message he sent to his five brothers! It may be briefly summed up in four words: Do not come here. The only message sent from hell is, Warn my relatives not to come here.
Be warned. Your little world will soon be gone. An eternal world begun. Your doom everlastingly fixed.
“There are no pardons in the tomb.”
What is the world worth when you come to die? H. N.