I was asked by some friends to speak to a young lady who was intensely unhappy. The cause of her misery was not because of any mere earthly happenings, or that she had had some special ambition in life thwarted, but because she believed that she had sinned away her day of grace. She believed that for her there was no hope of salvation, that having turned away from Christ when she might have trusted Him as her Savior, and, having chosen the world instead, she could not hope that God would offer her mercy any more.
Her relatives thought that she would surely lose her reason, and had been strengthened in this notion by a doctor, who did not understand her case, and who had advised them not to allow her to read the Bible or any book likely to accentuate her morbid condition.
She looked just as miserable as her friends said she was, but she brightened considerably when I told her that I had been looking in my Bible for a text especially for her, and had found one that would suit her case exactly.
She expected that I would turn up an obscure passage that she had overlooked, but instead I opened my Bible at the third chapter of John's gospel, and read to her the sixteenth verse,
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
A look of complete disappointment succeeded that of hope, which for a moment had brightened her countenance, and she said,
"I have read that scores of times."
"I know you have," I replied, "but you have never understood it yet. Tell me, what is it that 'God so loved'?"
"The world," she answered.
"Well," I asked, "are you in the world?" "Of course I am," she replied, somewhat impatiently.
"All right," I said, "then things are not so terrible as you imagine, for if you are still in the world there is hope for you. It is the world that God loved, and for it He gave His only-begotten Son, consequently, before you can get out of the reach of this blessing, you must take lodgings in the moon, or fly away to one of the planets, or drop down into hell."
She looked at me in a questioning sort of way for a moment, then deliberately took the Bible from my hand, and read over the wonderful words, and as she did so, the cloud of misery lifted, and that poor perplexed creature stepped into the sunshine of the love of God.
It was very sudden, and very surprising. How completely changed was her appearance as she begged the loan of my Bible (for hers had been taken from her), so that she could read over those precious words in secret, but the change was as sure, as it was sudden and surprising, for eleven years after I received a message from her reminding me of her great deliverance.
The question may arise as to how such a phenomenon can be accounted for, and my answer is in the words of Scripture,
The same words have given light and liberty to thousands, for when they are believed, then the whole outlook is reversed. It is seen that instead of God being an indifferent Spectator of the miseries into which the follies and sins of men have plunged them, He is infinitely concerned about them, and has, by His most unspeakable Gift, opened up a way by which every man and woman may be eternally saved.