A LAWYER’S clerk in London once told the writer that his duties often took him to Somerset House, where, for revenue purposes and for the sake of reference, a copy of every will made in this country is kept in Government custody. On the payment of a small fee any will there may be examined, and many are. My friend remarked that, no matter how long a will might be, he had never yet seen any one the least sleepy while he was reading it to them. Indeed, he remarked, “It is quite a picture to watch the intense interest and fixed attention while a will is being read!”
Every will is a reminder that the one who made it once had possessions which he could not keep: it is the story, short or long, of what he has had to leave. But it is a further reminder that the most interested party will one day have to do the same.
But the record of another “will” has been written; and every one interested in it is reminded that not only the blessings are unsearchable, but that he will have an “endless life” in which to enjoy them. But who are the interested parties, and where are they to be found?
“All men, everywhere,” that believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. How did they come to believe when so many others do not? Finding that they could not possibly rely on any alteration in themselves to procure a fitness worthy of God’s requirements; discerning that there is only One Who can lay claim to such personal fitness, and that One the Lord Jesus Christ; hearing that all who, in self-condemnation, turn to Him, they gladly did so with confidence. Believing on Him God declares them to be accepted (taken into favor) in the Beloved (Eph. 1:7), made “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ” (Rom. 8:17); and “blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 1:3).
In Romans 8:35-39 the Spirit of God raises an important question, and answers it; “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?... Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
And is my reader not to be interested in such a matter? There is a moment at hand when all that your eye can see will have to be parted with. Have you anything unseen and eternal? Is it not a matter of the utmost moment that a portion so illimitable and everlasting should become yours? You cannot merit it by your goodness, but you may miss it through your unbelief.
It is not by self-amendment, and relying on it when you think you have reached it, but by self-condemnation and relying on Him. Only thus is the blessing reached, and the heart made satisfied with its eternal portion in Him.
Is not all this enough to keep you awake until you know for certain that all your liabilities have been met in the death of Jesus, and your fortune secured in the glorified Christ?
GEO. C.