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Morning and Evening

December 30, Evening

C. H. Spurgeon · Modern retelling

"Knowest thou not that it will be bitterness in the latter end?" — 2 Samuel 2:26 · KJV

If, O my reader, you are merely a professor, and not a possessor, of the faith that is in Christ Jesus, the following lines are a true sketch of your end. You are a respectable attender at a place of worship; you go because others go, not because your heart is right with God. This is your beginning. Suppose that for the next twenty or thirty years you are spared to go on as you do now, professing religion by an outward attendance on the means of grace, but with no heart in the matter. Tread softly, for I must show you the deathbed of such a one as yourself. Let us gaze on him gently. A clammy sweat is on his brow, and he wakes crying, "O God, it is hard to die. Did you send for my minister?" "Yes, he is coming." The minister comes. "Sir, I fear 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, set before him; but before he has grasped the rope, I see him sink. I may put my finger on 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 wailing! Let the Savior'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 Yahweh's wrath!