It was our custom to go out early on Sunday mornings visiting among the ships in the harbor. It was a motley congregation we had to preach to there: sailors of various nations, laborers who hung about the docks, and frequently a number of the homeless who slept out of doors and were found early in the morning near to the back doors of the bars, waiting for them to open.
Among those who came around, more to argue than to listen, were a few who confessed themselves to be socialists. They did not believe in this “religion that kept the poor man down.”
One of them, whose name was Dan, the spokesman of the group, declared that if we “were not handsomely paid for it, none of us would be there at that early hour” to preach the gospel.
Holding up his Bible in a hard and calloused hand, one of our company said, “Yes, we are handsomely paid by our Master in heaven for all that we do for Him. He is no tyrant such as is yours. He gave us salvation and eternal life for nothing, before we did a single stroke in His service. Now He gives us daily peace, and joy unspeakable, and when our service here is done, He will take us up to live beside Him in His palace home. Do you know anyone who treats his servants like that? But if you refer to the earning of our daily bread, look at these hands! They are witnesses that we earn our bread by the sweat of our brow. We work for our daily bread, and serve the Lord Jesus for nothing insofar as dollars and cents are concerned, because we love Him.”
Dan looked astonished, then said, “That’ll do!”
From that day Dan was a respectful listener to our message. His arguments were gone, for he found that we were working men and not “handsomely paid” in the sense that he meant. It was a surprise to all to see him seated in a corner of the little mission room on a Sunday evening, listening to the gospel—and more, to hear him confess with his lips that he was “all wrong, a great sinner, fit for nothing but the judgment.”
One who had known Dan for years, and often prayed for him, took his arm and walked home with him, speaking to him about Jesus all the way.
“I’m too far gone, Jamie. He can’t save me!” said Dan in despair.
The sin-wrecked man, who had faithfully served the devil for half a century, stood under the night sky with tears streaming down his cheeks and owned his sin before the great God. No sinner who reaches that point is held long in the “bond of iniquity.”