Passing an open-air meeting not long ago, I heard a preacher say, "Perhaps some one of you may have lost a little one, and it may be that this loss was intended to take your thoughts upwards to God, and to heaven, that eternal home."
I had myself, not long before this, lost a dear little boy after a very short illness, and I did begin to think. But this thinking brought a long catalogue of "the hidden things of darkness" to my view. Call it conscience, if you will; but that man seemed to bring to mind "all that ever I did." From that hour I went about saying, like the Philippian jailer, "What must I do to be saved?"
God in His kind providence led me to a room where the gospel was preached, and though the preacher did not know me, he certainly said what just suited me. He said that if any poor sinners were there that wanted to be saved, they were to confess with their mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in their heart that God had raised Him from the dead, and that was all (Rom. 10:99That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. (Romans 10:9)). Then I found that the same Lord over all "is rich unto all that call upon Him." But I made another discovery—I found, like Zacchæus when Jesus passed through Jericho, that instead of climbing to the top of the tree to get what I wanted, I must climb down. And the Bible told me how. "The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance." Rom. 2:44Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? (Romans 2:4).
He that covereth his sins
shall not prosper: but
whoso confesseth and
forsaketh them shall
have mercy."