ANY years ago, it was my happy privilege to know an aged couple living in a remote village in Leicestershire. At that time Leicestershire was noted for its mud walls and cottages; and even now several of these are still to be seen standing.
My old friends lived in a cottage of this description. I think I see it now, though long years have passed away since the time I refer to. Its outward appearance presented anything but a cheerful aspect, though its whitewashed walls and cozy chimney-corner gave an air of comfort within.
The inhabitants were very poor, the old man at that time being employed on the road, and their fare was but scanty. Yet here were a couple who knew what it was to feast on royal dainties; for they communed with God.
It was a very great pleasure to me to visit that humble cottage, and one day in doing so I found the old wife alone with her Bible. The portion she was reading was Mic. 7 and one verse seemed to have given her great comfort "Feed thy people with thy rod, the flock of thine heritage which dwell solitarily in the wood, in the midst of Carmel: let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old.”
After exchanging a few words, she said to me, "Some people don't like the Old Testament, but I do; for when I read it there seems to me to be blood running down every page." I was a very young man at the time, and her words impressed me, and I have often thought of them.
My old friend was one who had been taught of God. Poor and comparatively unknown, she had been made wise unto salvation, and was rich in faith toward God. She had learned that the Bible, the Old Testament as well as the New, contained the sweet story of the grace of God, the good news of God's salvation, and had embraced it, My dear reader, have you, like my old friend? made this discovery? In reading your Bible, do you, like her, seem to see blood running down every page? It has been said, that in the Old. Testament, the New Testament lies hid, and in the New, the Old lies open. In the Old Testament we have type, and figure, and shadow. This was God's method of teaching man, and all was pointing to the cross. Man learned after he had fallen, that the only way of approach to God was by a mediator, and who could thus mediate but One Who was Himself divine?
“Not all the blood of beasts
On Jewish altars slain,
Could give the guilty conscience peace,
Or wash away its stain.”
All that these could do was to point to the cross. When man fell he cut himself off from God, and thus forfeited that relationship with his Maker which enabled him to commune with Him. By sin came death, and as a consequence, sorrow in all its varied forms.
Hence it follows that man, if left to himself, could never have found his way back to God and yet this is what he has been trying to do since the fall. Cain made the first attempt, but it was a sad failure. He bad not learned God's way of salvation as had Abel his brother, and he presumed to approach God in his own way. In his sacrifice, fair as it may have appeared, there was no acknowledgment of a Mediator.
God has made it unmistakably clear in His word, that without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. My old friend had learned this; hence when she read her Bible, she seemed to see as it were blood running down every page. The story of the grace of God in the gift of His beloved, Son is a very sweet one. None but God Himself could have devised such a plan of salvation as He has revealed in His word. Sin, which had come in and marred God's fair creation, had to be righteously dealt with ere man could be forgiven.
“Nature with open volume stands
To spread her Maker's praise abroad;
And every motion of His hands
Shows something worthy of a God,
But in the grace that rescued man
His brightest form of glory shines;
Here on the cross 'tis fairest drawn
In precious blood and crimson lines.”
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HOLY liberty! But liberty in service, not from service. Not liberty to chose and refuse, but holy liberty in obedience.