Unwanted Gospel Tract

Is God A Policeman?

Bob, give me the paper,” said Bill Lawson, an engineer, to the newsboy at a train station. Bob, the newsboy, had been recently converted to God. In his new-found happiness he was anxious to share his joy with others. “I’ll give you a paper,” was his answer, “if you promise to read this tract.”

“Tract! I don’t want any such rubbish,” and Bill walked away.

At their next meeting the engineer made the same request, and got the same reply. A third time Bill asked for a paper, and when he heard the same answer he said to Bob, “You really want me to read it?”

“I sure do, Mr. Lawson.”

Taking the tract, Bill finally said, “Well, then, I’ll try it.”

When they next met Bob’s first question was, “Did you read that tract?”

“I did―and I never read anything like it before! I always thought God was like a policeman with a club in His hand trying to arrest me and beat me up. Now I see that He loves me! If He is such a loving God, then I want to know and love Him!”

Many, like Bill Lawson, imagine that God is like a policeman pursuing them to shut them up in the prison of hell. What a perversion of the true character of God!

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Adapted from His Riches.

Unafraid to Die

The Doctor’s Discovery

Albert was the son of Christian parents. During his early childhood he had been taught the Word of God and taught to fear of the Lord. In college he met a student who called himself an atheist and Albert soon became an atheist also. Eventually he became a skilled and popular physician. But his heart was cold toward God.

Albert spent twenty years ignoring God. However, he experienced many misgivings. This was especially true when he remembered the happy Christian lives of his parents, or heard the dying words of some of his patients as they entered eternity in peace, confessing their faith in Christ and their certainty of being in heaven.

Late one afternoon the doctor was called to see a new patient, a man saved and heading for heaven.

“Tell me my true condition, doctor; don’t hide it from me. I have no fear of death, no dread of the future. Forty years ago I came as a sinner to Jesus; He saved me and has kept me happy in His love ever since. It will be the grandest day of my life when He sends for me to live with Him.”

The doctor was touched by his patient’s statement. It was not the wanderings of insanity. It was not the daydream of a visionary. It was the calm, sober statement of a man of faith waiting on the borderline for the appointed hour that would usher him into the presence of his Lord.

Delighted to Go Home

The doctor examined his patient and, contrary to his usual custom, he told the whole truth: “You may live a day, or you may go within an hour.”

“Praise the Lord,” was the calm reply, “Open up the blinds; bring in the boys; tell the men in the factory to come in. I want to spend my last breath in telling them of Jesus.”

The doctor could stand it no longer. He hurried away, and in fifteen minutes was in his office alone with God.

“There is a reality in being saved after all,” he said to himself. “My mother used to tell me so. That dying man knows it, and has the power of it in him. I can’t doubt it.”

A terrible struggle in his soul followed. For weeks the doctor was not

Those who had so well known his atheistic principles stood in wonder, some in scorn.
“at home.” He took a sabbatical. When he returned to his practice he was a different man―a man saved by God’s almighty grace: calm in spirit, gentle as a child.

He had met with God, met Him at the cross where as a sinner he cast him- self on His mercy, claiming forgiveness and salvation through the merits of the blood of Jesus alone.

His conversion became the talk of the town. Those who had so well known his atheistic principles stood in wonder, some in scorn. This was hard to bear, but it served to show him his place as a stranger, rejected by the world as was his Lord. Grace triumphed, and for many years the doctor carried on his profession and guided many a sick and dying sinner to the Saviour.

There is a reality in being saved. “Jesus said: “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly”(John 10:10).

 

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Adapted from His Riches.

Personal Work Prepares the Ground

“After This”

“How silly to put a thing like that up there! Some of that tent preacher’s work, I guess, and just like him. I wonder if he thinks that will do anyone any good. Come on, Beth; I wouldn’t stand and read any such rubbish.”

The two girls had been walking together when they noticed a small white board fastened to the trunk of a tree. On it were printed the words: “AFTER THIS THE JUDGMENT.”

The other girl stood reading the short phrase over and over again. Her friend, losing patience, called out again, “Come on, Beth! If you stand there much longer you’ll be converted!”

“I wish I were, Nancy,” said the girl wistfully as she rejoined her companion.

“What makes you say that, Beth? I’m sure you don’t believe in tent meetings and singing at street corners. You enjoy having fun too much to join with that kind of thing.”

She said she didn’t need to go to parties and entertainment events to make her happy; she had Christ.

“You’re right, Nancy. Still, I’m not always happy. I do stay awake many nights thinking about the hereafter, and I can’t help it. In spite of having fun all evening, my conscience troubles me when I go to bed. I can’t help thinking of the eternal future.”

Nancy was amazed at the turn the conversation had taken, and listened silently as her companion went on: “I once worked in the same room with a girl who was a Christian. I can never forget her―nor some of the things she said to me. She said she didn’t need to go to parties and entertainment events to make her happy; she had Christ.

“You can’t imagine, Nancy, what a sweet girl she was. She said those same words to me that are on the tree: After this the judgment. It made me think of her when I read them, and I wish I could be as sure as she was of being ready for eternity.”

Separate Ways

The girls came to the corner where they had to separate. With a relieved and hurried “good night,” Nancy went one way and Beth the other.

Beth knew full well that she had to meet God, and that she was unprepared. She lay awake for a long time that night; sleep just would not come. In time with the slow ticking of the clock, the dreadful words throbbed through her mind: “After this the judgment.”

How she longed for the next night to come! She made up her mind to go to the tent in spite of Nancy’s ridicule. But that was a long time to wait. What if death came before? Just then a verse of a hymn she had heard came to mind:

Just as I am, without one plea,

But that Thy blood was shed for me,

And that Thou bidst me come to Thee;

O Lamb of God, I come.

Beth repeated it aloud and the Lord listened and heard. He knew the longing heart that would trust herself wholly to Him, and in His love and mercy He banished her fears and doubts. Peace came to her troubled spirit.

The following night she went to the tent meeting and heard the words: “He that believeth on the Son [Jesus] hath everlasting life.” This gave her intelligent assurance of her salvation, and with confidence in God’s saving grace she gave witness by her life that she now belonged to the Lord Jesus.

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Adapted from His Riches.

Saved By His Own Sermon

 His Stripes

The man was very ill, in fact, near death. Several times his clergyman had been to see him. He had read to him prayers for the sick, and told him what a great sinner he was. But the clergyman himself did not know God’s great love to sinners, so all he said only made the poor man more miserable.

These visits had been repeated several times, but the sick man had received no comfort; he could only moan about the weight of his sins.

One morning he sent his daughter to bring the clergyman one more time, but the minister objected. “It is no use for me to go,” he said. “Your father never seems any better.”

“Oh, please!” answered the girl. “Father said I was not to come back without you!”

“Well, I’ll take my sermon to read to him,” and he followed her to the sick man. He found the poor man in great distress about his soul’s condition.

“I’ve brought my sermon to read to you,” said the clergyman. He began by reading the scripture from which he had taken his text, the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah and the fifth verse: “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.”

The next day the clergyman went to see a friend and asked what there was in that scripture more than another.

“Wait!” cried the sick man. “Read that again! Wounded for our transgressions. Then He was wounded for mine! I have it!” he exclaimed, starting up. “Bruised for [my] iniquities. Why didn’t you tell me that before? But I have it now, thank God! With His stripes [I am] healed.”

Why the Scripture Is Special

The next day the clergyman went to see a friend and asked what there was in that scripture more than another. “Why,” said his friend, a believer in the Lord Jesus, “this verse contains the whole gospel. Now, I beg you, believe it! Can you say, He was wounded for my transgressionsthe Son of God bore my sins in His own body on the tree?”

“Now I see,” exclaimed the clergyman. “How blind I have been! I know the scriptures with my head, but never before have I believed with my heart.”

After this experience his congregation was amazed at the intensely earnest way in which he preached. He told them that he had been only a blind leader, but that God’s grace had shone in his heart. He was a new creature in Christ Jesus, and he begged them all to trust the Lord Jesus as their own Saviour.

 

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Adapted from His Riches.

A Bell in a Well

The Man Who Had Nothing

Mr. Bell always said that he “found God in a well,” but perhaps it should be said that God found him in a well. He certainly had not been seeking God! In fact, in spite of having had Christian parents, he was living only for himself to have “a good time.” So when his parents died in England, he moved to Canada and bought a farm near Oxbow, Saskatchewan.
He dug a 17-foot well on the farm. Someday he was going to put a ladder down it to get in and out of the well if necessary, but that ladder never got built.

Trapped in Near Freezing Water
One day, when he was about 55 years old, a neighbor came to his place for a load of hay and promised that he would be back in the afternoon for another load. Left alone, Mr. Bell went down to his well to get a bucket of water. He slipped and fell into the well! There he stayed, in water halfway up his chest, for five hours.

Following the dog’s urging, he looked at last in the well.
His “good time” came to an end. God had put him in a place where he was helpless. He realized now that God was the only One he could cry to. Right then and there he took the Lord Jesus Christ as his Saviour, trusting in the precious blood of Christ to cleanse him from all his sins.
Late in the afternoon the neighbor came back for the other load of hay. Entering the yard he could not see Mr. Bell, who was by now unable even to call for help, but the dog came running to him whining and thrusting his nose into his hand. Following the dog’s urging, he looked at last in the well.
Friendly hands soon were able to draw the poor man up―out into the icy air. It was 40 degrees below zero that day, and in his soaked clothes he was nearly frozen.
Mr. Bell’s health suffered greatly from this experience; when he was finally able to leave the hospital the doctors told him he had not long to live. In view of this, he turned his farm back to the man he had been buying it from and bought a little land in the town of Oxbow. There he had a small house built to live in the rest of his time down here, near medical help.
But the doctors were surprised. He didn’t die then, though he was never really well again. The Lord left him in his little house for 17 years, years that he spent in telling all who visited him of his experience. Children from the town often came and visited him and listened as he told them of the Lord Jesus’ love for sinners and how he was now trusting in Jesus for salvation.
After those years he was brought into the hospital in a wheelchair, all crippled up with arthritis. I was in the hospital for an operation at the time, and he was put in a bed in the room where I was with three others. He immediately started to tell his life story. He began by saying, “You can’t tell me there isn’t a God! I am reaping for what I sowed in my life!”
“God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7).
Rejoicing in the knowledge of his sins being forgiven, he was just waiting the Lord’s time to take him home to the Father’s house. While he remained here in this world he was telling his story to all he came in contact with. Even though some laughed and made fun of him, he kept talking. He had good news to tell!

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Adapted from His Riches.

The Leary Barn Fire That Didn’t Happen

Sam Leary’s Barn

This was not Mrs. O’Leary’s barn, made notorious by the Chicago fire. Nor was there the famous cow that kicked the lantern over in this barn. In fact, there were no cows in Sam Leary’s barn. It was all cleaned out to be used for a series of gospel meetings. Many people had been attending the meetings every night, and several received the Lord Jesus as their Saviour.

Some of the boys of the neighborhood began to make plans to disrupt the meetings. They arranged that two of them should fasten and guard the door, while a third went up on the roof and dropped a bucket of burning sulfur down through a hole in the middle of the barn. Other boys watched from a safe distance to share in the fun.

“The game’s all up! Come on!”

The meeting was well under way, and the two at the door had done their part in blocking the door. Now they stood waiting to hear confusion inside and a rush made for the door. Nothing happened. They dared not call to Ben on the roof for fear it might warn those inside.

What Are You Waiting For?

At last, after waiting half an hour, one of them climbed up to find Ben. There he was, with his head close to the opening in the roof, listening intently to the preacher’s voice.

When asked if he had dropped the sulfur, he answered, “No, Jack, I threw it into the watering trough, and I’m converted to God!”

Jack dropped to the ground and whispered to his friend, “The game’s all up! Come on!” And they fled across the field.

Ben, while waiting for the best time to interrupt the service, was obliged to listen to the words being spoken inside. God used what he heard to waken him to the reality of eternity. It became so real to him as he sat there on the rooftop that he trembled. Throwing away his bucket, he listened carefully to the gospel. He knew he needed a Saviour, and he received God’s Word and was saved then and there.

“As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name” (John 1:12).

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Adapted from His Riches.

It Was for Me

One afternoon a class of young girls was gathering in a small home for Bible study. One girl had been learning during the week the words of Isaiah 53, and as she was walking along she repeated the verses to herself. They merely sounded to her like a lovely song or a pleasant voice―she had not yet understood the meaning of being healed by His stripes.
“It was for me―it was for me!”

After the prayer to begin the class, Mary stood to repeat her chapter. She said the first four verses, but when she reached the fifth verse, “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed,” tears filled her eyes. Before reaching the end of the verse her head dropped and her tears fell on the open Bible before her as she cried: “It was for me―it was for me!”

Intense Moment

The intense solemnity of the moment held the teacher silent. Then as Mary’s tears still fell, the older woman said: “Let’s thank Him, my dear, that it was for you.”

They knelt down, and after the teacher had thanked the Lord for opening the eyes of the girl to see Jesus as her substitute, the tears were dried and Mary whispered, “Lord Jesus, thank You for dying for me and for taking my punishment.” Then the quiet calm of being accepted by God filled her heart, and she had peace with God.

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Adapted from Living Waters.

Was It a Lie?

The wagons were rolling westward. Long lines of wagons moved slowly across the hot prairies, over the cold mountains, bearing settlers, miners, adventurers, hunters, trappers―all seeking something beyond. One wagon train had a company of Christians who hoped to take the gospel of God’s grace to those in the West.

It was a company of Christians―plus Joe. Joe was not a Christian. Joe, in his own country, was wanted for murder. It was not safe for him to stay in his own neighborhood, so meeting up with the Christians, he asked to be hired as a driver of one of their wagons.

However, being in the company of Christians did not make Joe a saint! He hated religion. When the wagons stopped rolling for the Lord’s Day (Sunday), Joe didn’t have to drive, so he would go off with his gun and spend the hours hunting. He would keep well out of the way of hearing the Word of God preached.

As the party went on their way, in the middle of July there came a Sunday so hot that Joe didn’t care to hunt. He laid himself down in the shadow of one of the wagons, carefully selecting the wagon of one of the group who would not be expected to conduct the service.

But Joe had made a mistake. The one whose turn it was to preach was so overcome by the heat that he asked to be excused, and the owner of the wagon under whose shade Joe was sheltering offered to take his place. So the little company gathered around his wagon, and the meeting began.

Joe was lying in the long grass, half asleep, and was furious at being disturbed. To lie still while hymns were sung and to see the hated Bible opened was too much for him. He would move. He stood up to go, but the heat was too great and he threw himself back down on the grass. There he lay on his back in front of the preacher, his angry eyes glaring up at him.

“He said that God loved wicked men. Wasn’t that a lie?”

“Lord, help me to preach to Joe,” prayed the speaker as he saw the opportunity before him. Forgetting everybody else, he began to tell of the love of God to all His creatures. He told his hearers that, though God gave them rain and sunshine, food and drink, even life itself, yet they didn’t love Him in return. Instead of loving Him, they hated Him and His servants and His Book. But did He send the lightning and strike them down for their enmity? No, He had given His Son to die to put away their sins. He had shown His love to them, to the worst of them, even to the murderers, and if they would only believe in His Son He would forgive them and make them His dear children.

Joe’s eyes were fixed on the speaker who, as he went on, watched the anger slowly fading out.

Lies?

Joe didn’t forget that sermon. One day, walking beside another of the men, he said, “Didn’t the preacher tell awful lies that hot Sunday?”

“Lies, Joe? I didn’t hear any.”

“He said that God loved wicked men. Wasn’t that a lie?”

“Not at all, Joe; it’s in the Book. ‘God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins.’

“But wasn’t that an awful lie, that the Great Father gave His Son?”

“No, Joe, it’s in the Book. ‘In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.’

Then Joe said, “But it must be a lie, that He was preparing the beautiful place for them.”

“No,” was the answer. “That’s true too. It’s in the Book. Jesus, the Son of God, said to sinful men whom He loved and had saved, I go to prepare a place for you.”

Then Joe said, “If all this is true, I want this way of peace; I want this new life!”

That sermon, and the talk that followed, turned Joe from being Joe-the-wicked to Joe-the-Christian. He believed that God loved him and gave His Son to die for him, and joyfully he received Christ Jesus as his Lord.

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Adapted from Living Waters.

The Unseen Helmsman

An Atheist Loses Control
As a young man, Daniel Matthews was wild and rebellious against any authority. The one thing he loved was the sea, reveling in its dangers. He was daring beyond anyone his age, and older experienced sailors would not have dared to do the things he did.
An unbeliever, he would, with forceful language and powerful argument prove, as he thought, that religion was a fallacy and God was a myth.
One night the fishing fleet was far out at sea when an unusually intense storm sprang up. Nets had to be cut adrift, and every boat headed for the harbor. Even Dan became alarmed. For the first time in his life he was really afraid.
His Christian friend, Tom Rogers, was at the wheel with him when a great wave broke over the bow and swept the little craft from stem to stern. Tom was torn from the wheel and hurled into the raging waves.
He had no time to grieve over the loss of his friend who had often urged him to trust in Christ; it was now a desperate and lonely struggle to reach the shore. For what seemed like hours of terror he clung to the wheel, driving on and on through the darkness with no sign of the harbor light. He was losing strength, and realized that he could not carry on much longer.

The Atheist’s First Prayer

 

The icy wind chilled him to the bone. The spray that broke in clouds over the vessel blinded him and cut his face.

He could hear the waves beating against the rocks like distant thunder, and his heart seemed to freeze with fear.
Dan felt sure that he was near the land, though he could see nothing in the intense darkness. Through the roar of the wind he could hear the waves beating against the rocks like distant thunder, and his heart seemed to freeze with fear.
In that terrible moment he prayed. Hopeless, helpless, and despairing, he cried to God for help. It was only a desperate cry: “O God, help me!”
Then a strange thing happened. He felt a strong Hand was on the wheel, turning it in spite of his own despairing grip, turning it―and swinging the vessel from its course. In a moment the fury of the wind lessened, the waves grew quieter, and Dan found himself within his own harbor.
What he felt at that moment he could never describe. At first he was terribly afraid. He knew ―yes, he knew―that God had taken the wheel from his hand and brought him through the inlet into the harbor, and he was afraid of the unseen Helmsman whom he had mocked and ridiculed. But it changed his whole life, and he had the courage to tell his mates what had happened and how God had come to his help. As soon as he was able, he came to ask for help and guidance, and soon he found the way to the Lord Jesus Christ and accepted Him as his own Saviour.
Until that same strong and loving Hand steered his vessel of life into its final port, he was never tired of telling all who would listen the wonderful story of the unseen Helmsman.
“Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13).

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Adapted from His Riches.

Shocked By His Own Words

No Christians in Hell

We heard the other day of a young man in Switzerland, the son of a Christian mother, saying he was “sick and tired of Christians,” and of hearing them or talking to them. So one day he decided to take the train to a lake where he could be out of their reach.
He bought his ticket, and took his seat in the train. No sooner had the train started, than two men began a serious conversation about the Bible. “Oh, no!” thought the young man, “I’m not going to stay here!”
So as soon as the train stopped, he jumped out and got into another compartment with some old ladies. To his dismay he found that the topic of their conversation was the coming of the Lord Jesus. He was greatly annoyed, but they soon reached the next station and he could see the boat he planned to take waiting at the dock. He saw, going on board, a number of laughing young men and women.
The Captain looked up with a laugh and said, “To hell!”
“At last,” he thought, “I have found what I want.” But as soon as the boat left the dock he found that it was a Christian school excursion. Gloomily he wandered downstairs to the dining room, where he saw the Captain sitting, writing.
“Good morning, Captain,” he said. “Where can I go to get rid of these cursed Christians?”
The Captain looked up with a laugh and said, “To hell!”

Sudden Shock
In sudden shock the two men stared at each other, realizing the truth. There would be no Christians in hell―but―they themselves were not Christians! As the meaning of the Captain’s joking answer dawned on them, they both recognized their danger of going to that awful place. God used it to turn them both to seek Him. Now they are both Christians!
“Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Isaiah 55:6-7).

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Adapted from His Riches.