No doubt you have heard of the modern professor, who, seeing a mechanic reading the Bible during his dinner-hour, said to him,
"I'm surprised to see an intelligent man like you read that Book. Why, you don't even know the writer, say, of the book of Daniel for instance."
"Do you use the multiplication table, sir?" the mechanic replied.
"Why of course," was the reply "but what has that to do with it?"
"Do you know the author of it?"
"No, of course not."
"Well, why do you use it?" the mechanic asked.
"Because it works," came the answer again.
"That's why I read this Book—because it works," said the delighted believer. The great test of all theories, remedies, or devices, is—Do they work?
Detailed explanations and a perfect understanding of them is unnecessary; if they work they are accepted and sought after.
For instance, we cannot explain or understand the process by which food becomes flesh, bone, blood, etc., or how it restores used strength and energy and maintains life. But it does, and we continue to eat and drink.
Again, the medicine some of us take; can we explain or understand how it attacks and repels the disease or malady? No, but it works, and so we hopefully take it.
So with the Gospel! The wisest sage or most holy saint cannot adequately explain or fully understand the ways of God in saving a soul; but it has worked in numberless cases, and among them, our own; so we value it and commend it to our fellow creatures, who are all in need of deliverance from sin.
The difficulty seems to be, in bringing them to realize their need. A friend of mine approached a man about his soul's salvation, but he replied,
"I'm not sick yet." He didn't feel the need of a Savior. Do you?
Whether you realize it or not, you do need the Lord Jesus Christ to save you from sin's awful power and penalty. No other can save you, "for there is none other Name under heaven... whereby you must be saved" (Acts 4:1212Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)).
All our strength, wisdom, and merit combined are no use against the forces of evil which are engulfing us. We are "without strength" and "having no hope." Our so-called and much boasted merit is really demerit, for we read,
God only can deliver a lost soul, and this He does through the atonement of His blessed Son.