PEGGY W — was a homely old Scotch woman, who had lived in widowhood for many years; and being of a kindly manner, there was that about her naturally which was admirable and attractive. It was in her strict religious character, however, that she so conspicuously excelled like “Saul of Tarsus”―the, mass of her fellow Church members among whom she moved, and by whom she was well known. She had been for a long number of years a member of the Scotch Presbyterian Church. First, she was a member of the Established, but left with her minister at the Disruption, from which time till the day of her death she was a member of the Free Church of Scotland.
Peggy was not only to be found in church on Sacrament Sundays, but she scarcely had missed a sermon preached from its pulpit during the whole period of her connection with it. She had the privilege, too, of sitting all this time under the ministry of one of the most eloquent, orthodox, faithful, and evangelical preachers of that body, one who had been much blessed in his labors to both saints and sinners. Though her house was a long way from the church, and she had been afflicted with rheumatism in both legs for years, so that she could only walk with the support of a staff, nothing could keep her out of her pew as each Lord’s Day came round—not even a dreadful storm. It was generally observed, too, that she was the first to enter the church after the door was opened; she was even so early sometimes that she had to wait till she could get admission.
Now Peggy did not go to church—like too many, alas― “to see and be seen,” or because it was fashionable to go. In all her religion she was in earnest; she went because she believed it was her duty as a Christian to go. The most cursory observer could have seen that she was downright zealous from the moment she entered the church till she left it. During the time the minister prayed, she―unlike the majority of church-goers nowadays, who gaze all around them hung her head, and shut her eyes all the time. In the singing of the Scotch psalms and paraphrases, too, she apparently took a hearty part. During the sermon also, instead of going to sleep, or allowing the mind to wander on to anything―like so many―she set herself to listen to every word that came from the preacher’s lips, from the giving out of the text till the end of the address. So assiduous was she in her attention that she could almost carry away in her head every sermon she heard, and tell it over again to others. The time in going home was generally occupied by her comments on the sermon and preacher to those who accompanied her. It was also her regular custom to spend the Lord’s Day afternoons reading her Bible. Like many other Bible-readers, she had her favorite chapters. The one above all others she prized was the third of John’s Gospel. She had read it so many times that she could have repeated any verse at pleasure without opening the book. In addition to all this Sunday religion of hers, her life, as far as man could judge, was unimpeachable. Honest, truthful, and obliging, she was esteemed by all who knew her.
Now with all her admirable religious and moral qualities, there was one great mistake she made about the most important of all questions, and that was the question of salvation and condemnation.
A sister in the Lord―an esteemed friend of the writer’s―who had been converted under the ministry of Peggy’s minister, took a great interest in old Peggy’s soul. She sought and found many opportunities of speaking personally to her on the subject of salvation by GRACE ALONE, but upon this momentous matter they were far indeed from being agreed. My friend tried to show her from God’s Word that all had sinned, and were therefore lost, and condemned already (Rom. 3:19, 2319Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. (Romans 3:19)
23For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (Romans 3:23)), but that Christ, in love for the poor sinner, had borne the judgment and condemnation of our sins on the cross, and that God’s claims being all met by His death, He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him in highest glory, thus expressing His perfect satisfaction with the work of atonement He had, accomplished when He offered Himself—the one perfect sacrifice for sin―to God; and that from the glory, where Christ now is, has been sent the gospel to a lost world, telling sinners that there is full forgiveness for all who believe in Christ as their own Saviour; also, that this forgiveness, and freedom from condemnation, is RECEIVED, and ENJOYED, the moment we believe.
Peggy maintained, on the other hand, that though it was quite true we had all sinned, more or less, no one could know till the “great day of judgment” whether they would be saved or condemned. She believed the eternal destiny of every one would be settled by the preponderance of their good or evil deeds. To put her idea in a simple form, as she applied it to her own case, the good deeds of her life would be put in one scale of God’s balance, and the bad ones in the other. If the good deeds were heaviest, she would be saved, and go to heaven; if the bad deeds were heaviest, she would be condemned, and consigned to an eternal hell.
Now it was this erroneous idea, so deeply rooted in her, that accounted for her strict, religious life. She was determined, so far as lay in her power, to have more good works than bad ones against the great and dreadful day when God would sit in judgment on her life.
That she had made a mistake on this important matter God Himself one day gave her to see from His own Word, and that, too, in her own favorite chapter. In reading it over one Lord’s Day, all went as usual till she reached the middle of the 18th verse, when the two words, “condemned already,” arrested her. These two words had an altogether deeply solemn sound about them that day so solemn that she could not read any further till she read the sentence containing them over again, “But he that believeth not is CONDEMNED ALREADY.” “Can it be possible I am reading it aright?” she said to herself, “for I never saw these two words there before, or if I have read them, they did not seem the same as they do this time. CONDEMNED ALREADY! can it be possible that people are CONDEMNED ALREADY!” she again exclaimed.
Long, long she had denied the solemn truth she was now reading, and fain would she have continued to do so, but she could hold out no longer, for there was the sacred, inspired, holy Word of God before her eyes, declaring in unmistakable terms that “he that believeth not is condemned ALREADY.” For the first time God’s Word had found a place in her heart, and conscience. For many long years her head had been crammed with it from the lips of a faithful preacher, and from the Bible itself; but that day God Himself was speaking to her in His Word, which made her feel as if she knew no more of that blessed book (though she had been so familiar with the letter of it) than the solemn statement she had now read in her favorite third of John, which had now carried conviction to her inmost moral being, that in God’s sight she was a sinner, “CONDEMNED ALREADY, because she had not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God,” but had been trusting alone to her good works (which she now felt to be nothing better than filthy rags) for salvation.
She was now in a state of deep anxiety of soul, which lasted for several days. Then, vainly trying to make herself more acceptable to Christ by prayers and tears, she found she was getting worse instead of better (like the woman with the issue of blood in Mark 5). She at last cast herself, as a lost, hopeless, helpless sinner, upon Christ, and there and then was received into the arms of His everlasting love—saved for time and eternity. She now learned from the same 18th verse of the third of John, that as a believer in God’s Son, she was “not condemned.”
Happy old Peggy she now was. She was not only assured from the 18th verse that she was freed from condemnation, but the 15th 16th and 36th verses of the same chapter told her that every believer on the Son “hath EVERLASTING LIFE.”
If the third of John was her favorite chapter before, oh, how much more so now. Then she read it as a duty, in the way of self-righteousness. Now she read it as God’s own message to her, assuring her of salvation already possessed, on the solid and righteous ground of the “Son of Man” having been lifted up upon the cross, to bear her sins, and meet all the claims of a holy God (vs. 14).
Now, my dear reader, one word with you before I lay my pen aside. It may be you are like old Peggy, working for salvation. If so, like her, you are making a great mistake, and the quicker you find out your mistake the better, for find it out you will, sooner or later. But take great care you do not find it out when it is too late to get it rectified for your blessing. For if you wait, as old Peggy intended to do, till you stand before the Judge, the discovery then will seal your doom forever.
You had better accept God’s just sentence now resting upon you as a sinner. You must admit you have not lived in this world till the present time without committing at least some sins. Be assured then that only ONE SIN, if not forgiven, is enough to condemn you before a perfectly holy God. But, thank God, He loved the sinner, and gave His Son to bear the judgment of our sins, that we might not be condemned, but saved. As a lost sinner, believe on Him now, and salvation is yours. J. M.