HOW wonderful God’s ways of grace are! “Past finding out,” as the apostle Paul wrote. His love is only to be measured by the gift of His Son, and His grace made known in taking up man in his ruin and guilt, forgiving all his sins; and every purpose of that grace will soon be accomplished in his being with and like Christ throughout eternity. Have you tasted of God’s grace? Do you know His love made known in the gift of Jesus? “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
It is sweet to put on record the amazing grace of God. It was indeed grace―rich sovereign grace― that picked up the poor infidel blasphemer of whom I write. In his early days he had attended Sunday school, and what is termed a place of worship, but soon all that was thrown aside, and he became an infidel. He was traveling through America with a show as conjurer and ventriloquist, and one day heard that there was a man in the town where he was who was preaching the devil’s doctrine. His curiosity was instantly aroused, and he determined to go and hear what he had to say. When he got there he found a lot of people gathered together reading the Word of God. This was not what he expected. He sat and listened. The subject was, “The name of Jesus.” That name had no charm for him. Is it sweet to you, my reader? There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we can be saved.
“Precious, peerless name of Jesus,
None can tell its worth;
Sweetest name there is in heaven,
Or on earth.”
The reading being over, the preacher got up and gave an address; taking for his subject those blessed words in the nineteenth chapter of Luke, “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Having finished his discourse, he went up to the infidel and spoke to him about his soul. He immediately began to ventilate his infidel ideas, and blasphemed in a way that he had never done before. The preacher left him, and as he was standing near a form, a man came up and bellowed in his ear, “God says you are lost,” recalling the words of the address, where the preacher described man’s condition as LOST, telling his hearers that the Son of Man not only came to seek but to save that which was lost. How true these words were, yet how few will believe them, that man by nature is LOST. ALL have sinned and come short of God’s glory.
His anger was aroused by being so insulted, as he thought, and he went outside to wait till the speaker should come out to go home, his determination being to knock him down. He waited some time, and others came out, and all seemed to have something to say to him. At last he bent his steps homeward. The arrow shot at a venture had entered beneath the joints of the harness, and the words kept ringing in his ears, “God says you are lost.” Get them out of his mind he could not. Sleep fled from him. Those words haunted him throughout the stillness of the night, and all the next day, till he was so miserable and unsettled he could do nothing. He thought of God’s love and that He might pardon him, had it not been for his open blasphemy.
At the end of three days, when hope had well-nigh fled, and despair taken its place, the words used by the preacher came in freshness and power to his soul applied by God’s Spirit, “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” The light shone in. He was lost. The Son of Man came to seek and save him. Joy and praise now filled his heart to overflowing, and he found he could do nothing for some weeks but go round and tell them what God had done for him.
Reader, are you saved? If, like the one of whom you have read, God has shown you that you are lost, let your soul drink in those thrice-blessed words. “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” Saved by His precious blood, let your voice then be heard in confession of His name. “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him front the dead, thou shalt be saved.”
“Saved for glory! yes, for glory,
By the work of God’s blest Son;
Saved for glory, wondrous story,
We believe what Christ has done.
Saved for glory! saved by Jesus,
All our meetness His alone:
Meetness, which the Father pleases
Ours should be, in Christ the Son.”
E. E. N.