(This was taken down by a Christian friend, and appeared in a Gospel Magazine forty years ago).
RICHARD W ― was a private in one of our British regiments of the line. At the time he was first brought under my notice, he was happily resting in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and endeavoring to bear a testimony for Him in the trying position of a military life. He was then a lone man in the world, if we may so speak. A true Christian is never really alone; for “The Friend that sticketh closer than a brother” never leaves him.
Richard had a father and sister living, but, through the various changes of a soldier’s life, he had lost sight of them for more than a year. As he had no one to write to him, my letters, I found, were very welcome. He gave me the following account of how the Lord awakened him from a state of total indifference.
“I was reading a novel, and as I read I could see myself in the villain’s place. He died without fear of God or man; and I thought what a fearful thing it would be if God should call me into account as I stood. I had a little text-book, which I got when in Belfast. The fifty-first Psalm was in it, and I read those verses: ‘Hide Thy face from my sins; and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.’ I prayed to God to create in me a clean heart, and to hide His face from my sins; and His loving ear was open to my cry!
“About a fortnight after this, one Lord’s day evening, I went to a little meeting in a brother soldier’s hut; and there I found I could have eternal life by believing on the Son of God. He Himself said: ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life’ (John 6:4747Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. (John 6:47)). It seemed very simple how the dear Lord revealed HIMSELF ― to me; and I was able to believe on Him as my own personal Saviour. I could see that God had laid my sins on Jesus, and that if they were laid on Him, they could no longer be a burden to bow me down. I read in His word, ‘The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin’; so I knew my sins were hidden from God, because the blood of Jesus Christ had blotted them all out, and so the Father could look in love on me. Then I could cry, ‘Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on me,’ that I should be reckoned amongst the sons of God (1 John 3:11Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. (1 John 3:1)). May He keep me at His feet, emptied of self, that my joyful experience may be, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
Richard was anxious to find his relatives, and to tell them of the Saviour he had found; and it pleased the Lord to allow him to do so very shortly before his regiment sailed for the seat of war in the distant East. He and a dear comrade in the same regiment are now bearing testimony for their Lord in that far-off field; and we trust that the God who sustained and delivered the soldier-king David in scenes of bloodshed, will protect them, and make them more than conquerors through Him who loveth us.
Now reader, what of your soul? Have you ever been under real conviction for sin? Has your heart ever been so bowed in sorrow before God, that like Israel’s convicted King, you have been made to cry, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me”? If that is your state now, may you, like the humbled soldier referred to, be brought to believe that “the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth from all sin”, you will then be reckoned amongst the “sons of God”, and become “a good soldier of Jesus Christ” (2 Tim. 2:88Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel: (2 Timothy 2:8)).
K. B. K.