The Time is Short

In a little while, there will be a great concourse of people in the streets. Methinks I hear someone enquiring, "What are all these people waiting for?" "Do you not know? He is to be buried to-day?" "And who is that?" "It is Spurgeon." "What! the man that preached at the Tabernacle?" "Yes; he is to be buried to-day." That will happen very soon; and when you see my coffin carried to the silent grave, I should like every one of you, whether converted or not, to be constrained to say, "He did earnestly urge us, in plain and simple language, not to put off the consideration of eternal things. He did entreat us to look to Christ. Now he is gone, our blood is not at his door if we perish." God grant that you may not have to bear the bitter reproach of your own conscience! But, as I feel that "the time is short," I will stir you up so long as I am in this Tabernacle; and I do pray the Lord to bless the word every time I preach it from this platform. Oh, that some souls may be saved, that Jesus Christ may be glorified, Satan defeated, and heaven filled with saved ones!

"'Tis not for man to trifle! Life is brief;

And sin is here.

Our age is but the falling of a leaf,

A dropping tear.

We have no time to sport away the hours;

All must be earnest in a world like ours.

Not many lives, but only one, have we,..

Frail, fleeting man:

How sacred should that one life ever be,..

That narrow span!

Day after day filled up with blessed toil,

Hour after hour still bringing in new spoil."

From The Time is Short by Charles Spurgeon.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

With the death yesterday of another sweet friend, I am reminded yet again of the fragility of life.  No doubt, the older I get the more I ponder on my own mortality and the fact that one day, death will come for me too.  


Genesis 3:19 - "For you are dust, And to dust you shall return."
      
Ecc 9:9 - Enjoy life with the woman whom you love all the days of your fleeting life which He has given to you under the sun...

and

Ecc 11:10 - So, remove grief and anger from your heart and put away pain from your body, because childhood and the prime of life are fleeting.

James 4:13-14 - Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit." Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.

I love this part of what Spurgeon said - "He did earnestly urge us, in plain and simple language, not to put off the consideration of eternal things. He did entreat us to look to Christ."  Oh, might the same be said of me!  For, in reality, is there anything more crucial? More urgent?  More pressing?  The answer, of course, a resounding, "no!"  


From the moment the Adam & Eve disobeyed God, mankind has been under His eternal wrath.  Every human being inherited a sinful nature from Adam, and every human being is deserving of eternal punishment (hell).  We have each one broken God’s commandments, His high and holy standards, and we cannot “do” anything, in and of ourselves, to ever attain to those standards, nor can we be saved from hell through our own “goodness.”  For the Bible says, “no one is good, no not one.”  But God, being rich in mercy, sent His Son, Jesus, to take upon Himself the wrath of God that was meant for us.  Christ died a bloody, tortuous death on the cross, taking the punishment for our sins so that we might be made righteous in Him.  In other words, Christ paid the sin debt that human beings could never, ever pay.  God calls each of us to repent and trust in Christ and His atoning work on the cross for salvation.  Repent and believe; this is the message of the gospel of Christ.   

May the Lord cause us all to examine ourselves, to ponder eternity and to seek the only One who is able to save.  "And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved." 


Yours in grace for the glory of God,