Some time since, the Lord sent me to preach the gospel at B—. There was to be a large volunteer review, which would be an attraction for thousands of people, and afforded also a fine opportunity for open air preaching and tract distributing. Many were looking to the Lord for special blessing, who fulfilled His faithful Word, "ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be full." Amongst those who received blessing ("Blessed is the man whose iniquities are," not, will be, "forgiven") was an old man of seventy years and upwards. He had gone there to visit some relations and see the review. One of his friends, who was a child of God, persuaded him to go and hear the preaching. It wasn't much in his line of things, still he went. After it was all over he hurried off, and said to his friend outside, "You've been telling the preacher all about me." She had not; but God had been giving His servant the right words, which were fixed and fastened by the Holy Ghost on the old man’s heart, and, oh, blessed sight, he was brought to "repentance towards God." "There is joy in the presence of the angels of heaven over one sinner that repenteth.”
The following day the realities of sin, judgment, and hell were so pressing upon him, that he had no desire to see the review. The things seen and temporal had been displaced by the things unseen and eternal. He came to see me, for there were difficulties in his mind. He believed all the Bible, and that Christ died for our sins, and so on, but he could not say that his sins were forgiven. Well, seeing there was a real work in his soul, and knowing that "He who hath begun a good work in you will perform it till Jesus Christ’s day," my endeavor was to get him there and then to appropriate Christ as his own personal Savior, so we turned to Rom. 4,—"Christ was delivered for our offenses," showing clearly that He was there for offenses not His own, because he could have had none. Then why?
“Oh, why was He there as the bearer of sin?
If on Jesus thy sins were not laid;
Oh, why from His side flowed the sin-cleansing blood,
If His dying thy debt has not paid?”
"This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." Who? Sinners! Jesus came not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance, and he was just the very man, a repentant sinner! After a little more talk things got clearer and clearer, and he exclaimed, "I always believed that Christ was delivered for our offenses, but I never saw till now that Christ was delivered for my offenses, and raised again for my justification," and tears of joy and gratitude ran down his wrinkled face. He soon afterward went to his friends in C— and told them "how great things the Lord had done for him, and had had compassion on him," and has since, not only with his lips, but also by his life, brought glory to God, his Father.
And now, dear reader, just a few plain, pointed words with you. Let me affectionately ask, has the question of sin ever troubled you, ever pressed upon your soul? God, who has been watching you, hath declared that "the wages of sin is death," and "commandeth all men everywhere to repent." Do not try and ease your conscience by the fact that others are worse than you, for this was the spirit of the self-righteous Pharisee who said, "God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, adulterers, &c.;" nor think that "turning over a new leaf," and "doing better for the future" will blot out from before God the past. If you talk like this, it is evident you do not believe that "the wrath of God abideth on you." But listen, now, and do be wise; take the place He gives you in His Word, as "shapen in iniquity and born in sin" (Psa. 51), unable, too, to help yourself, because it is written, "a corrupt tree cannot bear good fruit;" so bow to His verdict concerning you; do not make vain attempts to become better, but "become guilty before Him" (Rom. 3); then will you find that God has a heart filled with love and compassion; having given His Son to die, "the just or the unjust," is fully satisfied with His "finished work," and sin being put away, and justice satisfied, He now waits to make Himself known to you "as a just God and a Savior.”
H. T.