SOME time ago I was asked by a friend to visit a young married woman who was dying of consumption, and who was very anxious about her soul.
I went immediately, and found her in bed, not suffering much pain, but very weak, and with a look of intense weariness upon her face.
After making a few kind inquiries regarding her health, I asked her if she was at peace with God.
“Ah, no,” she said, “I wish I were. I have been anxious about my soul a long, long time, and have tried all I could to live well, and be good; but I, cannot feel as I want, I am so cold and dead.”
“Don’t you believe Jesus came to save sinners; and are you not a sinner?”
“A sinner! yes, ma’am, I am indeed, but then I can’t tell if I believe right enough. Sometimes I feel so sorry for my sins, and then I think Jesus will save me; but then the next day, perhaps, I feel cold and not sorry at all, and, then I think I am all wrong.”
“Where do you find in the Word,” I asked, “that Jesus will not save you unless you feel very sorry? We read a great deal about believing; nothing at all about feeling till after.”
“Yes, but then how am I to know if I have believed right enough?”
“Have you read the Bible stories of Joseph, Daniel, and others?”
“Many a time. I always liked to read my Bible.”
“Do you believe them?”
“Oh! yes, I never doubted them.”
“Why do you believe them?”
“Well, I suppose because they are in God’s Word.”
“Exactly. Now, did you ever say, I wonder if I believed them enough?”
“No, ma’am, I never thought of that.”
“Then why can you not take the rest of the Bible because it is God’s Word as well? Faith is just the same in spiritual as in natural things. If we hear anything from a person on whose word we can rely, we believe it, we can’t help doing so; and is not God’s word more worthy of belief than any man’s? When He tells us He has put away our sins, can you not trust Him?”
As she was getting exhausted, I bade her good-by, praying our Father to bless the word spoken, A day or two after I called again, and found her just the same.
“I cannot grasp it,” she said; “oh! if I could only feel.”
I saw she wished to feel rather than to believe, so asking God to be with us, I turned to Matthew 26:33-35, and read, “Peter answered and said, Though all men should be offended because of Thee, yet will I never be offended. Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, that this night before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. Peter said unto Him, Though I should die with Thee, yet will I not deny Thee.”
“Now, what was Peter trusting to? Was it not to his feelings instead of Christ’s word?”
“Yes, he was, and he fell.”
“Well, wouldn’t you think you loved Jesus if you could say you would die for Him?”
“Yes, I would, indeed.”
“Well, now, which proved right? Christ’s word or Peter’s feelings?”
“Christ’s words, ma’am.”
“Well, then, can you not trust Christ’s words when He says, ‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow’? ‘God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ (Isa. 1:18; John 3:16). These are as much His words to you, as were His words to Peter. You will never get more. Believe that He did the whole work; bore your punishment; died in your stead, that you might not die eternally; that God raised Him from the dead, to show that He was satisfied; and you will be saved. His word is truth, and cannot be broken. Trust it, just because God says it, and the feelings will all come right after you believe, but not before.”
With that a bright smile came over her pale face, and she said, “I see it! I see it! Oh! how blind I have been! I have been trying all the wrong way. I see now Jesus has done it all. He won’t cast me out, because He says He won’t. How can I praise Him enough!”
It was a solemn moment, a soul passing from death unto life.
After a little she said, “I always thought I had to do something to get saved; now I would like to do something because I am saved; but I cannot, I have no strength.”
“Yes, you can,” I said, “you can glorify God in suffering. Be a witness for Jesus, by patiently-waiting His time, and speaking a word to those who may step in to see you.”
“Yes, I can do that, and by His grace I will. I see now that God knows best; I was very bitter when He took my baby from me; but I praise Him for it now, it was all in love. I have only one to leave motherless, and He will watch over him. I will trust Him.”
After this I saw her many times until her death, which happened four months later; and truly she did glorify God in the furnace of affliction. Through all her sufferings (for she suffered very much from a dreadful cough and sleepless nights), a murmur never escaped her lips.
“He giveth songs in the night. Jesus is always with me. It would be very weary if He were away all the long night,” she used to say.
Just before she died, in answer to a question, I asked her if she was quite happy, and if Satan harassed her.
“He often brings up my sins, ma’am, but somehow it does not trouble me much. His blood cleanseth from ALL sin”; and then added with a bright smile, “I am clinging fast to Jesus. I shall soon see Him; soon be with Him forever.”
I stooped and wiped the cold sweat of death off her brow, kissed, and bade her good-bye, and a few hours after she fell asleep in Jesus, without a shade of sorrow at leaving her husband and child.
Reader, how is it with you? Are you trusting to your feelings or to Jesus? Oh! how many souls are lost by trusting to feelings. Satan has no objection to us being religious, or trusting to anything we like, provided we do not trust Jesus.
Our feelings are like the shifting sand. Christ is the rock of ages. Those who trust their feelings are like the troubled ocean, never at rest; one day happy, believing they are saved; the next day fallen, it may be, into some sin, and then thinking all is lost. That will not do. God is beseeching us to be saved, but it must be on His own terms, believing first, then feeling; not feeling first and then believing (2 Cor. 5:20).
God has promised us the feeling if we believe. “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself” (1 John 5:10). “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God” (Rom. 8:16). God wishes us to know it, and rejoice in it; but how can we rejoice if not certain whether we are saved or not? If we have taken salvation, the gift of eternal life, “we must love the One who gave it us, the blessed One, who by His death has made us so safe, that those who trust Him shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of His hand” (John 10:28, 29).
Here our peace of conscience will much depend upon our walk, but that must not be confounded with the peace which Jesus makes for us by His blood. The apostle exhorts us to walk worthy of our high calling. We are made sons and daughters of God; let us prove it by our consistent walk and example, living epistles, known and read of all men.
M. S. D.