Within an hour Jose' Dias was due on board the freighter. There was nothing to indicate that this voyage would be any different from the many others he had made in her. A steward's job does not provide much excitement, and the regular trip to the West African ports can become pretty dull and monotonous after a time.
He sat in the humble living room of their neat little home not far from the Lisbon docks, while his wife busied herself gathering together the clothing he would need for the four or five weeks he would be at sea. Casually he picked up a book that lay beside the sewing machine on a little table. "Christian Readings"— a religious book, evidently, by the title. Well, he was forty years of age now, and had knocked about the world too much to bother about religion. If all Christians were like his mother, there might be something in it. It was years since he had seen her, though she never failed to write to him, and he knew that she always prayed for him. It was good to have a mother like that. What a pity that his boat did not cross the Atlantic sometimes, for then there might have been opportunity of putting in at Bermuda, where his parents had settled.
He started reading the book just where he had opened it. Suddenly, like a blow between the eyes, the words hit him: "So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God." He had always been careful about keeping strict accounts with his mates, but here was a fact that he had never faced before—the day was coming when he would have to settle up with God. He was like a man who has been quietly walking along a mountain path and, turning a corner, is confronted by a precipice at his very feet.
His wife, glancing up at him, saw that something was the matter, and asked him what was wrong. He replied evasively, but asked her to put a Bible in his kit-bag.
He made his way to the ship, his mind altogether preoccupied with the one dominating thought that he would have to meet God, that he would have to answer to God about his sins. His sins...! Immediately his mind commenced to review the past, and a feeling of horror possessed him.
Once on board, he sought the first opportunity of reading the Bible he had brought with him. But everywhere he turned, it seemed that he could find nothing but condemnation. "Be sure your sin will find you out." "The wages of sin is death." He could not sleep, and tossed in his bunk in an agony of dread. Nor did the morning bring relief, and so great was his distress that he could not eat, but sought a quiet corner of the deck to search the Scriptures, where every sin he had ever committed was written down in terms of judgment.
The other members of the crew counseled him to throw the Bible overboard, or he would go mad, they said. But he dared not do that, although its pages prostrated him in terror of the hell that awaited him. Days went by, and his anguish of spirit increased. There seemed to be no hope for him; no light at all for such as he.
Then one day he discovered the verse—"All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith they shall blaspheme." Here was a promise from the lips of the Savior, and laying hold of it, he found a new and wonderful peace. He resolved that as soon as his boat returned to Lisbon, he would seek someone who could explain the way of salvation.
His first evening on shore was spent in a gospel meeting, and it was there he learned that the "blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin." He wrote to tell his saintly old mother that her prayers had been heard, and gloriously answered.
God can save us at all ages, and in any place, irrespective of our nationality. He can use a few words in print to tear the veil from our eyes. He can use even this brief story to bring the reader face to face with the realities of eternity.
"The word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Heb. 4:1212For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12).