"If only we could get people to believe that the work is finished," exclaimed a preacher of the gospel, addressing a company in the open air, from the text,
But people turn away from God's message of salvation through the finished work of Christ, and vainly try by some effort of their own to obtain forgiveness and peace.
"Yes, I am quite happy now," said a young girl who had been for some time troubled about her sins; "I came to Jesus that day, I was always trying to come before."
"How did you try?" it was asked. "I tried to be good," she replied.
But this dear girl had found how useless her own efforts were, and giving up trying, took the place of a sinner before God and rested on His Word, "All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Isa. 53: 6.
At once her soul found peace, and she could rejoice in the forgiveness of her sins.
A poor girl lay on a bed in a large hospital. She had been badly injured by a machine in the factory where she worked, and now lay unable to move. A visitor, passing, stopped to speak to her, and after hearing of her suffering, asked if she knew Jesus.
"I am trying to seek Him," was her reply.
"But He is seeking you."
The poor girl seemed struck with this, and willingly listened to the story in Luke 15 of the Shepherd who went after that which was lost until He found it. Her visitor never saw her again as she was removed to her home as incurable, but a Christian woman in the next bed said she believed the poor girl had found a Savior in Him who came "to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:1010For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. (Luke 19:10)).
A lady was giving tracts among some tenement houses when one door was opened by a young woman with a baby in her arms. She took the offered tract with such evident pleasure that her visitor asked if she were interested in the things of God.
"I have not given my heart to Christ," was her quick reply. A little conversation followed, which brought out that though she had often attended open-air preachings and been impressed and even brought to think seriously about her soul, this young woman had never taken for herself the salvation so freely offered to her.
"But I must really try to," she added as she closed the door, and her visitor was obliged to withdraw with the fear that the poor woman was still resting on her own efforts and again putting away from her that salvation.
Are you trying to obtain salvation by any efforts of your own? All has been, done, and you have only to take what God so freely offers.
"Cast your deadly doings down,
Down at Jesus' feet,
Stand in Him, in Him alone,
Gloriously complete."