For The Truth

Saturday, June 30, 2018

The Soul's Crisis

"There is a time, we know not when,
A point we know not where,
That marks the destiny of men,
To glory or despair.

There is a line, by us unseen,
That crosses every path;
The hidden boundary between
God's patience and His wrath.

To pass that limit is to die,
To die, as if by stealth:
It does not quench the beaming eye,
Or pale the glow of health.

The conscience may be still at ease,
The spirits light and gay;
That which is pleasing still may please,
And care be thrust away.

But on that forehead God has set
Indelibly a mark,
Unseen by man--for man as yet
Is blind and in the dark.

And yet the doomed man's path below,
Like Eden, may have bloomed;
He did not, does not, will not know,
Or feel that he is doomed.

He knows, he feels, that all is well,
And every fear is calm'd
He lives, he dies, he wakes in hell,
Not only doomed but damned.

O where is thy mysterious bourne,
By which our path is crossed,
Beyond which God Himself hath sworn,
That he who goes is lost?

How far may go on in sin?
How long will God forbear?
Where does hope end? and where begin
The confines of despair?

An answer from the skies is sent--
'Ye that from god depart,
While it is called to-day, Repent!
And harden not your heart.'"

C. H. Spurgeon,
at the close of a sermon on Luke 18:37,
"The Soul's Crisis."