BALANCE these two sentences! They are brief, significant, monosyllabic. The first refers to the present, the second is historic future.
Today there is room, tomorrow the door will be shut. The one is grace, the other judgment.
Grace speaks of welcome to the sinner; it announces an open door and abundant opportunity. That is the mark of the present moment. It is God’s day of grace, and grace provides everything. It makes no demand; it gives freely. Its terms are unspeakably suitable to such as we are. When a man has learned, what everyone shall know one day, that he is guilty and lost, and wholly unable to save himself, then it is that grace meets and suits and blesses him.
To such the proffer of room and welcome is infinitely sweet. The needy soul gladly places the foot of faith on such a fact, and boldly claims the gracious blessing. “There is room” for such, and thankfully do they avail themselves of it. Yet there is room. Not always. Only now. The “yet” flies quickly. Thank God, as I write and my reader reads, it is still true. May he learn its deep meaning. May the profound significance of the “yet” be graven on his mind, and that for him, be his sins what they may and are, “there is room.” Today, but not tomorrow! When the morrow shall dawn, then the door shall be shut. It shall be shut on the foolish; shut on the unready; shut quickly, firmly, and forever! A shut door and a hopeless doom go together.
Be not deceived on this point. That door will open no more on those against whom it is closed. The idea of a hope that another opportunity will be given is one of Satan’s clever devices. He that is unjust shall be unjust still! There is no reversal. The sentence cannot be revoked. “The door was shut.”
Take thought, dear reader, I do beg of you, lest you mistake the meaning of these plain but God-given words. Your eternity is at stake!
There is room yet, but only yet. And then the door shall be shut.
J. W. S.