The saddest words in the English language.

If I were to ask you what are the saddest words in the English language, I wonder what you would say?   My answer to such a question would be "If only..".

Huge numbers of people torture their minds with deep and bitter regrets that haunt them to the point where their lives are seriously blighted; indeed, there are people who suffer mental illness as a result of dwelling on their regrets.

They will keep saying to themselves things like "If only I had not done  such and such thing"   or they may say to themselves "If only I had done such and such thing"; and so it goes on, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, until the mental stress becomes too much and they have a breakdown.

People in such a state are to be grievously pitied, it must be terrible for them.  However, people's regrets about things done, or not done, in this life, are as nothing compared to the bitter regrets people will have in eternity as they contemplate lost opportunities to be saved.

I've had many conversations with an atheist man, in Ramsgate, over the years and, one day, I asked him the following:  "When you stand before God what do you think He will say to you?", his reply showed that he knew more about God than he let on -

"He would say to me 'you should have listened to that man with those leaflets' ".

If this atheist does not respond to the Gospel, and I've warned him many times about the consequences of unbelief, he will have all eternity to keep repeating the words "If only..."

I'm sure that there are multitudes of lost souls who are, even now, torturing themselves with bitter regrets because they didn't respond to the Gospel; "if only I had listened to that preacher"  or perhaps, "if only I had read that leaflet given to me in Canterbury, Ramsgate, Ashford, (or any number of places where street evangelists spread the Gospel)" or perhaps, "if only I had read that New Testament given to me at school", and so it goes on, and on, and on.

Indeed, the worst torment in Hell may well be this bitter sense of regret.  Perhaps that is what Jesus meant when he said the following  ".......where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched", could it be that "their worm" is the accusing conscience worming its way into them and eating them up with these huge regrets and "If onlys...."??

These are sobering thoughts indeed, and I can only thank and praise God daily for what happened to me in September, 1975 when, after hearing a presentation of the Gospel I came to repentance and faith in Christ - a decision I have NEVER regretted.  In eternity there will be no "If only..." for me.

I trust that, as the Gospel is preached, there will be many who come to their senses and respond positively to the only message that brings an eternity of bliss, and not an eternity of torment.