There lived some years ago a dear aged Christian woman who was accustomed daily to hang a text of Scripture over her fireplace, where she and her friends might easily read it, and be benefitted thereby. Words of gospel and coming glory often thus gladdened the Christian’s heart, as she moved about in her humble home doing her work, and if others called, she was not slow to point them to the Words of God, and seek to press them home upon their hearts.
A gaily dressed young woman called, asking if she could be accommodated for a week in her room. She represented herself as the daughter of a city merchant in search of health.
As the Christian woman rented her room to any respectable visitor, arrangements were made. The “signboard” as she called her daily text, and always hung above the fireplace, seemed to attract the visitor’s attention, but for the first few days she said nothing about it. No doubt the texts for all of that week were given through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, as they were all of a searching character, telling of sin, and its judgment, and of the sinner’s doom and destiny.
The Spirit of God used them to awaken the young woman, who, as it afterward came out, was a runaway from a Christian home. She had been often troubled about her soul’s welfare, and in order to escape her Christian parents continual reminders of God and Eternity, she had left home suddenly. God had followed her to that lonely spot, and had His messenger there, and His message awaiting her. She could no longer conceal her state, but told Grandma her whole story. The aged Christian spoke to her of Jesus the Saviour, and told her how He had saved her many years before.
The Lord used the earnest words of the happy saint to bring the troubled and unsatisfied young woman to cast herself. upon Christ, and she had the joy of seeing her converted.
She returned home a new creature in Christ, and confessed Jesus as her Lord. Now she lives to serve Him, and adorn His doctrine, and often visits Grandma in her humble home, where she was first arrested by the Text on the Wall.
Reader, have you ever looked God’s truth full in the face, and allowed it to search you? You must one day; now, or in the judgment. Your sin will find you out. You cannot hide it from God. You must either have it forgiven now, or it will be punished in eternity.
Now, God in grace is proclaiming a full and free forgiveness through His Son.
ML 03/03/1940