Upon reaching home he learned the way God had sent him help. But a greater hunger was awakened within him, a heart-longing that bread cannot satisfy, and as he sank down into his chair he looked straight into eternity, asking himself, again and again, “Do you know Jesus? Do you know Jesus?”
Then he took from his pocket a tract the young man had given him, and read it till, his weary eyes could read no more, after which he made his wife’ read it to him till her lips were tired. The dying sinner’s end it related loomed before him as his coming doom, and John trembled with the dread realities of death and judgment before his soul.
Thus a few days passed by, his darkness deepening; his fears growing greater. One evening, the young man who first met John had, as it were, a word from God, bidding him go upon his knees and pray for the sick man he had casually met in the street. So he shut himself up in his room that evening, and cried to God for the stranger’s soul.
It was the same evening that John said to his wife, “Some one is now prang for me, I am sure—I feel it.” And he began to think of Jesus dying on the cross for guilty rebels, and as his soul went out in thought after the Lamb of God, a kind of vision appeared before him, and in the corner of his room he saw, vividly, the Saviour nailed to the cross.
The lesson was from God, clear, unmistakable. John looked to Jesus by faith, he believed that He died for sinners, that His blood has made a full atonement for sins, and in a moment the burden of his guilt was lightened—be knew Jesus, he was saved!
While relating this marvelous story, the tears of joy running down his cheeks, he said, “I cannot understand it at all—I cannot make it out. Mercy for me! What does it mean? There was I, living without God, and even while laid up in this sick room I would spend my hours over the newspapers or idle tales, and so I went on until that day when my dear friend met me. To think that, after sinning against Him all my life, God should have met me with His mercy, and the very last time. I was able to walk out! Oh, it is wonderful! There! I cannot make it out!”
“What! are you indeed saved for eternity, just at the last hour?” said one astonished at the change. “Consider your past life.” But John’s bright answer was; “He cannot lie. He says, only believe; He says, I will in no wise cast out. Yes, there is mercy for me—even me.” Reader; have you like precious faith?
“There has been no fretting since that last walk,” said his wife, “and it always used to be, ‘Oh, that I could get out into the street!’” With a face beaming with heavenly joy, he added, “I used to sit in this chair by the window, watching the children play, until I fairly cried; but now I turn my back to the street and look up into that dear corner of the room, and think about my blessed Jesus. No more crying to get out into the street, for me. I have Jesus now!”
There was one amongst his unconverted friends whom John was particularly anxious to see. “Well, John, how are you getting on?” said he. John smiled, and clasping the strong man’s hands with his wasted ones, replied, “I am so happy; I am so happy. I am going to heaven, Teddy, and you can tell my friends so. Oh, that I had known before what I know now! Oh, that I had known Jesus earlier, and had not spent my life as, alas, I have done! What is all this world worth when compared with my present peace and joy? Ah, Ted,” he continued, still grasping his hand, and still gazing fixedly-upon him, “You will have to come to this! Are you ready? Are you ready?”
As he was sinking he asked for a hymn of praise. His friends began the hymn, “I believe I shall be there.”, “I know I shall,” interrupted he.; “there is no doubt about it—none. I know I shall, for Jesus loves me, and I love Him.” Then asking for a book, he said, with a. smile, “I can sing, too,” and so he did, his voice rising above theirs.
Come, ye scoffers, behold the light of heaven shining into the humble room of this dying man! Inquire, ye reasoners, whence it is that death is to him a longed for hour, and find your answer in his faith—faith in Him who died upon the cross, and who now is at the right hand of God. Stand beside his armchair; look at the fading countenance; watch the sunken eye, the distended nostril, the matted hair; see the thin, pale hands, with the bones piercing the skin, and hear his memorable words— “They tell me I am going to die; they say they must see me off; they want to watch me go; but I tell them (and this he said with triumphant smiles) I shall not die. Oh, no, I shall not die, I shall just fall asleep. There is no death for me, for I am going to Jesus.”
ML 09/24/1899