The
Pendulum and the Pit
Edgar
Allen Poe wrote a breathtaking short story entitled, “The Pit
and the Pendulum.” A
man awoke to find himself in a pit tied in such a way he could
scarcely move. He saw
a pendulum high above swinging back and forth, getting a little
lower with each swing. He noticed the bottom was a sharp blade intended to sever his
chest when it descended low enough.
Just before it took the last swing before slicing into his
chest it stopped and he was delivered.
There
is a sense in which a pendulum is swinging on each person’s
clock of time. There
is a mark that signals the end of each person’s life.
When the pendulum brings the hands of time to that mark
there is nothing that can extend that person’s life other than
the reprieve of Almighty God.
-
None
of us knows where that mark is.
It could be much longer or shorter than we imagine.
- Christians
who have lived pleasing to God can face that hour with peace
of mind and heart.
-
The
unsaved invariably want to postpone that hour:
VOLTAIRE
shouted at his doctor, “Promise me six months!”
The doctor answered that he could not do that.
Voltaire grabbed the doctor, pulled him down on top of him
and said, “Then you shall go to hell with me.”
JOSEPH
STALIN sent all over Europe and offered fabulous sums to doctors
if they could only give him six more months to live.
THE PENDULUM SWINGS WITHOUT CEASING
The Clock of Life
The
Clock of Life is wound but once,
And
no man has the power
To
tell just where the hands will stop—
At
late or early hour.
To
lose one’s wealth is sad indeed,
To
lose one’s health is more.
To
lose one’s soul is such a loss
As
no man can restore.
The
present only is our own;
Live,
love, toil with a will.
Place
no faith in tomorrow
For
the clock may then be still.
THE PENDULUM SWINGS ON CHRISTIANS
Ephesians 5:14-16
We
Must Walk With God Now.
- Reading,
hearing, memorizing and meditating on the Word of God
- Praying
and communing with God
We
Must Live A Godly Life Now
Matthew
5:16. A godly life
along with the testimony, “I am what I am by the grace of God”
will glorify God and point Others to Him.
We
Must Serve God Now.
- With
our talents and gifts
- With
our financial support
We
Must Point The Lost to Christ Now.
-
If
you knew that your life would end at midnight tonight you
would probably make some phone calls and visits to give a last
urgent witness to loved ones and friends.
- You
do not know that you will have another day to do it, so it is
wise to do it in the time you have.
THE PENDULUM SWINGS ON THE UNSAVED.
On The Religious But
Lost. See
John 8:21, 24, “…you
shall die in your sins.”
-
Lost even though they had the right religion.
- Lost,
even though they had Jesus present
- Lost,
even though they were hearing the truth of salvation from the
lips of the Son of God.
When
these remain unsaved past the deadline hour the result is tragic.
See Matthew 25:1-13.
On
Those Who Put Off Salvation.
-
God’s
time for salvation is always NOW.
-
He
told Israel to eat the Passover Lamb in haste. Exodus 12
- “Come
NOW and let us reason …”
Isaiah 1:18
- “Seek
ye the Lord while He may be found…”
Isaiah 55:6
- “Behold,
now is the accepted time…” 2 Corinthians 6:2
God’s
warnings. Proverbs
27:1 and 29:1
- Some
Bible examples of those who put off salvation too long.
Felix,
“…Go thy way for this
time: when I have a
convenient season, I will call for thee.”
Acts 24:25
King
Agrippa, “…You almost
persuade me to become a Christian.”
Acts 26:28.
-
The great majority of men and women who die lost have had many
opportunities to be saved.
George
Saters checked the visitor’s card that he was interested in
joining our church. I
looked for his house for two hours with no success. A couple of days later he fell dead walking across his living
room floor. He could
have gotten saved the morning he was in church.
Another
man checked his card the same.
He went hunting and died crawling under a barbed wire fence
that week.
In
Gamaliel, Kentucky a man was invited to the revival I was
preaching. He said,
“I get more out of the almanac than I do the Bible.”
He died with a heart attack on the doctor’s table that
day.
On
Those Rejecting The Holy Spirit.
Genesis
6:3, “My Spirit shall not
always strive with men.”
See
also Matthew
12:31-32. Proverbs
1:24-30.
This
will help illustrate the unpardonable sin. I committed the unpardonable sin against passing trains in my uncle
Jim Ramey’s sleeping car in Colorado.
The first night a train passed I fell out of an upper bunk. Each night the noise bothered me less and less. By the end of a week, I didn't even hear
it.
Like
Napoleon after a bitter battle when he was informed he had won:
“One more such victory will cost me my kingdom.”
One more victory over the Holy Spirit may cost you your
soul.
THE
PIT AWAITS.
For
The Christian It is Just the Grave.
Psalm 49:15.
- A
resting place for the earthly body for a brief time.
- Job
had no fear of it. Job
14:14-15
- The
soul goes into the presence of the Lord.
2nd Corinthians 5:8
For
the Unsaved There Is The Pit of Torment
- A
pit of hopelessness.
The
rich man heard, “…between
us and you there is a great gulf fixed…”
Luke 16:26
God
stretches forth His arms of mercy only so long.
If people will not come to Him in the allotted time the
pendulum swings they will be separated forever.
- A
pit of bitter memories
The
rich man heard, “Son
remember…” --a
lifetime of neglected opportunities to get saved.
3. A Pit of
torment.
God describes it as a place of fire and brimstone.
I believe it is literal.
There is no comfort in making it symbolic for if it is,
then it is something
more terrible than can
be conveyed in human language.
Wisdom
teaches us to be prepared to meet our God before the hands on our
clock of life reaches the mark where we must depart this life.
Copyright © 2002 Thomas E Berry
All Scripture quoted from NKJV unless otherwise noted
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