Too late for the rich and too late for the poor!
Too late? Yet in Heaven remaineth a door…
I’ll tell you a story, if telling I may.
How hope still remains, when we’ve cast it away.
For he was still childlike when told of his fate,
“Young man, you’re a thief, and your sorrow’s too late!”
Too late for reform and too late to repent!
And thus he began on his giddy descent.
“You cannot be changed!” was their terrible curse.
Yet changing he did–starting bad, growing worse.
Through childhood and youth, into manhood progressed
This doer of deeds which he seldom confessed.
And all through his life came that judgement of hate;
“You thief, you’re a sinner! Regret is too late!”
Too late for reform and too late to repent!
And thus he continued his slippery descent.
He heard of forgiveness, but it was ‘too late’.
Too late to be cleansed, to be changed, to be straight.
So, deeper he went in a life full of crime,
To stifle his conscience in felony’s grime.
Till finally they caught him, with charges a sheaf,
They tried him and judged him, and found him a thief.
They told him his punishment–death–and the date.
He would not be freed; his remorse was ‘too late’.
The day had dawned softly, his number was due,
To pay for his crime with a similar crew.
So thus, up to Calvary, bearing his cross,
He stumbles. The crowd says his life is his loss.
There, stretched up to heaven, they leave him to die.
“The criminal thief! He deserved it!” they cry.
“He could have repented, but now it’s too late!
Forgiveness and mercy have fastened their gate!”
Too late? There is One who would never agree–
Tis Jesus, condemned to the same death as he.
He hears that the Saviour has power to forgive,
Recalls there is hope whilesoever we live.
‘The Lamb of salvation?’ he thinks, ‘can it be,
That Christ is the offering to sanctify me?’
“Remember me, Lord!” Jesus doesn’t berate.
“I will.” For the sinner, it wasn’t too late.
And thus we have often pronounced it too late,
Abandoned the sinner and left him to fate.
We leave him to struggle with sin and its weight,
Because he displays an unsavoury trait.
But mercy still calls, “While there’s life, there is hope!
And light for the ones that in darkness now grope.
Of course he’s a sinner. His sin may be great.
Christ’s payment is greater! It isn’t too late!”
Aneta Reuter, January 2003
