John Duncan, a raw-boned youth from the country, was determined to get ahead and not settle down to the dullness of a farmer's life. How he got his education for the medical profession would be hard to say, but we do know that he was willing to do any kind of honest work to help pay his expenses. In the city where he earned his medical degree, he was not ashamed to live in an attic and to subsist on the most frugal fare. By dint of his rigid economy, ambition, and determination, he did become a doctor, and persevered in his studies and practice until he attained to great eminence as a surgeon.
Year by year, the young doctor took his vacation in his old country home. He was never happier than when breathing the air of the place of his birth. There, the friends of his early days would sometimes take occasion to consult him with their ailments, and the great surgeon on his part made a point of serving them without charge when on his vacation.
One day a neighbor lady consulted him about her sick daughter. With his usual sense of dedication he became interested in the case. When he found that an extensive and critical operation was necessary, he performed it most successfully.
The daughter was on the road to recovery when the mother asked him what his fee was. He replied that he would not depart from his usual custom when on vacation in his native area, and that he was pleased to use his skill there for any who needed it.
The mother did not like to accept his kindness. Both her pride and her gratitude forbade. So she insisted that he should let her pay something. As she pressed her point, the doctor burst forth, "Madam, if you want to pay, my usual fee for this operation is one thousand dollars. You must take your choice. It is all or nothing. Which shall it be?”
Needless to say, the woman swallowed her pride, and accepted the celebrated surgeon's skill as a free gift.
Friend, has this no parallel in spiritual matters? Indeed it has. Most thinking people recognize that they are sinners before God. They know that death has to be faced, and death without Christ is a terrible thing. "The wages of sin is death." Rom. 6:2323For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23). And death does not end all, for we read, "after this the judgment." Heb. 9:2727And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: (Hebrews 9:27).
Yet how few will submit to the humbling fact that as sinners they cannot save themselves, nor can they even help to save themselves. If saved, one must gladly acknowledge that
“Jesus did it all;
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain—
He washed it white as snow.”
So then, my reader, it must be "all or nothing.”
Which shall it be? Oh, let it be all, and then give Him, in grateful homage, your all.
“Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.”