One morning, I was called out of the city to visit a patient who was very ill. An immediate operation was advised and the patient went into the hospital the same day.
The patient was a woman in middle life, of a cheerful and hopeful disposition—who never seemed to realize that she was gradually failing in strength and weight. She constantly entertained the idea that she would get better, though all the evidence was to the contrary, and in spite of the fact that I gave her no assurance of recovery.
She was one of the most active members of a prominent church in the city of T____, and was the life of every gathering she attended. Her brightness and willingness to help, gave her prominence and favor everywhere she went, and she was regarded as one of the best and most valuable members of her church.
Time after time I tried to interest her in the things that endured; riches in Christ, hopes for the future, the heavenly inheritance, but I always failed to get a response. She looked at me as if I were speaking a dead language, or in an unknown tongue. She did not seem to be at home on this ground. As soon, however, as my conversation turned to other themes, her face brightened up and she was then ready and able to give her contribution to the conversation.
In spite of these discouraging attempts, I was impelled repeatedly to endeavor to interest her in spiritual things. Her failure, however, to understand or appreciate those things distressed me greatly and gave me much concern, as I had been in prayer for her daily.
At last seeing that her days must be few indeed, I determined, with the Holy Spirit's help, to be very specific and clear, as I could not bear to see her pass away without definite assurance that she had passed from death unto life.
Her extreme pallor, her wasted strength and ebbing days aroused my pity as I observed the strong interest she still possessed in earthly things, and her indifference to the future things she must so soon experience.
I did not wish to alarm her, so I said quietly and gently,
"Tell me, Mrs. D., about your hopes for the future. Have you assurance that you are saved?"
"O," she said with hesitation and embarrassment, "I think I am all right."
"Will you tell me just why you think so? I should like to know."
"Well, I have been a very good woman and I have always been willing to help anybody and do the best I could."
"So these are your claims for heaven and eternal life! Are you quite sure they are sufficient?"
"Well, I think they ought to be, as I have been very earnest and sincere, and have brought up quite a family, and worked hard in the church when I could."
"I suppose you found something in the Bible to support your claims and expectations for salvation?"
"O, yes! I think so."
"Would you mind telling me where in the Bible God promises salvation on these conditions?"
"Well, I can't just say, but I thought they were there. I always understood we had to do our best to be saved."
"Tell me, then, where the crucifixion or the atoning work of Christ comes in on your program?"
"Well, I don't just know how it does help me."
"Do you know that there are two kinds of righteousness—the one that man tries to produce and by which he ignorantly tries to satisfy God, and the other, which God provides!
Have you not been putting your poor, paltry, vain and sin-stained filthy rags in competition with the perfect and eternal robe of righteousness which God has provided in Christ? You have been expecting God to be satisfied with a state that He has condemned. Your good deeds at best are but efforts to have God overlook your guilt. God on the contrary is asking you to abandon all this as vain, and to place your trust and confidence in His righteousness, which is received only by accepting Jesus Christ."
"I am sure I did not intend to do that! I thought I had to do my part."
"So you have. Your part is to believe in God; believe in His love; believe in His Son; believe that His death paid the penalty of your sins and, on the ground of sin having been dealt with at the cross, that God can now freely forgive you as His child."
"Why, that is quite different, isn't it, and it makes salvation certain!"
"Indeed! It does. Do you know what God said about your working for salivation? He tells you to stop it and to repent of it, that is, to come to the conclusion that it is utterly worthless. He puts it this way:
`To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness'."
"Well, I have been wrong all this time—I thought I had to work for salvation. God doesn't want me to try so much, as to trust."
"Now you are getting the thought. He wants you to regard yourself as guilty, as helpless and indeed hopeless without Him. He wants you to cast yourself in dependence upon His everlasting love and mercy. Will you just now believe what God says about His Son and trust in His goodness and strength rather than your own?"
"Indeed I will! I never heard this before" "O, yes you have, but you did not understand it."
"No, I never heard it this way before. Why are we not told how to be saved? I have been trying more or less all my life to put so many good deeds to my credit. The salvation is already provided and all that we have to do is to believe in it. O how simple it is! How happy it makes me feel to know that all my sins are washed away in His blood." She rejoiced in the assurance that "whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."
Reader! How is it with you? Where is your trust and faith in view of an eternity that is as certain as it is endless? Is it in Christ? For you He died. He invites you to come to Him, and be saved from all sins.