HE was very ill in bed―indeed incurably so. I knew nothing about his past life. The doctor said he could do him no good, so very seldom came to see him. I could see how very poor he was, and heard from the lips of his wife that she had a struggle to get food and clothing, and meet the house rent.
I asked my new acquaintance about his eternal destiny, about his sins of a long life, and the awful consequences of passing out of time into eternity unforgiven.
In answer to these inquiries of mine he replied, “Will God shut any person out of His presence forever, and consign him to an eternal doom forever, because of his sins?”
I replied, “God does not desire to shut any person out of His presence, and consign him to the lake of fire for his sins. On the contrary, God has given His Son to die on the cross for sinners. His love in no unmistakable way has been told out to the sinner in the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ, who took the sinner’s place. God could not pass by the sins and say nothing about them, so the Lord Jesus has died that God’s righteous claims might be met. But for those who refuse the gospel we read, How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?’”
From that moment the dear man seemed to look at things in a different light altogether. The devil had persuaded him, I expect, for many a long year that God was against him. Now he saw that God was for him. He has given “His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)). God is against our sins, but not against the sinner.
Our aged friend thanked me for calling, and said how pleased he would be to see me at any time. I called again and again. He was very much troubled about his sins, so much so that he would weep and express an earnest hope that God would have mercy on him, and save him at the last. Poor man, no doubt he was thinking a great deal of his past life, which I myself did not know until after his death. Although living in the same house as his wife, they had held no conversation one with the other for two years. He frequented the public house, squandered his money, and ill-treated his wife. Perhaps you will say that such an old sinner ought to have died in his sins. Of course I admit that he could claim nothing from God on his merits, unless it was the just and eternal consequences of his sins. Nor could you, my dear unknown friend; we are all shut up to God’s mercy.
I remember on one occasion asking him if he knew the Lord Jesus as his Saviour. He answered me in a way that is very common. He replied, “Yes, I know he is our Saviour.”
I asked him if he could alter that little word “our” to the little word “my.”
“Oh!” said he, “I am afraid I cannot.”
He knew God was good, and that He would not reject him, but he felt it would not do for him to make so bold as to claim the Lord Jesus as his own personal Saviour.
I pressed upon him over and over again the necessity of decision. I told him that the Lord Jesus would receive him with open arms if he would come to him as a poor, vile, and good-for-nothing sinner, and before leaving he trusted the Lord in this happy, simple way. The echo of the heavenly music was heard in that little bedroom. He sang as well as his feeble frame would allow him―
“O happy day! O happy day!
When Jesus washed my sins away.”
Our aged friend has now gone to be with the Lord, but I ask you, Are you rich toward God? Can you look up and say the Lord Jesus is my Saviour? Can you put yourself amongst those for whom that wonderful stoop of grace was made, and are you made rich for eternity? Do not rest till you can say so.
W. G. B.