I have been twice at the point of death. I was drowning once, and just
as I was going down the third time I was rescued. In the twinkling of
an eye my whole life came flashing across my mind. I cannot tell you
how it was. I cannot tell you how a whole life can be crowded into a
second of time; but everything I had done from my earliest
childhood--it all came flashing across my mind. And I believe that
when God touches the secret spring of memory, every one of our sins
will come back, and if they have not been blotted out by the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ, they will haunt us as eternal ages roll on.
We talk about our forgetting, but we cannot forget if God says
"Remember." We talk about the recording angel keeping the record of
our life. I have an idea that when we get to heaven, or into eternity,
we will find that recording angel has been ourselves. God will make
every one of us keep our own record; these memories will keep the
record, and when God shall say, "Son, remember," it will all flash
across our mind. It won't be God who will condemn us; it will be
ourselves. We shall condemn ourselves, and we shall stand before God
speechless.
There is a man in prison. He has been there five years. Ask that man
what makes the prison so terrible to him. Ask him if it is the walls
and the iron gates--ask him if it is his hard work, and he will tell
you _no_; he will tell you what makes the prison so terrible to him
is _memory_; and I have an idea that if we got down into the lost
world, we would find that is what makes hell so terrible--the
remembrance that they once heard the Gospel, that they once had Christ
offered to them, that they once had the privilege of being saved, but
they made light of the Gospel, they neglected salvation, they rejected
the offer of mercy, and now if they would accept it they could not.