MRS. F― was the widow of a city police constable, a tall and rather severe looking woman, a churchgoer and upright in her dealings. In order to increase her small income and to help support her younger son who was suffering from consumption she took in men lodgers. One day a copy of “Grace and Truth,” by Mackay, was given to her by a Christian friend, and she laid it on a table in her sitting-room. One of her lodgers was a young man about twenty years of age, a solicitor’s clerk, and very recess and worldly. He happened one day to see this book; and as it was a very wet, cold Sunday in November, and he had nothing to do, he started to read it. The first chapter on “No difference” annoyed him and he felt like flinging the book across the room: however, he put it back on the table where he had found it, but could not get the words he had read out of his mind. Later in the day, when walking up and down the room, thinking what a foolish man it was who had written that there was “no difference, for all had sinned and come short of the glory of God,” he heard in his mind a voice which said, “Go to the chapel where you went to the watchnight service.”
Full of wonder, he decided to go to the evening service, and was startled when the minister stood up to preach and said, “My text tonight is found in Rom. 3 verse 22 and 23, ‘There is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.’” He listened intently to the preacher’s discourse, and before he had finished, the young man was thoroughly convinced that he was a sinner, and that Christ had paid the price of his redemption. He lifted up his heart, and from the depth of his soul said, “Lord Jesus, I receive Thee as my Saviour.” The service closed and he sat still in the pew during a brief after-meeting, and then went straight home to his lodgings. He found Mrs. F― in the kitchen getting ready the supper, and at once said to her, “Oh, Mrs. F―, I have heard a wonderful sermon tonight, and I’m saved!” She turned towards him with a stern look on her face and exclaimed, “What, you saved! and you have not been good one day! Why, I have been good all my life, and I can’t say that!”
He tried to tell her what he had heard, but she said it was presumption and would not hear any more. She was about 70 years of age and quite sincere in her belief, but alas deceived, for in that same chapter of Romans, vs. 12, God says, “There is none that doeth good, no, not one,” and in Isa. 64:6,6But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. (Isaiah 64:6) “We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.”
My dear reader, to what are you trusting for salvation?Perhaps like Mrs. F― your life has been tolerably good compared with others, but you cannot surely think that this will enable you to stand in the presence of a thrice holy God; and like her, in spite of a good life, you cannot say that you are “saved.” No! “Salvation is of the Lord.”
P.G.T.