Indifference

INDIFFERENCE is the destroyer of souls. There are more who perish by this fatal poison than by any other cause, for we speak now to such as know the truths of God’s word and not to heathen. Men are earnest about health, business, pleasure, about all that concerns them in this life, but about their future existence they are careless and unconcerned.
Nor even upon the dying bed do sinners always rouse to their true condition; when the world and its pleasures are fast receding from their gaze, they too often die as careless, as thoughtless, as indifferent as they lived.
And not only does the heedless patient sink down unmoved into death, but, too frequently, the living around him use their endeavors to hinder the awakening of his soul. “He is too sick today to be conversed with upon such matters,”— “He has seen too many friends on worldly affairs to see a visitor on religious questions at present.” And if, by entreaty, the visitor gains access to the patient, his words about eternity will probably be interrupted by remarks upon the pain or patience of the sufferer! And when the short visit is over, and the few words about eternity spoken, the nurses of the sick man will probably by vain talk blunt the edge of all that has been uttered.
Even religion (so called) itself is used as an ally for the destruction of the soul, is made the handmaid of indifference to being pardoned by the blood of Christ, and in this way a man upon his death bed says he is unprepared to die; he is without peace—without Christ. Then comes someone and prays with him, or administers the sacrament to him, and the sick man, relying upon the prayer or the sacrament, wraps himself up in soul-indifference and dies.
Were it not for the mercy of God and His determination to save sinners, disappointed and heartbroken, what would those do who seek to rouse sinners! But His purpose is to save, His gracious will is to bless sinners, and thus, in spite of all the carelessness and heedlessness of souls, we are assured that some shall be awakened by His Spirit to their true condition and to His forgiveness.
And to you, careless and indifferent reader, in the assurance of His infinite mercy and compassion, the following incidents are related, that He may speak to you by them.
The first case may be yours, like the poor dying man of whom we speak. Your unconverted friends may shut the door upon those who would speak to you of Christ in your last moments! We were asked some little while since to see a man, who, though a moral liver was known to be not even a professor of religion. We begged admission, but were refused by his wife on the plea of his very great weakness. Whether any Christians ever saw him during those fearfully important last hours we know not; all we could do was to write down some texts upon a slip of paper, begging his wife to read them to him, earnestly praying God to save his soul.
The wife, like too many in similar cases, satisfied herself by saving her husband was very patient and resigned. If you, reader, hedge yourself up with indifference in health, your friends may hedge you up from hearing about Christ and His blood when you are sick and dying. Yet should your friends allow some faithful Christian to speak with you, as it was with the poor man of whom we are about to speak, so it may be with you. You may hear that none but Jesus can save; that you may be washed in His precious blood; that God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, in order that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life; and you may say with him in reply, “Please come again tomorrow, I am very tired today.” Your visitor, as did his, will leave you hoping to call again, and while doing so probably reminding you, “Unless your sins are forgiven in this life, poor dying man, your soul will be lost forever.” You too may die as did he, before you or any one else expected. On the morrow—the day he begged his visitor to call again, his soul had gone to God who gave it, and his body, in which the soul had tabernacled more than forty years, was waiting for the grace.
If you, reader, make tomorrow your opportunity, you will die before you expect it, and perish forever.
“Come again tomorrow!” Alas, how many times has your soul so spoken! After hearing some solemn sermon, after reading some stirring tract, after perusing the scriptures, after the death-bed of a friend, a neighbor, your heart has replied with the fatal echo “tomorrow!”
Those dying words, “Come again tomorrow,” ring in our ears. True, the man was sick and weak, and nature was overcome, but on the morrow eternity had begun for him, and for him indifference had ended. All was reality, all intensity, all earnestness.
If that soul is lost, then all the unutterable darkness of the future of the lost in his. No tomorrow bringing hope on its wings, but a night without a morning ray. “Blackness and darkness forever.” Immeasurable words— “forever!”
If his soul is saved, then his joys who can describe them? Their duration who can utter it? “Forever with the Lord,”—with Him who bled on Calvary for sinners, whose nail-pierced hands are still out-stretched towards sinners, whose voice will lead the triumphant anthems of the redeemed.
Reader, indifferent reader, oh that you could spare some tears for your lost soul, some moments for eternity! Would that the beseeching of those who have been brought to God by His grace might move your spirit, and that you, awakened, earnest, longing to be saved, might find mercy in the precious blood of Jesus the Son of God.
“If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, THOU SHALT BE SAVED.” (Rom. 10:9.) What love!
“God is love, I surely know
By the Saviour’s depths of woe:
In His spotless soul’s distress
I perceive my guiltiness:
Oh, how vile my low estate,
Since my ransom was so great!”