LOUIS was a Spanish boy who with his grandmother on an island off the coast of Spain. Louis grew up in ignorance of the love of God and he knew nothing of how the Lord Jesus died for sinners.
One day a change came in Louis’ life. It was his fourteenth birthday. On that day he heard a church bell ringing for someone who had died. Louis listened and counted the strokes of the bell for this would tell him how old the dead person was. The bell in that church was rung as many times as the years of the dead person’s life. So Louis listened and counted. To his surprise the ringing stopped at fourteen. Someone his own age had died.
Where had the soul of that person gone? Louis asked himself that question. If death came to him, where would his soul go? Louis could not get these thoughts out of his mind.
The young boy became anxious about death and what comes after and so he talked to his grandmother about them. But she could not help him for she herself did not know, nor did she know the Lord Jesus Christ. But she did have a Bible and she gave that to her grandson.
The Bible was a new thing to Louis and he read it all he could. As he read he learned that he was indeed a sinner and that after death comes judgment. But in his Bible he also found out that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” 1 Tim. 1:1515This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. (1 Timothy 1:15). He learned too that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16).
As he read on he saw how to be saved. You are saved, dear reader, by simply believing in your heart that the Lord Jesus died on Calvary’s cross for you. Louis believed and was saved. Then he rejoiced in the Lord Jesus as his own Saviour.
How happy he was now! There was no more fear of death for he knew that if he were to die, he would go to be with Jesus, the One who had loved him so much as to die for him.
His desire now was to tell others of that same Saviour. Whenever he could he would gather together a group of people from his town and would read to them from his Bible. Often, too, he would take a boat and go from island to island telling the fishermen and others about the Lord Jesus.
ML-12/15/1974