The writer met on a street car, a friend who had for many years been employed in a depot of the Bible Society. In conversation he mentioned some striking incidents that had happened during his long career selling Bibles. One in particular, he said, always stood out in his memory as the most remarkable of all.
One day a man came into the depot and producing a Bible asked what it was worth. It was one of a number which the Society had, years before, placed in a local hotel. My friend looked at it and said, "Our price is forty-five cents"! The customer replied, "Well, that may be at what you value it, but you could not buy this Bible from me for five hundred dollars.”
"That seems a big price for a forty-five cent Bible," said my friend, rather incredulously. "Why do you value it so highly"?
"I came to town not long ago to attend a hockey match and other sports, and had decided to stay at a well-known uptown hotel. When I arrived I could not go there. I knew no reason to change my plans, but felt impelled to go to another hotel, less popular and situated downtown.
"I did so, registered, and was given a room. I had nothing special to occupy myself with, so went to my room early. On looking about to see if there was any reading matter available, I saw a book on the table when I opened it and saw it was a Bible I threw it down that was not a book that I cared for. Later I picked it up again, began to look through it, and found it quite interesting. Soon, however, I laid it aside and went to bed.
"In the morning I decided to read a little more. As I turned over the pages, I noticed writing on a fly-leaf and read it. It was dated fifteen years back. The writer of the lines stated that reading the Bible had brought great blessing to his soul and shown him the way of Salvation and he strongly urged anyone into whose hands the book came to read it and they also might find blessing as he had.
"As I read this message," said the customer, "I noticed something strangely familiar in the handwriting. It was a peculiar clerkly style of writing. I studied it closely and soon realized it was the writing of my own father, who had passed away some years before. Now, I too have read that book. It has been a blessing to me for I have learned from it the knowledge of Salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. You can understand why I value it so highly. The hotel keeper has kindly allowed me to keep this precious volume for myself and I am come to buy another to place in the hotel room in its stead.”
My friend told me that the subsequent life of the customer showed the reality of his conversion. He became interested in Sunday school work and other Christian activities, seeking to win souls to the same Savior who had so wonderfully brought him to Himself.
The questions may well be asked: what led this man to change his plans? What influenced the hotel clerk from amongst the scores of rooms in the hotel to give him the very room in which lay that Bible with his father's message written fifteen years before?
There can be but one satisfactory answer to these questions: It must have been the Good Shepherd, through the Spirit of God, seeking the lost sheep, leading him to the Word of God where he learned Salvation. How the love of God shines out in this occurrence! How, too, it harmonizes with the words of the Lord Jesus as given in the sixteenth verse of the third chapter of John: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
In these and many similar passages you are earnestly invited to come, just as you are, to the Lord Jesus who died to save you and "whose precious blood cleanseth from all sin.”
To those who accept the invitation these blessings are real and everlasting. Our Lord said: "My sheep hear My voice and I know them and they follow Me and I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.”
But there is another side! What about those who reject or neglect these offers of mercy?
The word of God tells us "The wages of sin is death.”
"It is appointed unto men once to die, but after death the Judgment.”
"God hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness.”
You must meet the Lord Jesus Christ in one way or the other. Either now, in this day of grace, as your own personal Savior; or later, as your Judge, to whom you will have to give account for every act of your life and especially for the sin of rejecting Him when He offered you salvation. Which shall it be?
May God give you grace to choose Him now as your Savior, your Lord, your never failing friend!
Hark! the voice of Jesus calling
Come, ye laden, come to Me;
I have rest and peace to offer;
Rest, thou laboring one for thee:
"Take Salvation—
Take it now and happy be.”
Soon that voice will cease its calling
Now it speaks, and speaks to thee:
Sinner, heed the gracious message
To the blood for refuge flee:
"Take Salvation—
Take it now and happy be.”