He stood at The Brink...

...He was at the very edge. He looked out and down. Far across the gulf stood the opposite face of the twin cliffs. On that side was eternity and bliss; on this side fearful waiting. Below him, stretched as far as he could see from left to right, lay the gorge. The chasm opened up vertically and horizontally to such an abyss as to make the Grand Canyon a child’s scratch in the sandbox. He trembled. He would either have to jump, or turn back. He was getting tired of standing there. He was confused. Why had he come here?

“Just believe and relax,” said the now familiar voice. It was a soothing voice. It was somewhere in between a man’s voice and a woman’s, but sounded not strange at all. It was vibrant but sultry, authoritative but reassuring. He knew this must be the voice of God, but he wasn’t sure.

“Do not look down, but up,” it continued. “Your faith will carry you to the other side. I will be with you, because I am in you and I am you.” Such happenings would have been shocking to his religious parents, to hear such voices and to know yourself as God, but they had never known true love, as he had been experiencing in the last few months. He had gone places in his heart and mind they would never know, been in situations they could never conceive. He hurt deeply and longed for release from this life, but he wasn’t sure.

The gulf was immense. He looked down, anyway. What’s the purpose of coming to the edge of eternity if you can’t look down before you leap? He tried to focus, but either his eyes were teary, or there was a mist between him and what was down below. He wished he could see the bottom to see if there were something down there to tell him if it was O.K. to let go and let God, but it seemed out of range. He was afraid. He felt great warmth from the voice and its presence, but he felt his heart beating rapidly.

“Don’t look down!” The voice came again, a little sterner. “You must trust yourself. Believe in yourself!” the voice seemed triumphant, even when he was so unsure. “Unless you release your fears, you will surely never soar!” The voice was getting a little louder than it had been. Was there some anxiousness in the voice? This could not be. It was the Eternal, and the Eternal has no need to be anxious.

He was almost ready. His spiritual training had prepared him for this moment. Nirvana was almost his! He could feel his last inhibitions beginning to ebb. He now controlled his breath and held on for a little longer. Oh, how he wished he could know what was down there! He felt a sudden nudge, a little push in the right direction, if you will. Instead of going with it, he corrected his forward travel with an instinctive stumbling crouch and a backward thrust. This almost caused him to dive over the precipice. All the alarms went off in his mind.

In the process of regaining his balance, he looked down. A gust of wind had come up from below at just the right time, helping him right himself. It also carried a stench of rotting flesh. Incredibly, the wind had cleared the mist so that he could also see the bottom! What he saw horrified him. Down there lay an endless pile of bodies in varying degrees of decay. How he could see them so clearly, he did not know. They had obviously not succeeded in getting to the other side. Had they also heard the same voice he had been hearing lately?

In his horror, he cried out. “God, help me!” At this, the voice began to tell him to jump or he would never do it. But now he wasn’t so sure at all! Was there really a hell after fall?

“Jump!” The voice screamed. Now he could feel a hand, more like a claw, trying to squeeze him and force him over. What in the world was going on? Or was it what in hell? He tried desperately to free himself from this new monster. He cried out to the voice that had been helping him.

“Too late, fool!”, the voice came back. It was the same voice, but now he heard it without false pretense. In slow motion, he could feel himself now being drawn to the edge. He fought with all his will, but that was useless now. He had given his strength to his enemy, as he now understood. His life seemed to pass before his eyes, as they say. Only now, he saw his life in the true light of his eternal destiny down below.

“Jesus, help me!” he cried. He had cried this many times before, but now he meant it. Almost without effort, he was gently lifted from the clutches of his unseen predator. He felt no struggle, no outward nor inward resistance- only the calm assurance that his Father just rescued him. He was free.

A new voice said with a fatherly tone, “Go and sin no more.”

He walked calmly away from the precipice. He glimpsed, too briefly, the Savior’s bleeding body on a cross, nailed there for him. He looked and saw this Person rising into the glory above. He cried out to Him, “Jesus, stay here with me! Don’t leave!”

He heard, “Wait and occupy until I come back to receive you to myself. I will be with you until the end of the world. Go and warn others of what you have seen and experienced. Go! The end is near, but it is not yet.”

Then he felt the very God of gods come and enter into him and he died. He died and a new life began. The Holy Spirit, of whom he had heard, now entered his mortal body and gave him life. Jesus was now with him as He promised. He was lifted into the heavens with Christ it seemed, but not physically. He now knew that he was seated with Christ in the heavenly places, but understood it not. But he believed it.

He left the place where fools die and returned to his village in his right mind, for the first time in his life. He told others of his harrowing experience and the need to trust in the Savior. His parents thought him more a fool than ever. His friends wanted him to return to his old ways. Most felt that it was quite a psychological trauma and were glad for him that he had found a way to cope with it. But they rejected his Savior. These moved a little closer to the edge where fools perish. They never knew the horror below until it was too late. Some were pushed; some rushed headlong: all died.

But not all. Some knew, like him. Others listened to his warning and believed. Together, they found comfort and strength to finish the task set before them: to visit the fatherless and the widows in their afflictions, and keep themselves unspotted from the world. Together, they preach the everlasting gospel of redemption through the blood of Christ. His trials are many, and his patience is stretched, but he waits with joy and hope. He warns others of that place to which he was heading.

He warns you, dear reader, if you have not come to know and understand that Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord. You cannot get across that gulf by any method. You must die first. But you can have a new life in Christ, and He guarantees your passage across to the other side. As Jesus put it, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.” John 5:24

- Chris Simonson

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