On a Sunday evening in a northern seaport town a young man spoke to me just after the service, and said that a young lady wished very much to see me. I at once acceded to her request and in accordance with her wishes appointed the following evening for an interview.
Exactly at the time she appeared, and very soon the reason of her desire was seen. She told me that she had long been under a deep sense of sin. In her anxiety she had many months before gone to her minister in the South and that he had enjoined her to take the Sacrament while fasting, and regularly to confess her sins.
Instead of getting better, however, she only got worse. Her sins troubled her more than ever. Though she most religiously trudged morning after morning a great distance to early communion, her load was never lifted nor her heart cheered for an instant.
At last after a whole winter of this routine she came north at the solicitation of a friend. Here as in the South salvation was her chief concern. And here, as there, she was led away from Christ by church rites and rules.
One night, quite by accident as she confessed afterward and with no little misgiving, she came to our humble gospel hall. There in a moment the simple reading of the Scripture accompanied by a brief paraphrase of it was used of God to bring light into her soul.
"Instantly," she said, "I felt I had been on the wrong track for years. I was trying to provide righteousness for myself. Now I find in Christ my righteousness.”
Christ took the place of her own strivings; and resting entirely on Him she entered into peace.
The portion from which the message was given that night was Gal. 2:16, 1716Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. 17But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid. (Galatians 2:16‑17). Its whole drift was to shut men up to Christ only, and its conclusion was that Christ is a complete Savior, or else He is a minister of sin. Which?
This woman with all her heart said, "God forbid," to the latter alternative, and took Christ as her all.
Reader, what have you done with Him? Or, if you are undecided, what are you going to do? If you put one atom of trust in yourself, if to faith in Christ you add one good work as a ground or condition of salvation, Christ has become of none effect to you. You are maligning His redemption. You are saying it is not sufficient, when God says it is sufficient.
This woman found it sufficient. The unrest of years fled. She was at peace with God, being justified by simple faith. My reader, trust what God says is true; that is, that Christ has fully answered for you, and that you have only to accept His sacrifice to be immediately and eternally saved.