If You Die Wrong...

Behold, now is “the acceptable time,” behold, now is “the day of salvation” (2 Cor 6:2).


Continuing from yesterday's post, here's more from M'Cheyne's letter to "one awakened":

I was in a very wicked family to-day, where a child had died. I opened my Bible, and explained this verse to them over the coffin of their little one: “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment,” Heb. ix.27. Solemn words! we have only once to die, and the day is fixed.

If you die wrong the first time, you cannot come back to die better a second time. If you die without Christ, you cannot come back to be converted and die a believer,—you have but once to die. Oh! pray that you may find Christ before death finds you. “After this the judgment.” Not, after this purgatory. No further opportunity to be saved: “after this the judgment.” As death leaves you, so judgment finds you. If you die unsaved, you will be so in the judgment. May I never see you at the left hand! If I do, you will remember how I warned you, and prayed for you, and besought you to come to the Lord Jesus.

Come to Jesus,—He will in nowise cast you out.

- Bonar, Memoir and Remains of the Rev. Robert Murray McCheyne, pp. 277-78.

M'Cheyne's phrase is hauntingly true and helpfully simple - "If you die wrong the first time, you cannot come back to die better a second time." One error that cannot be undone is the error of "dying wrong."

I further find M'Cheyne's words pastorally sharpening - warn sinners not to die wrong. Now, there's a simple mission statement that'll get you out of bed in the morning!

Do not die wrong, come to Jesus!