Some time ago, I met with an incident which illustrated, in a very simple manner, the harassing question of “Appropriation.” The record of it has helped many souls, and with the hope that it may yet help many more, I am induced to give it a permanent corner in the pages of “Things New and Old.”
A dear child, in whose spiritual history I was, and still am deeply interested, was sorely troubled, for many a day, with this question, “How am I to know that Christ died for me”? He knew a great deal of truth. He was, intellectually, so clear and well instructed as to be able to detect any false statement, in a tract or lecture. He was intimately acquainted with the plan of salvation, and much interested in the subject of religion, generally. But he had no personal enjoyment of Christ. He could not see his own interest in Christ. His grand and constant difficulty was embodied in the question, “How am I to know that Christ died for me?”
However, it pleased the Lord, at length, to make use of a very simple incident to answer this dear child’s absorbing question. He was sitting beside me in my room, conversing about the matter of his salvation. He told me he felt assured that Christ died for sinners, but that he could not see how he was to appropriate Christ to himself. There was a railway time table on the wall; and at the bottom of the table appeared the following statement, “Children under six years of age travel free.” I called his attention to those words and simply said to him, “Now, if you were a child under six years, would you have any difficulty in appropriating or applying that statement to yourself? Would it not rather be a difficulty, yea an impossibility, not to apply it. Before you can refuse the application, you must prove yourself to be over six years of age. To any child under six years of age, the statement applies with as much force as though he were the only child in the world. True, you do not see your own name given in the statement; and even though your name were there, it would not help you in the matter of appropriation, inasmuch as if there were any other child of the same name, the question would be involved in hopeless uncertainty. But when you see your age, your state, your condition, you can have no further difficulty, you may refuse to take your seat, but you cannot refuse the application of the offer.”
And now to apply this illustration. I read in the first chapter of first Timothy, “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Are you a sinner? “Oh! yes;” said he, “that I am in truth.” “Well, if you are, in heart and conscience, on the ground of a lost sinner, then did Christ come to save you, just as much as if you were the only sinner in the world. You must prove yourself to be not a sinner, before you can refuse the application of the gospel message. The gospel applies itself, it is for you to believe and rejoice in the application.”
The Spirit of God blessed the illustration. The simple truth of the gospel flashed like a sunbeam on the mind of the child, and he was enabled to kneel at my side and thank God that he now knew what he had so long desired to know that Christ died for him. It was a clear, decided, unmistakable case. Speaking to a friend, shortly after, he said, “Do you know that all the devils in hell could not shake my faith, now?” “Indeed,” said the friend, amazed at this bold decision on the part of one who had suffered so much from doubts and fears, “How is that?” “Because it is founded on the word of God.” Blessed foundation! Not on feeling, not on reason not on imagination, not on assumption, but simply on the word of God. This is enough. “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; he was buried, and rose again the third day according to the scriptures.”
May the Lord bless this simple incident to many an anxious soul, and His name shall have all the glory.