“Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?”―Zach. 3:2.
HE was indeed “a brand plucked out of the fire.” I met him in a western town some time ago, and put to him an oft-repeated question, “Do you know the Lord Jesus?”
His quick and energetic reply was, as he warmly grasped my hand, “He is my Saviour!”
Is He your Saviour, dear reader? The Lord Jesus is not only a Saviour, but all who trust His precious blood are entitled to know Him as their own Saviour.
Let me tell you of his conversion, and how he first became acquainted with the Saviour. He had been rescued from the lowest depths of sin― yea, from the very jaws of hell. How matchless the grace! how wondrous the love flowing from the heart of God to poor perishing sinners!
His history had been a sad one. Drink had brought him into poverty and guilt, his wife to an asylum, and his children to the workhouse.
“The wages of sin is death,” God’s Word declares; “and after death the judgment.”
Reader, in whose service are you? Remember, if unsaved, the wages of sin which you are surely earning is DEATH.
One night he was returning home from the public-house unusually late. On his way he had to cross a railway, and, in passing over the rails, he stumbled and fell across them. Unconscious of his danger, there he lay for some hours, and slept.
My unsaved reader, you too are sleeping, heedless of Your danger, on the brink of eternal ruin. May God, in His mercy, awaken you to the sense of your danger before it is too late!
He was suddenly aroused by feeling a hand roughly laid on his shoulder, and by being quickly drawn on one side. Thinking it was a policeman, he bade him be gentle, and he would go quietly along with him. A voice called out to him to lie perfectly still, and, to his horror, the next instant a goods train rushed past, with some twenty or thirty trucks attached. He was now thoroughly sobered and awakened. Well he might be. Had he lain there another minute, his Christless soul must have been ushered into a lost eternity.
Deeply conscious of the inevitable death that must have been his, had not a kindly hand rescued him, he staggered to his home. A friend’s hand did it, you say. Be it so; it was God’s hand that was outstretched to save that poor drunkard, and pluck him as a brand out of the fire. The thought of what might have been haunted him. He could neither sleep, rest, nor go to work. God had spoken to him, and he could not close his ears to that voice. The thought of what mint have been his portion, had not a gracious hand rescued him, filled him with terror; yea, hell, with its yawning gulf, had opened its mouth upon him, and one more step would have landed him there forever. Soon after this he was brought to know the Lord as his Saviour “God speaketh once, yea twice, but man perceiveth it not.” Has He spoken to you, dear reader? Yea, how often He has. Why still turn a deaf ear to His call? While the still small voice of mercy sounds in your ears, bow to Him who speaks. Bow you must, either in time or eternity; now, as a poor guilty sinner, in repentance owning your need, and trusting in the Saviour’s blood for salvation; or then, when repentance will be too late, and remorse unavailing, for you are eternally damned. Oh! which shall it be? God waits to be gracious. “Come now, and let us reason together,” He saith; “though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isa. 1:1818Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. (Isaiah 1:18)).
Jesus, the sinner’s friend, the sinner’s Saviour, invites you. Listen to His loving call: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:2828Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)); “Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:3737All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. (John 6:37)). Delay not. Linger not, for “now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:22(For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.) (2 Corinthians 6:2)). “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”
E. E. N.