“It's the last turn she'll make,” said William to his friend, as they stood on the cliff and watched the life-boat, as she was bringing to the shore a part of the crew and passengers of a wrecked vessel. “It's her last turn, for the storm has so increased that ere they reach the wreck again, she will have gone to pieces.”
It is a sad sight to look upon a vessel helpless amid the rocks, and broken by the fury of the waves. It is still more sad to know that those foaming waters will be the winding-sheet of loved and loving ones, and that though we may pity, yet we cannot save them. But even these are trifling horrors compared with those that hang about a lost and shipwrecked world.
Six thousand years ago this world, misguided by a treacherous pilot, and misled by wrecker's baleful lights, left the true course of obedience and blessing, to sail upon the dark and treacherous billows of sin and unbelief. The voyage has been one of peril. God's curse has smitten where his blessing smiled; and rocks and shoals, and quicksands and dangers, have been thick on every hand. The storms of blood and crime, and tyranny and anarchy, the tempests of calamity, distress, and indignation, have beat upon this weary world, till it lies helpless and hard by the lee-shore of perdition. She has gained no peaceful port, for peace is not bestowed upon a world of sin. And every signal for a pilot has only brought to her some treacherous foe; and every effort to gain a harbor, has only left her further from the heavenly port.
The world is lost, ruined, wrecked, without God and without hope. And the storms give no tokens of abatement, nor are there signs of sunnier skies, or calmer waters. The world must go down—down amid the engulfing billows of destruction and perdition, down amid the dissolving fury of nature's final fires. And men who cling to it shall share its doom. Brave hearts, strong hands, wise heads, cannot avert the dire calamities that mark “the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.”
But yet, thank God, there is hope; hope for perishing man, even in this world that lieth in the wicked one, and that is reserved unto fire against the coming judgment day. For though the ruined vessel, with her costly freight, must sink, yet her perishing passengers may be rescued from the shattered wreck.
The launched life-boat of God's mercy is tossing amid the white-capped waves, the Captain of Salvation directs it in its course; it mounts the fiercest billows, and rocks lightly amid the hugest waves; it skims the waters like a sea-bird, and defies the fury of the storm. No burden can sink it, no shock can shatter it, no surge can whelm it, no rock can destroy it. Manned by a crew that know no fear, and dread no danger, it hangs about this ruined, sinking world, to take her passengers to land. In it there is room enough for all who will come. And to every passenger on board this fire-doomed world, the invitation goes out, “Come on board the life-boat and be saved.” Money cannot buy a passage, labor cannot earn one, tears cannot procure one, toils cannot deserve one, honors give no right to claim one; but you may come on board and welcome: the passage is free, without money and without price. Wealth did not induce the Captain of Salvation to peril all for you. Grace, not pay, was the motive, and thanks, not reward, must be the return.
And there is room enough for all; but you must leave your luggage all behind. The life-boat carries no freight! The miser's money, the worldling's wealth, the fop's fashions, the drunkard's jug, the sinner's lusts, the Pharisee's self-righteousness, the formalist's good works, the rafts you have been building, the spars you have clung to, the life-preservers you have invented, all must go by the board. The life-boat will take you, and nothing more. You must trust in that, and nothing beside. Christ must be all or nothing to your ruined soul.
Room is plenty, but time is scant. The hours glide swiftly by. Death hastens, and judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and damnation slumbereth not. The life-boat's last turn will be made, no man can tell how soon. In such an hour as we think not, “the Son of Man cometh.” There will be an end of calling and refusing, an end of entreaties and hardening the heart against them. The last day will come, and with it comes the Christian's joy, the sinner's doom. And before that day shall break in storm and thunder on the world, there will be other “last things.”
There will be the last scoff, the last mockery, the last sinful jest, the last careless hour. There will be the last scene of riot, the last day of pleasure, the last nightly revel. There will be the last meeting, the last sermon, the last exhortation, the last warning, the last fervent prayer, the last solemn song. And then,
“Oh, then, the judgment throne!
Oh, then, the last hope gone!”
To-day may be the life-boat's last turn for you. These words may be your last invitation. Oh, let it not be in vain! I beseech you, come on board the life-boat! Trust your all in Jesus' hands. Come and be saved. But you must leave the world. You must forsake the wreck. Time presses. You must make the final choice. You cannot cling to the wreck, and yet be saved in the life-boat. You cannot serve God and Mammon. You cannot have the friendship of the world, for it is enmity with God. You must forsake all to follow Christ. Will you do it? Will you leave all and live, or keep all and perish?
God will not destroy a lost world unwarned. The long suffering of God is salvation to guilty men. “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come.” Matt. xxiv, 14.
Friend, beware how you reject God's invitation. Beware how you cling to a shipwrecked world till the life-boat makes her last turn, lands her passengers on the heavenly shore, and leaves you to wait and perish amid the terrors of the day of final doom. “Behold now is the accepted time. Behold now is the day of salvation.”