The Lamp of Last Things: Mortality's Honest Reckoning

Proverbs 5:11 speaks of a man who mourns at the last—dying regrets over a life misspent in sin. The Preacher employed a single lamp to illuminate the young man's delusion about the strange woman's house: the lamp named "At the last." This is no ordinary light but Ithuriel's spear itself, which according to Milton's Paradise Lost, dispels all false appearances and reveals Satan's true colours.

This lamp has four sides. First, Death is at the last—the terminus of mortal life, trial, the day of grace, and opportunity for repentance. In death's light, even our greatest human actions shrink to insignificance. Our selfish ambitions and secret sins appear as they truly are: hollow and ruinous.

Second, Judgment is at the last. When a man dies, he does not cease to exist; he faces Yahweh's reckoning. The consequences of self-indulgence are not confined to earthly sorrow but extend into eternity itself.

Religion possesses one undeniable advantage: however costly its demands, it always ends well. Sin, conversely, carries one irremediable curse: however sweet its false promises, it always ends awfully. The six instructors—family, Scripture, ministers, conscience, creation, and Providence—call us back. To ignore them until the dying hour leaves only useless mourning, an honest hour too late for amendment.