After a very precious gospel meeting in New Brunswick one morning, several remained in the hall to have a private word with the Lord's servant. Among the number was an old man whose hair was gray with the snow of many winters. He appeared very anxious, as if he wanted to be spoken to; so I said to him: "Well, Thomas, and how is it with you now?”
"I fear I'm no further on than when I saw you last," he replied.
"And why not, dear Thomas? 'What's the cause of it?”
"I don't know, I can't tell. Two years ago I was more anxious about salvation than now. I put it off, and it seems as if my day of grace is gone. Now there is no hope for me," he replied. His very face was the picture of misery and despair.
"Look here, dear friend, it was very, very solemn to resist the Holy Ghost as you did then. But I believe that though you did seek to drive Him away and drown conviction, you may be saved even now, this very morning.”
Opening my Bible I found the verse, "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." 1 John 1:77But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. (1 John 1:7). I said, "Now mark the word 'all.' It will take in your sin of neglecting and rejecting Christ, for which you are now in such despair.”
As his eyes rested on the words "all sin," light seemed to break and the darkness flee; and I really felt the old man got "peace and joy in believing." His very countenance changed its expression of bondage and sorrow to that of liberty and gladness, as he
"Rejoiced to read, with sparkling eyes,
His title clear to mansions in the skies.”
Arid now, dear reader, are your sins many and vile in the sight of God and man? If you really feel them such and are mourning over them, as was this old man, I assure you from God's own Word that the moment you implicitly trust in the blood of Jesus Christ, that "though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." The blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin. When you believe that and receive Him, then will you be able to sing truthfully,
"Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.”
"How can ye escape the damnation of hell?”
“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.”