“I HAD been drinking for weeks, and was bordering on ‘delirium tremens,’ when God awakened me to a sense of my danger, of dropping into hell-fire. I shall never despair of God saving a man, even when he is dead drunk, after myself.
“Though I had been a drunkard for years, continuing incessantly for four and six weeks at a time, I have been an abstainer ever since, without signing the pledge; and what is more wonderful still, God took the drunkard’s craving from me at the first, and, by His grace, it has never returned.”
The above testimony to the marvelous power of God’s grace over a poor drunkard came from the lips of one who is now a dear Christian. He joyfully related to the writer the way in which God broke in on him―in his hell-bound course―and saved his precious soul.
In the hope that God may use it for blessing to others, and bring glory to the worthy name of Him, whom man in derision called the “Friend of publicans and sinners,” the story of W— ‘s conversion is sent forth in these pages.
Along with other companions, when very young he took to drinking in moderation. Very soon the craving for strong drink was formed; and before he was twenty he was a confirmed drunkard. Through this he lost his work, and had to leave his native place to go on tramp. After tramping and working over the greater part of the south of Scotland and north of England, he came at last to work in a town in his native country, and stayed with his two sisters who resided there. It was while there that God stopped him in his sinful course, by saving his soul in the following way.
His life there had just been a repetition of the past. A few weeks’ working and drinking alternately. On one of his drinking turns―the last, thank God―which had lasted for about four weeks, he had come home each night stupidly drunk, to be aroused in the early hours of the morning by a most awful craving for drink―a craving only known to the poor drunkard―leading him sometimes with boots unlaced, and waistcoat unbuttoned, to the door of the public-house hours before it was opened.
This, then, was his condition, when God in a most dreadful-yet merciful way-aroused him one morning from his sleep of drunken stupor-not with the craving of drink as on previous mornings―but, to behold the very “hell-fire,” to which he was fast hastening. Its lurid flames seemed to be leaping up into his very bedroom, as if anxious to embrace him in their terrifying grasp. Then the thought that he was dying took possession of his mind, which made him think his body was swelling out of all proportions, and would rapidly reach the region of his heart and kill him. His agony was beyond all description. He trembled from head to foot, making his bed shake like machinery in motion. The sweat, too, poured from his body till his bed was drenched. GOD―his SINS―DEATH―and the HELL that was yawning before his opened eyes, were becoming every moment more dreadful REALITIES, till all control of himself became lost, when he shrieked out in a most unearthly manner for God to have mercy on him.
His sisters, who were aroused from their sleep by his wild scream, rushed, terror-stricken, into his bedroom, to ascertain the cause of his agony. “What’s wrong with you?” they exclaimed. “Oh! I’m dying! I’m dying I And there is HELL! Do you not see it? I’ll be in it directly.”
“Oh! you drunken fool, frightening people in this way, at this hour of the morning. It’s just the effects of your heavy drinking. We thought it would come to something of this kind,” said his sister.
“It’s not drink! Look how my body is swelling! It will be up to my heart in half-an-hour, and kill me I And―look! ―look!!― Hell is just waiting for me!” Then, with another awful shriek, which made his sisters flee from his presence, he implored God to have mercy on him, and keep him from dying, and he would never taste drink again, and he would become a Christian.
He kept on shrieking, groaning, and trembling, while he felt the swelling rising, until, he believed, it had almost reached the heart. Then, just when he thought the fatal moment at hand, he got the sense that his cry for mercy had been heard, and that God would now preserve his life. Gradually he felt the swelling subside till he was able to rise out of bed.
He now betook himself to the Bible, reading it more as a duty at first, as he believed being a Christian consisted in reading the Bible, abstaining from drinking, swearing, and other bad habits. This he tried for some time, and though he succeeded in a marvelous degree in the judgment of others, he felt anything but satisfied with himself. He felt his outward reformation still left him with a deep sense of his unfitness for the holy presence of God. He saw, if he were to face death again, he was no more fit for it than before, as the sins of his life had never been forgiven, though God, in His mercy, had prolonged his life.
It was the forgiveness of his sins, that was now the momentous question with him. How a righteous God could forgive and save an unrighteous, unholy, and ungodly sinner like him, was a problem he could not solve. He saw it was as IMPOSSIBLE for his late life of reformation to blot out his past life of sin, as it would be to clear off a debt already contracted, by carrying out a resolution, not to go one penny deeper into it. Here, then, was his difficulty, and until he got a God-given answer, he could find no peace to his guilty conscience.
During his few weeks of reformation he was regarded as a real Christian by almost everybody but himself. They concluded, by the great change in his walk and conversation, that he must be saved. During these weeks too, he had been attending mission and other religious meetings, and making only Christians his companions. Even at his work his unconverted fellow-workmen looked on him as one professing conversion, and the striking change in his life led them to think there was reality in it.
Thank God! this uncertain state of things for him had its limit. God had in store for him the very thing he longed for. God, who never errs, allowed him to pass through this ordeal for his ultimate good, as it would be false kindness to give an anxious soul a false peace based on a false foundation.
Previous to finding true peace he had been reading the Bible, not, as at first, as a mere duty, but to get divine light on the question of divine forgiveness, and God―blessed be His name―led him to the very portion bearing on that all-important subject. The Scripture he was led to was Romans 4:25, 5:1.
“He (Christ) was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have PEACE with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
In these two verses his whole difficulty was solved, His sins, which were offenses against God, Christ had been delivered up to death for. Here he saw how God had dealt with them, putting His own, Son to death for them. In raising Him from the dead, we have the undeniable proof that God, being fully satisfied with the death of Jesus in the sinners stead, can now righteously forgive and justify the sinner who believes in Christ. Grasping, thus the way that a holy, righteous God could be just, and yet save and justify an ungodly SINNER, his soul entered by faith into solid “peace with God” as suited in verse 1 of chapter 5.
Now he was a REAL Christian—inwardly as well as outwardly—carrying about with him the blessed ASSURANCE that he was really forgiven, SAVED, and justified by God Himself. His assurance was based upon the unchangeable “Word of God,” and his peace on the unchanging value of the death of Christ—the ONE great sacrifice for SIN (Heb. 10:9-199Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. 10By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. 11And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: 12But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; 13From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. 14For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. 15Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before, 16This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; 17And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. 18Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. 19Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, (Hebrews 10:9‑19)).
From this time he became a perfect enthusiast It the Lord’s work. His heart, overpowered with the sense of God’s grace to a sinner like him, and the deep realization of the sinner’s danger of the HELL of which he had had such a sight, made him speak to almost everybody he met. And God used the heart-bubbling zeal of the young convert to awaken and lead sin-burdened sinners to his new-found Saviour.
Many years have passed since God first lavished His love and grace upon W―, during which time the REALITY of His work in his soul, from the morning when God awoke him from his drunken Stupor, has been distinctly manifested.
If my reader be a drunkard, may God also give you to see your AWFUL DANGER of HELL-FIRE. Or if you do see it, and would like to be saved from ft Now, then take courage, God’s grace can Meet ‘you and SAVE you just as you are. It was not W― ‘s reformation that saved him. It was Christ, who died in his stead for his sins. If you, as a helpless sinner, trust Him now as your Saviour, He will blot out all your past life of sin, and save you for time and eternity.
But, perhaps, the reader may be one who has never even tasted drink in his life, and who pities the poor drunkard whom he sees going headlong to a drunkard’s hell. Yea, you may be one of those who spend your time, talent, and money in the “temperance cause.” By your efforts many a poor drunkard may have been reclaimed from a life of wretchedness to a respectable position in society. Now, do not think we want for a single moment to make little of such good work for the good of our fellow-men―far from it, rather would we encourage it. But in all affection for your precious soul, let us ask you one question, Has there been a moment in your history when You “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)). In other words, as you stand under the eye of a holy God, can you say your OWN sins are all forgiven YOUR sins need to be forgiven as truly as the drunkard’s, though your list may not be so long and black as his. One single sin unforgiven is enough to keep any one out of heaven forever, and who can say, in the face of “God’s Word,” “I have not committed ONE sin.” In Romans 3:2323For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (Romans 3:23) we read, “ALL have sinned.” Oh! then, reader, you need God’s forgiveness, if you have not yet received it. But, thank God! you can have it now, on the self same ground as W―the drunkard―on the ground of Christ’s death as a sacrifice for sin. “Be it known unto you... that through this man (Christ) is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe are justified from all things” (Acts 13:38, 3938Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: 39And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses. (Acts 13:38‑39)).
J. M.