SHORT narratives of conversions and testimonies to the gracious dealings of God with souls are often the means of awakening spiritual desires in the hearts of others. They are welcomed, I believe, by the editor of the Gospel Messenger for this reason. Through hearing of what God has wrought for others, sinners are often made to feel how much joy and peace they are missing, and how good it would be for them also to come to Christ and receive a share of the blessing possessed by Christians.
With this end in view, a request was made during a series of gospel meetings held in Kingston, Jamaica, that the believers should write on a half sheet of notepaper an account of their conversion. These accounts were handed in and read at a special service arranged for the purpose.
After singing that well-known hymn―
“Oh, happy day, that fixed my choice
On Thee, my Saviour and my God,
Well may this glowing heart rejoice,
And tell its raptures all abroad”—
several special requests for prayer were dealt with. Christian parents asked prayer for their unconverted children; a converted wife sought God’s blessing for her godless husband; many a dear one was mentioned before the throne of grace, at the desire of some Christian relative.
The preacher then read two passages of Scripture, which he said would suffice to explain the object of the meeting. The scriptures were these: —
The two words “Remember” and “Declare” were to be the key-notes to what was to follow.
The various testimonies were then read and commented on. It may be that by placing them before a larger audience by means of this gospel magazine, they will become the Means of blessing to a still wider circle. The comments of the preacher are added after each testimony.
L. B. B. wrote: “I was converted in March 1899, during a series of evangelistic services held by Mr. A. T. Pollock at Port Antonio. Many passages of Scripture were shown to me, through which I saw the truth that Christ was the only way of God’s salvation. The passages that brought peace to me are to be found in Ephesians 2: ‘By grace ye are saved’ (vs. 5), and ‘by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God’ (vs. 8).”
It is not surprising that these verses were the means of blessing to the writer, for they speak so clearly of a present salvation, the result of God’s grace, assured to every believer. “Grace” means “favor to those who don’t deserve it,” and God’s grace is the source of every blessing that we have. Those who have tasted it can say, not that they hope to be saved one day, but that they are saved. How many here can say this of themselves?
S. K. wrote: “I was one of the chief of sinners, living in open sin. I praise God that He sought and found me. It is now sixteen years since I have known a personal Saviour. I have proved Him to be a Saviour who is mighty to save and to keep. I still need to be prayed for, for I have many temptations, and am very weak. I am just holding on to Jesus by faith, and trusting in Him alone.”
It is indeed good to be able to speak of Christ as this sister does. One may not know a great deal about Him, but the great thing is to know Him as one’s
PERSONAL SAVIOUR.
He saves once and forever. As this note says, He saves and He keeps. Amid the many temptations of life one needs a living, loving Saviour, upon whose sympathy one can always count, and upon whose arm one can always lean. Christians are just as weak in themselves after they are converted as before. They are like Jacob in Genesis 32. He had been wonderfully blessed of God, his name had been changed, and night had given place to sunshine within him as well as around him, but at the end of the story we still read, “He halted upon his thigh.” So with believers. When we come to Christ we lose our sins, we lose our misery, we lose our doubts and fears, but there is one thing we never lose as long as we are on earth. What is it? Our weakness. We need to lean hard and cling tight.
The writer speaks of “holding on to Jesus.” That is good, but I know something better still—the assurance that Jesus is holding on to me.
There was once a terrible gale at sea, and one of the sailors fell overboard. A rope was thrown to him, but amid the surging, boiling waves he was lost to sight, and no one could tell whether he had seized the rope or not. So the question was shouted from, the deck, “Have you got hold of the rope?” Clear and plain the answer came across the waves, “No, but the rope has got hold of me.” The drowning sailor had seized it, bound it around him, and knotted it fast.
Dear believer in Jesus, remember this, however discouraged you may be, He has got hold of you.
C. M. wrote: “I was a Christian by profession, but a stranger to grace and to God. I knew not the perfect love that casteth out fear. At length my soul got restless, and longed to know about Him. A real hungering and thirsting I have met many people who seem to think that possessed me. I was told that baptism was necessary to salvation, but it did me neither harm nor good; it was Christ that my soul needed. Soon after this the Lord sent His dear messengers from across the waters with the glad news of a full and free salvation. They led me to a personal acceptance of the Lord Jesus, and the knowledge of sins forgiven, that my iniquities were laid on Jesus, and with His stripes I am healed. Bless His dear, dear name!”
How easy it is to be a Christian in name only, going through a regular routine of religious observances, and yet all the while “a stranger to grace and to God.” Oh, that I could persuade every Christless professor here to go in for the personal acceptance of Christ that this note speaks of. Salvation, as the writer so truly says, is both full and free. It is full because it is not only salvation from danger and from sin, but salvation for glory. We are saved from all that we deserve, for a share in all that Christ deserves.
E. R. F. wrote: “Twelve years ago I was regardless of my soul’s salvation, and on the downward road that leads to destruction. But a young man who was as much in earnest about my salvation as the devil was about my destruction, tried all means to bring me to the Saviour. One day he handed me a bit of paper with the word ‘Ungodly’ written on it, and requested me to sign my name under it. I refused, and he said, ‘If you are not “ungodly,” Christ didn’t die for you!’ He told me to read Romans 5:6,6For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. (Romans 5:6) and for the first time in my life I found out that Christ came to save an ungodly sinner like me. I accepted Christ and was saved, and knew it. It did not take me twenty minutes to be saved.”
I have met many people who seem to think that Christ died for good people, and that if only they can be good they may claim an interest in His work. Now the exact opposite is the truth. It will be a blessed moment in your history, as it was with the brother whose note I hold in my hand, when you discover that you are ungodly, and that it was for the ungodly that Christ died.
It was a good thing that this brother had a friend so much in earnest about his soul. Would that we Christians were all of us more in earnest. We were singing the other evening—
“Time is earnest, passing by,
Death is earnest, drawing nigh.”
God is in earnest, Satan is in earnest, and if sinners will not be in earnest about themselves, let them see that by God’s grace there are some people in this city who are in earnest about them.
L. M’I. wrote: “While listening to the gospel in the tent, the truth dawned upon my soul. That night I found out that it was not my feelings that could save me, but the blood of Jesus. Just at that moment I lifted up my soul to God and asked Him to save me, and in less than a minute He answered my prayer, and I found Him to be the Sinner’s Friend.”
This is a charming testimony from our dear young friend. You know you can send a cablegram to England and get an answer back within an hour or two. A telegram to the other end of the island will bring an answer in less than half an hour, but think of sending a telegram from the sinner’s heart to the throne of God and getting a blessed answer in “less than a minute”! This is better than our brother F.’s twenty minutes. Why should not you, as you sit there, send up a message of repentance and faith to the Lord? Depend upon it, the answer would come, and you would be saved.
M. A. J. B. wrote: “I was in darkness for many years, though blessed with a Christian mother. I was trying to please God by becoming a Sunday-school teacher and a choir-singer. I was always praying for pardon, but in vain. I was a member of the ‘church,’ but not of Christ. At length some evangelists came to my district, and preached a free and full salvation through the finished work of Christ on the cross. I accepted Him as my Saviour, yet I was filled with doubts and fears for about a year. On Christmas Eve 1898 I was reading John 10, and when I got to the 27th and three following verses, the Spirit of God brought them home to my soul, and I was filled with joy and peace in believing. I cried tears of joy for the love of God to a sinner like me. I am now rejoicing in the Lord day by day, waiting till He comes.”
I notice that the writer speaks of five things that were true of her in her earlier days. She was—
Trying to please God.
Praying for pardon.
A member of the church.
A Sunday-school teacher.
A choir-singer.
All this, and yet not saved. She had never accepted Christ as her own Saviour. Even when she did, peace did not come to her soul until she saw from God’s Word what was said about the sheep of Christ —that eternal life is theirs, that they shall never perish, and that none can pluck them from the mighty hands of God the Father and God the Son. Is there any one here that lacks assurance? If you have really accepted Christ, take your Bible and see what it says of you. That is the way to get rid of doubts and fears. Christ’s work secures our salvation, God’s Word dismisses our doubts. But beware of trusting to a religious life without Christ.
W. J. F. wrote: “I lived a life that was very displeasing to God, although I was a Roman Catholic that attended Mass regularly, and thought that by doing so I could escape judgment; but blessed be God for the day of my conversion, which came about through hearing two Christians discussing the words of John 10:27,27My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: (John 10:27) &c.”
This brother also owes his blessing, under God, to the golden words of John 10:2727My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: (John 10:27) and on. That passage may well make any one desire to be one of Christ’s sheep.
A card with that text upon it was once tied to a bunch of flowers that was given to a sick girl in a hospital. As the words caught her eye she sighed. “Ah!” she said, “I wish I knew whether I were one of His sheep or not.” She turned the card over, and on the other side saw another text, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” “Thank God!” she exclaimed, “I can take hold of that. If I can’t claim blessing on the ground of being a sheep, I can claim it on the ground that I am a sinner.” And you can do the same, friends.
E.D. wrote: “I am glad to say I am saved through the precious blood of Christ, and am kept by the power of God. For twenty-three years I have trusted Him, and He is precious, and dearer every day. My conversion was brought about through the death of a child in my home, which drew me out of self to Christ, an since then I am trusting all the time. Oh, the riches of His grace. Many battles on the way, but I am more than conqueror through Him who loved me.”
One who has the blood of Christ over her and the power of God behind her is well off indeed. The apostle Peter speaks of the two things which our sister mentions as being “precious.”
“The precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:1919But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: (1 Peter 1:19)) is that which cleanses the soul and purges the conscience. It puts away our sins and redeems us to God. Then we read, “Unto you therefore which believe, he is precious” (1 Peter 2:77Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, (1 Peter 2:7)). When we are saved through His blood, it is our privilege to cultivate the acquaintance of Christ Himself, and the more we know His peerless worth and boundless love, the more precious He will be to our hearts.
B. P. wrote: “I can well remember the very first evening I got troubled about my soul. I went to a gospel meeting where the preacher spoke about the sufferings of our Lord. I saw at once what He had endured for me, and was much affected. I went home and got on my knees for hours that night, and before two o’clock I believed that I was saved, but having to leave the place, and entering on new scenes, I began to doubt, until one night I went to another gospel meeting at West Street. The preacher told how long he had dishonored God by doubting, and also told the scriptures which had set him free. So I took them to myself, and can now thank God that nothing can separate me from the love of Christ.”
We are reminded in this note of the fact that soul trouble precedes salvation and peace. I am very doubtful as to the so-called conversion of those who have never been troubled as to their sins. But when one trusts in Christ one’s trouble is at an end as far as one’s sins are concerned. There is no need to doubt one’s salvation for another moment. It would be well if all Christians realized that doubts are sinful, God-dishonoring things.
M. A. P. wrote: “About a month ago, by the blessing of God, I received salvation. Ever since then I have enjoyed peace with regard to the future, and have had a pleasant desire to attend divine worship, an absence of thirst for strong drinks and sports, and a desire to be grateful to Jesus Christ.”
Thank you, dear brother, for this testimony. You seem to be like Noah, for three things at least that you mention were true of him. In the ark he had salvation. Peace was represented by the olive leaf which the dove carried to him in its mouth. It was the token that the storm was over, and judgment passed. Then Noah became a worshipper. He returned thanks to God for His goodness.
Thank God, too, that Christ has won your heart, excluding the evil desires that may have heretofore reigned there. I have not a word to say against temperance or the pledge, but the gospel is God’s power unto salvation, and it is through Christ that we get victory over the temptation to drink. Cleave to Him, dear brother!
S. W. R wrote:
“‘Tis not the loudest voice that loudest speaks,
But ‘tis the voice of God, the still small voice;
‘Tis not the righteous man whom Jesus seeks,
But such as me the Saviour makes His choice.
‘Twas first in youth that Jesus spoke to me,
And once in sickness at the age of twelve;
But I’did not my danger fully see,
And once again I lived for sin and self.
A few years passed, and as before I heard
In far more deep affliction that same voice,
E’en in the sins to which I’d been allured;
Then came the time for angels to rejoice.
Ah, yes! God’s goodness to repentance leads;
For even then, when at my very worst,
Compelled by need, and puzzled much by creeds,
I came to Jesus, and I learned to trust.”
That is good. No wonder our brother breaks out into song. It is such a charming story he has to tell. He realized that even the angels found cause for rejoicing over his conversion. Think of the value of the soul, when the repentance of even one sets heaven ringing with shouts of joy.
C. D. wrote: “When a girl of twenty I was aroused to my sinful condition, and became very anxious about my soul and the way of salvation. I tried to be good, but could not succeed. Then I began to read my Bible, and found that I had nothing to do but to believe on the Lord Jesus. He has made me free from the law of sin and death.”
I am not surprised to hear of the failure that attended the efforts of the writer to be good. It would have been surprising if she had succeeded, for the Word of God says that the sinner is “without strength.” I have met many kinds of people in the world, but I have never yet met a person who has succeeded in being good.
If everyone would consult the Bible, as this sister did, they would find that God does not ask sinners to try to be good, but tells them that Jesus has done all the work, leaving them “nothing to do” but to trust in Him.
Several more testimonies were then read, all deeply interesting. But space forbids their reproduction, and I pass on to the last.
P. B. wrote: “In August 1901 I went to a gospel meeting at Hanover Street. The preacher took for his text, ‘How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?’ As I sat under the sound of the gospel, I saw the danger I was standing in—Hell! I needed a Saviour, and I knew the Saviour’s love. Wanting to be saved, I turned my back against that dreadful place, and trusted Jesus’ precious blood. Through faith I saw heaven’s gate opened wide, and the Saviour standing with His arms outstretched to welcome me. Immediately the words came to my heart— ‘Safe in the arms of Jesus.’
I could not leave the hall without having a talk with the preacher. We prayed, and I left rejoicing, and walked quickly through the streets to give the people whom I lived with the glad news of the Saviour’s love, and put forth the way of salvation to them.”
This is a most interesting story of conviction, conversion, and confession. Our brother realized his danger and felt his sinfulness. That is conviction. He turned away to Christ, and threw himself into the outstretched arms of infinite love. That is conversion. Then he went home to bear witness to his friends of the grace that had met him and saved him. That is confession. May many here do likewise. I am sure the writer of this letter has never regretted his conversion. That day in August last year was a red-letter day in his history!
The meeting was then closed, after prayer by three brothers. Several, deeply impressed by the testimonies of God’s saving grace that had been read, remained for prayer and conversation.
It is our earnest desire that others, too, who read these pages, may be stimulated thereby to desire a personal acquaintance with the grace of God and with the Saviour of sinners, the Lord Jesus Christ.
“In tenderness He sought me,
Weary and sick with sin,
And on His shoulders brought me
Back to Himself again;
While angels in His presence sang
Until the courts of heaven rang.
Oh, the love that sought me!
Oh, the blood that bought me!
Oh, the grace that brought me to Himself,
Wondrous grace that brought me to Himself.”
H. P. B.