Scripture Basis: Luke
16:27-28. Eternity bound soul, on your hurried march to the
grave, hear me! As you are, so I was. As I am, you will be.
Yesterday, under the sun, I planned, I worked, I hoped. All was
vanity. (Eccles. 1:2). I ate, drank, and was merry. (Luke
12:19). I sought pleasures. I gratified passion. I set my heart
on riches; ambition spurred me on. This also was vanity. My
place under the sun another occupies. What I gathered another
scatters. My love, my hate, my mirth, my desires, my interests
have all perished. My portion in anything under the sun has gone
forever. (Eccles. 9:6). How foolish I was and ignorant, (Ps.
73:22). I was a mad man. The sinner is spiritually dead and
morally insane. I lived as if eternity would never arrive and
time would never end. I traveled the road to hell. Too soon I
arrived. I lived as a fool, and I died as a fool. (II Sam.
3:33). I labored and planned only for time. I built bird's
nests. I spurned eternal life for worldly folly. How the memory
of it mocks me now! Death cured me, but too late. You have
guessed it, I am a lost soul. I wasted salvation's day. (II Cor.
6:2). I have missed it. (Heb. 2:3). Probation is past. (Rev.
22:11). My destiny is unalterably fixed. I must reap the sad
fate of my choice. (Gal. 6:7). Eternal remorse and eternal fire
are my portion. (Mark 9:44). My sun of hope has set forever.
I was too busy to
prepare for death, but I was not too busy to die. Death, the
inevitable, certainly came. (Heb. 9:27). He came too soon. Had I
only been prepared. (Amos 4:12). The scales dropped from my
eyes. Indifference vanished forever. (Mark 8:36). Oh for more
time! Too late, I thought of my poor, lost soul. (Luke 12:20).
Oh! could the living know and feel what the dead know and feel,
none would come to this dread place. Unprepared, unwilling to
die, I could not hold the dread monster off. I could not resist
his icy breath. Pitilessly and irresistibly he struck with his
dart. Now I know the world is the Devil's vanity fair where he
barters worthless baubles for the souls of men; where Esau sold
his birthright for a mess of pottage; and Judas sold his Lord
for 30 pieces of silver. Oh! for what trifles men damn their
priceless souls. With siren voices, the world, the flesh and the
Devil, bid for your soul. It will give you pleasure, riches,
whatever you desire; all in exchange for your soul.
Now I know the Devil
blinded my spiritual vision with "world dust." (II Cor.
4 :3-4). Too late, I opened my eyes in hell. What a revelator
death is! Hell is truth seen too late. Heaven is in the open
sight of hell. (Luke 16:23). Hell is the vision of a lost
Christ, a lost heaven, and a lost soul. Now I know hell is more
than a jest and a byword; but a real world. Oh, if the grave
were only the end. Alas, it is but the beginning. My mortal body
died. My immortal soul lives on. My identity survives. I think;
I feel; I remember. (Luke 16:25). I am in hell and in torment.
(Luke 16:23). My eternal wail has begun. Had I only heeded God's
Word. (Luke 16:31). Now I know there is heaven to gain, a hell
to shun, and a never dying soul to save. My former life on earth
is a dream. Alas! I will never wake from this. Hell is an
eternal nightmare. I must spend eternity a lost soul. Alas! it
will never be spent. Eternity has no end, else it would not be
eternity. Hell prays, but never an answer. The mercy we spurned
has fled forever. The conviction for sin we stifled has turned
into the never dying worm of endless remorse. Nevermore an offer
of redeeming grace. Saddest of all, what might have been, now
never can be.
I was a worldling. I
loved the world. (I John 2:15). Foolishly I yielded to its lure.
I preferred earthly things to heavenly. My heart was in the
world and God was not in my thoughts. Evil movies, playing
cards, wine, and the dance floor are open doors to hell. Worldly
dissipation crowded out love for God. I wanted a good time. Away
with scruples. Away with restraint. Warning and rebuke fell on
deaf ears. I did not want to be awakened from my fool's
paradise. "Where's the harm? Let me go on and enjoy
myself," was the foolish cry of my poor, deceived soul.
(Luke 12:19). I sealed my own doom, (Gal. 6:7). I made my bed in
hell. I now reap what I sowed. (Rom. 6:23). My good times are
gone forever. (Luke 16:25). The light has gone out. The broad
way (worldliness) has an end. Its end is death. (Matt. 7:13).
Worldliness damned my soul. You can't go to heaven from the
haunts of sin. Friendship of the world is enmity with God,
(James 4:4). I loved pleasure more than God. (II Tim. 3:4).
I was no infidel. I
joined a worldly church on profession of faith, but I never
experienced salvation. No change was wrought in my heart or
life. My worldliness continued unchecked. The church I joined
was a popular church, liberal in its views and walked hand in
hand with the world. Our preacher was a fine mixer. Nothing
spiritual or sanctimonious ever disturbed or embarrassed us,
worldly as we were. He left us contented in our sins and
undisturbed in our worldliness. Worldly churches and worldly
church members delight the Devil. They give respectability to
institutions that are damning souls. Hell laughs at the sight.
What church I joined,
matters not. I now know that no church saves, only personal
faith in Jesus. (Acts 4:12). One can go religiously to
hell,.(Prov. 16:25). Church membership is not a passport to
heaven. The true Church of which Christ is the head, Col. 1:18,
is spiritual, and is composed of those whose names are written
in heaven. Only born again persons possess eternal life.
Professing religion without experiencing salvation is a snare
and a delusion. I never expected to be lost. I was moral
according to my standards; I thought I was too good to be
damned. Now I know my morality was only a form of
selfrighteousness, in which I took secret pride. (Luke 18:11).
How blind I was. Our worldly preachers could not help us. Sin
was never denounced. (Isa. 58:1). Holiness was despised and
ignored. (I Thess. 4:7). They never taught us the Bible teaching
on holiness,.(I Pet. 1:16; Heb. 12:14). They were not sent of
God. (Jer. 23:21). Instead of the bread of life, they gave us
stones of formality. We never got blessed in our souls. It was
human religion only and nothing Divine. We paid them well to
damn our souls. (II Pet. 2:3). They baptized us, gave us
communion, married, and buried us. They gave us beautiful
services, aesthetic sermons, but they never told us of the joy
of sins forgiven, of the Spirit's witness, and of the peace of
God. How could they? The husbandman must be first partaker of
the fruits. (II Tim. 2:6). A worldly preacher is a tool of the
Devil. A worldly church is a sleeper to hell. How blind I was!
Jesus was right. If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall
into the ditch. (Matt. 15:14).
Though we never knew
what it meant to be saved, those worldly preachers never
addressed us as lost. They never preached us under conviction
for sin. We never humbled ourselves in penitence before God,
(Luke 13:3), crying, "God be merciful to me a sinner."
(Luke 18:13). Forms and ceremonies we knew, but we were
strangers to grace. We had no testimony of sins forgiven, no
witness of the Spirit to any work of grace wrought in our
hearts. (Rom. 8:16). My religion was Christless. I never found
Jesus; I never experienced the joy of salvation. Now I know that
to die in sin is to be lost. (John 8:21). Dying does not change
character. To die right, live right. Dying grace is living
grace. The gospel is not security in sin, but God's cure for
sin. My hope was the hope of a hypocrite, that a sinning
religion will take one to heaven; and it perished. (Job 8:13).
How strange so many call Jesus, "Lord, Lord," but do
not obey Him. (Luke 6:46). They build on sand, and their house
will fall. (Matt. 7:24-27). As He disowned me, so will He disown
all unholy professors. (Matt. 7:22-23). What sin is damning your
soul? "The wages of sin is death."
To whomever may read:
destiny awaits you. There is but a step between you and death.
Prepare to meet thy God. (Amos 4:12). Where will you spend
eternity? Tomorrow may be too late. (II Cor. 6:2). God's Word
sets before you life or death, heaven or hell, Christ or the
world, holiness or sin. Which will it be? As for me, the harvest
is past, the summer is ended. (Jer. 8:20). My soul is lost. I
have missed my greatest opportunity. I am suffering my greatest
loss. Nevermore will there be rest or peace for me, only weeping
and gnashing of teeth. (Matt. 13: 42). There is a way to keep
out of hell, but once there, there is no way out. Today grace
pleads, "Turn ye, why will ye die?" God wills it not.
(I Pet. 3:9). Fly in repentance to the cross and to Him who hung
thereon. All other roads lead to hell. -A. A. Ronshausen
