SOME years ago, as I was leaving my home, a woman requested me to visit her aged mother. As we entered the room, the old lady said, “I know you will tell me the truth; I want to know what I must do to be saved.”
“We will look into the word of God,” I said, “for there we shall find a true answer to the question,” adding, “an account is given there of a man who once asked the selfsame question, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ and if we could find out by what means he was saved, then you could surely rest on that foundation.”
We turned to Acts 16, and read the story of the jailor at Philippi, how he asked this question, and the answer which was given him: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.”
“But must I believe before I feel?” my aged friend inquired.
“Yes,” was the answer. “God never speaks in His word about our feelings as affecting our salvation, for they are not the same for a day together. He says, ‘Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ ‘He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life.’”
After speaking to the old woman for a little longer on the importance of trusting simply to the word of God, and not to our thoughts or feelings, I left her, praying that the Lord would bless her soul.
The next time I visited her, she put up her feeble hands as I entered the room, and said, “I am very weak, but oh! I am so happy, for I am trusting in Jesus.”
Soon afterward she passed away, to be forever with the Saviour, in whose finished work she had trusted.
Dear reader, can you say her Saviour is your Saviour too? If not, trust in Jesus now. The Lord may not allow you to remain for a long time on a sick bed, as He did this aged one, and if called away suddenly to meet the Lord, how precious to be able to say, “It is well with my soul, for I am going to meet the One who died for me.”
J. Sp―n.