I was coming home on leave and thinking of nothing but the joys of getting home again. I noticed on board our ship another young officer who was also returning on leave and who always carried about with him a Bible. This seemed to be an extraordinary thing. What could he want with a Bible at all hours of the day? It is certainly not just the book that young men in general hug in that kind of way!
One day he and I happened to be together on deck. He held out the Bible and abruptly said to me, “Do you know what book this is?”
“A Bible,” I replied.
“It is THE WORD OF GOD,” he answered and said no more.
“The Word of God - the Word of God,” I repeated to myself. “Then, if that is so, it is the truth and all it says must be true.”
Several days passed without further contact, and then we met again.
“Do you believe the Word of God” was the next question he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“All of it?”
“Yes.”
“The fifty-third of Isaiah?”
“Yes.”
“The sixth verse?”
“Yes - but what is it really?”
“‘All we like sheep have gone astray.’ Do you believe that?”
“I do, and I know it’s true. I have gone astray.”
“‘We have turned every one to his own way.’ And that?”
“Yes! I have certainly turned to my own way!”
“‘And the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.’ Notice it says, ‘Hath laid - HATH LAID,’ not ‘shall lay’ at some future time. The work is done! Christ is dead and risen! Atonement was made in the shedding of His precious blood. God asks nothing more from the repentant sinner. Do you believe that?”
I went straight down to my cabin and there, alone on my knees, I poured out my heart to God and thanked Him for having laid my sins on Jesus and for having saved me.”
The change was instant, real, true - and lasting. Thirty-five years later I said to my doctor, “Doctor, there is no death for me; it is only to be absent from the body and present with the Lord - at home with the Lord. No death! No death!”
The Bible was still, and more than ever, the Word of God to me.