SOME weeks ago, when staying away from home, I was getting ready for church one Sunday, when a friend came and asked me if I would go to his little daughter, and be in the room when she was put under chloroform. A day or so before, she had been sewing, and dropped her needle, and, kneeling down to look for it, she fell on to it with great force. It broke into halves, and the half with the eye penetrated deeply into her knee. The doctor took a photograph of it, and the needle could be seen quite plainly close to the knee-joint. He warned her father that it was in rather a difficult position, and the removal might be tedious and not easy to accomplish. I was present when it was done, and before he made an incision he asked me to place the photographs on the table where the child lay. He gave a searching glance at them, and then made one cut, and the needle was out, the cut sewed up, and the child back in bed in a very few moments. The X-ray photographs had made it easy for him to go at once to the seat of trouble, and cut in exactly the right place. I could not help thinking of God’s X-rays penetrating into the darkest recesses of the human heart. The light of His Word pierces even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Nothing is hidden from this wonderful X-ray apparatus, the Bible. What is the photograph of ourselves that we see? The whole head sick, the whole heart faint, from the sole of the foot even to the head no soundness, but wounds, bruises, and putrefying sores. In this terrible War the value of the X-ray has been proved over and over again, and many a man’s life saved, because the doctors could see from the photographs what caused the mischief and where it was. The searching light of God’s Word falls upon us. “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” “Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” “Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish.” In this condition we are helpless and lost, but though God’s Word reveals to us our sinfulness, our hopelessness before Him, yet His love provides a remedy. The letter X reminds one of the cross, and on the cross the Lord Jesus suffered, bled and died for our sins. He bore then all away, so that we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.
Reader, can you say your sins are forgiven? Have you ever seen yourself as God sees you, or felt your need of a Saviour? If not, will you not seek pardon now while there is time? God grant that you may not put it off until it is too late.
A.T.