What follows is a story that my pastor quoted this past Sunday night in his sermon entitled, “Hell Frozen Over”. I think it pretty much speaks for itself.
This is a story by Amy Carmichael who was a missionary to India. Read and ponder this carefully:
“I could not go asleep. So I lay awake and looked; and I saw, as it seemed, this: that I stood on a grassy sward and at my feet a precipice broke sheer down into infinite space. Back I drew, dizzy at the depth.
Then I saw people moving single file along the grass. They were making for the edge. There was a woman with a baby in her arms and another little child holding onto her dress. She was on the very verge. Then I saw that she was blind. She lifted her foot for the next step – it trod air. Oh, the cry as they went over!
“Then I saw more streams of people from all parts. They were blind, stone-blind; all made straight for the precipice edge. There were shrieks as they suddenly knew themselves falling, and a tossing up of helpless arms, clutching at empty air. Then I saw that along the edge there were sentries set at intervals. But the intervals were far too great; they were wide, there were unguarded gaps between. And over these gaps the people fell in their blindness, quite unwarned, and the gulf yawned like the mouth of hell.
“Then I saw, like a little picture of peace, a group of people under some trees, with their back to the gulf. They were making daisy-chains and singing hymns. There was another group. It was made up of people whose great desire was to get more sentries; but they found that very few wanted to go. Once a girl stood alone in her place, waving the people back; but her mother and other relatives called, and reminded her that her furlough was due. Being tired and needing a change she had to go and rest for a while; but no one was sent to guard her gap, and over and over the people fell, like a waterfall of souls.
“Once a child caught a tuft of grass that grew on the very brink of the gulf; it clung convulsively and it called, but nobody seemed to hear. Then the roots of grass gave way, and with a cry the child went over. And the girl who longed to be back in the gap thought she heard the little one cry and she sprang up and wanted to go, at which they reproved her; and then sang a hymn. Then through the hymn the pain of a million broken hearts rung out in one full drop, one sob. It was the Cry of Blood from my hands.”
This story chilled me to the bones and made me deeply aware of the blood on my hands; blood of untold numbers of people whom I could have told about Jesus but did not.
(One point of clarification.) I do not believe that God allows children to hell when they die. On the contrary, if they have not reached the age where they can make an informed decision to accept Christ, then I am fully convinced that they reside in heaven if they die at a young age.
I am, with the help of the Holy Spirit, trying to be more diligent about telling others what Jesus has done for me and what He desires to do for them. He loved me enough to die so that I would not have to experience hell. Surely I can love Him enough to tell the world about Him!!
