Spurgeon: December PM
* 12/30/PM
"Knowest thou not that it will be bitterness in the latter end?"
--2 Samuel 2:26
If, O my reader! thou art merely a professor, and not a
possessor of the faith that is in Christ Jesus, the following
lines are a true ketch of thine end.
You are a respectable attendant at a place of worship; you go
because others go, not because your heart is right with God.
This is your beginning. I will suppose that for the next twenty
or thirty years you will be spared to go on as you do now,
professing religion by an outward attendance upon the means of
grace, but having no heart in the matter. Tread softly, for I
must show you the deathbed of such a one as yourself. Let us
gaze upon him gently. A clammy sweat is on his brow, and he
wakes up crying, "O God, it is hard to die. Did you send for my
minister?" "Yes, he is coming." The minister comes. "Sir, I fear
that I am dying!" "Have you any hope?" "I cannot say that I
have. I fear to stand before my God; oh! pray for me." The
prayer is offered for him with sincere earnestness, and the way
of salvation is for the ten-thousandth time put before him, but
before he has grasped the rope, I see him sink. I may put my
finger upon those cold eyelids, for they will never see anything
here again. But where is the man, and where are the man's true
eyes? It is written, "In hell he lifted up his eyes, being in
torment." Ah! why did he not lift up his eyes before? Because he
was so accustomed to hear the gospel that his soul slept under
it. Alas! if you should lift up your eyes there, how bitter will
be your wailings. Let the Saviour's own words reveal the woe: "Father Abraham, send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his
finger in water, and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this
flame." There is a frightful meaning in those words. May you
never have to spell it out by the red light of Jehovah's wrath!