16/08/2016
Hebrews 9:27 "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment."
You and I are dying creatures. We have seen many of our friends and relatives laid in the grave; many as young as ourselves, and apparently as likely to live. Some we have seen carried off by long and lingering diseases, and some cut down suddenly without warning. God only knows when we are to follow them into the eternal world. "I know not the day of my death" (Gen. 27:2). "My times are in thy hand" (Ps. 31:15). It may be tonight. We are certain it can be at no great distance; but we know not how near. Now if these things are true, what madness it is to put off the necessary work of repentance to a future day! We are not certain of seeing tomorrow; and as repentance is "the gift of God," if we neglect to ask for it today, and refuse to hear His warning voice, He may say to us, "Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord" (Proverbs 1:24-29). After death comes the judgment. We must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, to give account of the things done in the body, whether they be good or bad (2 Cor. 5:10). Who must appear there? All, young and old, rich and poor, without distinction or exception. You and I must meet there. But for what purpose? To give an account of what? Of all our secret thoughts, known only to ourselves; of all our secret actions, which no eye saw but the all-seeing eye of the omniscient Judge. He keeps a book of remembrance in which every evil thought, word and work is registered; every one of which will be then brought forth to our eternal confusion, unless they are washed away in the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. We read (in Rev. 6:16) that some, in that day, will call to the rocks and the mountains, "Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb." God grant it may not be your case, or mine. But in order to avoid this dreadful state, we must "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon" (Isaiah 55:6,7).
This is the day of grace. But it will be too late to seek for mercy when the day of judgment comes. If you die without an interest in Christ, it had been good for you if you had never been born (Mark 14:21); for it would be better to have had no existence at all, than have a miserable existence in hell forever. This must be the portion of every unpardoned, unconverted sinner. God hath said it, who cannot lie.
