IN a country town well known to many of us, a man was dying.
He had been moral, respectable, and industrious. Thoughts of the future, too, he had had, and valued his own opinions thereon, but the threshold of a place of worship he seldom crossed.
A Christian nurse was tending him, and anxious about him she was, for he had little time left, and she knew how solemn it is to pass into the presence of God, who “cannot look on iniquity.” His “eyes behold, His eyelids try the children of men” even here, what then will it be like by-and-by when none shall have any cloak for his sin? What we cover up now will be proclaimed then.
The nurse spoke, and she read, and she prayed, with what result God only knows — but He who can see right down into our hearts, and whose eye sees “every precious thing,” will not fail to find any grain of “like precious faith with us,” which that dear man may have possessed, for it is not the amount of faith which is of value, but the Person on whom our faith reposes.
“God will be near to those who have great faith, won’t He?” one asked. “Bless you,” was the reply, “faith is only the chain that connects you with God. The question is, who has hold of the other end? If you see God there, you won’t be looking at the chain, or at your own hand either!” This is very true. So perhaps that dying man had a little faith, but a little that carried his eye off to Jesus, who is a great Saviour.
Well, he died, and after his funeral one kindly came to visit his widow who had also visited him, and moreover, said a prayer beside him. He was, she thought, an accredited teacher come from God, and from him she looked to learn some news of her husband’s present safety. We all like to think that our “gone before” friends are “safe in the arms of Jesus” when they leave us, but during their lifetime we are not always quite so concerned about them. Yet now is the only time God has given us.
“Don’t be at all uneasy about your husband,” this visitor said; “I am sure he is all right, he was such a good living man, you know.”
Did you ever meditate on the story of the man who got into the presence of the king in his own clothing? (Matt. 22). The king had prepared a festival for his son; the service, the viands, the raiment suited to the prince’s state had been freely provided — the guests were assembled, and the king came in to grace the feast. Ah, what is that? His eyes see one wearing his own clothes — perhaps his best, cleansed and furbished by himself for the occasion, but not royal clothes, for indeed to be “in kings’ courts “one should be” gorgeously appareled.” The man was “speechless”: no vain excuses could he make in the presence of the king.
Clothing provided by God and our own wretched rags are so different! A “wedding garment” and “filthy garments” cannot be compared. The “best robe” and the tatters of the swine-herd will not be mentioned together. The first come from God in heaven, the latter from man in the devil’s kingdom. The one who had not on the wedding garment might have been good living, but he had not complied with God’s conditions, nor accepted the robe of righteousness prepared for the guests at that supper.
Dear reader, do not trust to man’s dictum however high his ecclesiastical position. A good life, alms, prayers, human perfection, will not do for God, they cannot be put on a par with the blood of Jesus, which alone does “helpless sinners good.”
“Without shedding of blood is no remission.”
And, mind you, this good living man had given no proof of it during his life — he was not even a “church or chapel goer” —and surely no one will assert that a moral life only is enough for God — is it not written, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us?” (Titus 3:55Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; (Titus 3:5)).
Have you on the wedding garment? Can you bear the eye of God now? Read Zechariah 3.
H. L. H.