Death Comes Unexpectedly!

Every once in awhile, I hear something that bears repeating. What follows came from the movie Pollyanna. I don't know if this is a real sermon or not. All I can say is, if it's not, it ought to be. If you want to see it delivered by the immortal Karl Malden, then click here for the video. I absolutely love this sermon! Here it is, written out:

"Death comes unexpectedly! And the God, Jehovah, will execute his vengeance on ye who despise his undying love and trample his benefits underfoot. The unconverted soul, the foolish children of man do miserably delude themselves in the false confidence of their own strength and wisdom. They trust to nothing but a shadow. But bear testament. Death comes unexpectedly!

"Now, you say, ah, no, I had not intended it to come now. I had laid out matters otherwise. I thought my scheme good. I intended to take effectual care, but death came unexpectedly like a thief, outwitting me, too quick for me. Oh, cursed foolishness that I had flattered and pleased myself with vain dreams of repentance. But sudden destruction caught me up.

"And now He will deal with you. Now the great King of Heaven and Earth will abolish and annihilate this pride! Will crush the hardened wretch of the polluted infinite abomination, and rain on him a deluge of fire and brimstone! And where is their strength, then? Where are the great leviathans who defied God then? Where is their courage, these proud spirits? Yes... Death comes unexpectedly.

"And the Dread Judge has the key of Hell. He shuts... and no man opens. In Hell you will be reserved in chains of darkness forever and ever. This place of atonement, of damned souls and misery, with nothing to relieve you, no comfort, no water for your parched tongues, no place to rest or take a breath, but the everlasting, infinite convulsions of misery, forever! And ever and ever!

"Now Isaiah has warned us, on the day of vengeance, the earth shall be laid to waste. And the cormorant and the bittern shall possess the land. The raven and the screech owl shall dwell in it. And who is man to think he can withstand God's mighty wrath? Great mountains cannot stand before this wrath. Yea, he can lay the earth to pieces in one moment or shatter the whole universe with one stroke of his fiery sword! How dreadful is the state of those who are in daily danger of this great wrath, this abyss of death and despair.

"Yet, this is the dismal case of every soul in this congregation who has not been born again, however moral or strict, sober and religious you may otherwise be. There is no security for the wicked because there are no visible signs of death at hand! Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering. And there are innumerable places on this covering so weak they will not bear their weight. And these places cannot be seen. The arrows of death fly unseen as noonday. God has many different unsearchable ways of taking the wicked from this world.

"Who here in this congregation listening to this discourse will soon be visited by this covenant of darkness? There you are, siting there, calm in your knowledge of health, secure in your well-being. Yet who could suffer the agonies of the damned tomorrow? Yes, even today or maybe the next hour, the next minute. And if we were to know which of you it was, what an awful sight it would be. A soul doomed to the everlasting bottomless pit of a divine wrath! Yes, death comes unexpectedly! Amen."

- Reverend Ford, Pollyanna, 1960