“I HAVE been seeking salvation for twenty-five years, and I have not found it yet,” so said a working man to a Christian friend. Now seeking is very well; but he who seeks with blinded eyes may seek forever without finding, especially if he seek in the wrong place. Who digs for coals in his back yard, or waits for diamonds to roll down the stack pipe? This seeker after salvation, earnest as he was, had been seeking in the wrong place, and with darkened eyes. “And there are so many difficulties in the Bible,” he added.
“Yes,” replied his friend, “difficulties which an archbishop cannot explain, but the gospel of our salvation is simple. God made man, man sinned against God, and so deserved punishment, but God loved man, and sent His Son, who became Man, that He might suffer for sin and bear its punishment in man’s stead. And now, since God’s Son has borne the punishment, due to sin, God can righteously forgive sinful man and still be just.”
“I have been to services over and over again, and I’m not saved,” sighed the seeker, who hardly heard what had been said to him.
“Very likely. But God does not say going to services will save us, we are saved through believing in Christ. Now, I cannot explain all your difficulties, but this I can explain; at the transfiguration of the Lord, the Father said, ‘This is My beloved Son: hear Him.’ (Mark 9:77And there was a cloud that overshadowed them: and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him. (Mark 9:7)); so that we are to attend to His words. Let us turn over to John 5:2424Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. (John 5:24).” The chapter being found, my friend said, “Will you read it?”
“He that heareth My word”― “Stop, a moment. Who did we see was the speaker at the transfiguration?”
“God the Father.” “Right, and who is the speaker here?” “Christ.” “Yes, and what does He say?”
“Verily, verily I say unto you, he that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” (John 5:2424Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. (John 5:24).)
“Then all depends upon hearing Christ’s word, and believing on the Father who sent Him?”
“It looks like it,” was the reply.
“Then will you hear? and do you believe?”
In answer to this question, like many another seeker, our friend once more wandered from the Scriptures, and so missed the point.
“My wife was a believer,” said he. “I left her well one morning; when I came home she opened the door, and then fell dead at my feet,” and then the tears came as he told the sad story, “She was a believer, and thank God is now with Christ.”
“You want to go where she is, do not you?”
“That I do,” said he.
“She found peace through believing the Lord Jesus, who died for her, and so must you.”
But the appeals were in vain; the dear workman could not see it. A fortnight after my Christian brother called upon him again, and asked him how he was getting on.
“Trying to make my peace with God,” was the benighted reply.
“Give it up, man; give it up!” cried the Christian. “The peace has been made, peace by the blood of Christ, which was shed on the cross. He said, ‘It is finished,’ and how can you try to make it in the face of His finished work? You have a picture on your wall there, which is complete. If your neighbor, the shoemaker, came along with his knife, and made for scraping off a bit of the paint, and then your neighbor, the whitewasher; brought his brush to put some color on―fancy such a scene! You would not allow such things in earthly matters. Now, Christ says of His work, ‘It is finished.’ What you have to do is to admire it, not to try to add to it.”
Still, the man could not perceive the truth. Nor can any do so, until the Holy Spirit gives the light. So he was left to think the matter over.
When he was next visited, there was evidently a great change.
“How now?” said my friend.
By way of reply the good man struck up a hymn, learned when a boy: ―
“Not all the blood of beas’s
On Jewish altars slain,
Could give the guilty conscience peace,
Or wash away the stain;
But Christ, the heavenly Lamb,
Takes all my guilt away.”
“Stop! stop I my friend; you sang that big word ALL? all my guilt away. Are your sins, then, all gone?”
“Yes, sir, all gone.”
“How?”
As his best answer he continued his song: ―
“But Christ, the heavenly Lamb,
Takes all my guilt away:
A Sacrifice of nobler Name,
And richer blood than they.
Believing I rejoice
To see the curse remove,
And bless the Lamb with cheerful voice,
And sing His bleeding love.”
For twenty-five years he had sought salvation, but not in the right way!
Have you found salvation in Christ, and through Him alone? W. L.