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Let me take you upstairs to your dying chamber!
Look at actions which you have thought to be great,
and upon which you have prided yourself- how will
they look at the last?
You made money; you made money fast; you did it very
cleverly; you praised yourself for it, just as others have
praised themselves for conquering nations, or forcing
their way to fame, or lifting themselves into eminence.
Now you are dying, and what do you think of all that?
Is it so great as it seemed to be?
Oh, how you leaped up to it, how you strained yourself
to reach it, and you have got it, and you are dying.
What do you think of it now?
The greatest of human actions will appear to be
insignificant when we come to die, and especially
those upon which men most pride themselves-
these will yield them the bitterest humiliation.
We shall then say what madmen we must have
been to have wasted so much time and energy
upon such paltry things!
When we shall discover that they were not real,
that they were but mere bubbles, mere pretenses,
we shall then look upon ourselves as demented to
have spent the whole of our life and of our energy
upon them!
from Spurgeon’s sermon, "Last Things" Proverbs 5:11.
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