that better part which shall never be taken from you. COME TO CHRIST TO-DAY. Remember, Christ is calling you to-day. His invitations are all for the present moment. Present salvation, present pardon through His blood, the immediate bestowal of all needful grace, all this is offered to you this very day, this very hour. All things are ready."* You have nothing to wait for. The work has been done by Christ Himself. The full atonement has been made. Reconciliation has been provided through His sacrifice. The door has been opened wide to the guilty and the lost. Sinners of every kind are welcome. None are refused. None are bidden to wait till they are more fit. Only come, and come at once. Christ will receive you, and do for you all that you need. He will give you repentance and remission of sin. He will give you a new heart and a new spirit. He will help you to cast off bad habits. Therefore come to-day. To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.'t Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. Come to-day, for you lose so much every day you put off. If you might have a valuable † Heb. iii. 7, 8. Matt. xxii. 4. property as soon as you put in your claim, would you drag out your life in poverty and want through neglecting to take the needful steps to secure it? And the moment you come to Christ and rely upon His promise, you enter into possession of all the rich blessings of the Gospel. That very hour, you have the favour of God, the friendship of the Saviour, the comfort of the Holy Ghost. You become at once a true child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven. Why then should you delay to receive these inestimable benefits? Why should you lose, day by day, the consolation and joy that a Christian possesses? Suppose it were possible that you could insure becoming a Christian months or years hence, think how much you would lose meanwhile! Think of the comfort and peace and support in trial that you would forfeit-think of the days of usefulness and opportunities for doing good that would be gone for ever! Come to Christ to-day, because it will be harder work to-morrow. There may be a difficulty in your way now, but it will only increase as time goes on. There may be an indifference. to spiritual things, or a heart cleaving to some sin, or a bad habit, or friends about you who may be a hindrance. But the only way is to face the foe whatever it may be. As days and months advance the heart will become more and more worldly, the bad habit will gain a firmer hold of you, the devil's chain will bind you faster, and heaven will seem farther off. I have heard a story of a tyrant in olden times that may fix this thought in our hearts. He bade a man make a chain for him. After a time he asked the man how he was getting on with the work. When he saw it he said that the chain was good so far, but he must make it longer. So he urged him to continue, adding to the length of the chain, till the material was exhausted and the man's strength gone. Then he took him and bound him with his own chain, and cast him into a loathsome dungeon. I know not whether or no the story be true, but it teaches us a profitable lesson. The devil is ever bidding men go on farther in the evil work of sin. He would have them add link after link to the chain of sin they have already forged, and then when the work is done, the man is bound and fettered with his own iniquities. Come to Christ to-day, for, if you do not, you may never come at all. Your day of grace may be nearly over. Before another day your soul may be in eternity. The seeds of a fatal disease may even now be at work within. Or the arrow may be now on the string which is to be to you the messenger of death. Some unlooked-for accident may call you away, and you may have to meet God with scarcely a moment's warning. Or it may be that your conscience may be seared and the Spirit grieved, and you may be like a tree I have seen, withered and dried up to the roots, casting up toward heaven its naked, leafless, fruitless branches, as if mourning its own hopeless condition. Ah, if you resist the warning voice and quench the Spirit when He strives with you, may you not thus be left to yourself without one desire for a better and holier life? : Or the Master may come in the clouds of heaven and find you without the wedding garment. He will come suddenly as a thief in the night, and you know not how soon. There is much that may remind us that the time is short. Therefore, come to Christ today. Be ye also ready for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.'* 'Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you, for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light.' + * Matt. xxiv. 44. John xii. 35, 36. |