0206. His Premature Death

His Premature Death

"And he (Joab) took three darts in his hand, and thrust them through the heart of Absalom, while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak" (2Sa_18:14).

Some one asked another, "Where is hell?" The reply was "It is at the end of a misspent life."

As we see Absalom hanging by his hair in the oak, we know that the wages of sin is death, in a very real sense. A death physical? Yes, for Absalom was that day slain. A death forever? Yes. For sin brings eternal separation from Christ, in Whom alone is life.

It does seem that Absalom proved the truth of Psa_55:23, "Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days."

Sin spoils everything it touches. Sin is death to everything that it grips. Death to health, death to prospects, death to joy, death to hope and death forevermore.

Illustration: "A young man in Worcester, Mass., ran away with the funds of a savings bank. He fled to Paris, but returned to New York and was captured. To the officer he said: ‘I am happier today in this car, headed for certain punishment, than I have been since the train left the depot on Wednesday night, five months ago. Time has dragged fearfully, and the thousand and one pleasures which money can buy have weighed as nothing in the balance when compared to the awful suffering induced by giving play to my thoughts and going back over the whole time of this affair. Each successive violation of right added little by little to the result, till, to my over-strained nerves, it was as if I were carrying the whole weight.’"

Poor Byron died when he had but reached his prime. He had, like Absalom, drunk cups of pleasure, which thousands might have drunk, and then died wanting more to drink. Byron expressed his own distress at his life of sin, and his unmeasured anguish in the words:

"My days are in the yellow leaf,

The fruits and flowers of life are gone;

The worm, the canker and the grief

Are mine alone."

Illustration: H. W. Pope of Chicago, tells thus the story of the life and death of the valedictorian of his class. "He had no religious principles. When others drank, he was not strong enough to refuse. After graduation he studied law. He became one of the most brilliant and promising lawyers of his state. Temptations grew stronger and more frequent, and having no acquaintance with Him Who is able to save to the uttermost, and able to keep from falling, he soon lost his standing and business and died a common drunkard."

Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR