“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!

On this day...

• Lamentations 2 - 2023
• Moody's Anecdotes and Illustrations: Related in his Revival Work - 2011
• How to Live a Holy Life - 2011
• Divine Songs and Meditacions - 2011
• Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - 2011
• Salted With Fire - 2011
• The mastery of hardships - 2011
• Rising every time we fall - 2011
• Inability to distinguish differences in doctrine - 2011
• Fragment 7Q5 - 2011