He ripped out the page and began to read. He had told the missionary who had given him the New Testament that he would read it. So, page by page, he read the pages as he tore them out. This little book had fine paper for rolling his smokes. It was hard to get good paper like this. “A deal is a deal,” he said to himself with a grin, and he ripped his next page out.
The smoke curled up. He blew and thought again. The words he had read these last few weeks were tugging at his conscience. Those last pages about the death of that wonderful Man were still vivid.
“And why did He die?” And more than that, the story about that tomb was something. It was empty! His followers: They could hardly believe.
He could understand that. He found it a bit much too. “But then their Master appeared and spoke to many of them. Hard to doubt these witnesses -they were ready to die for their story. And so He was alive. What did it all mean?”
He looked down at the next page. It was getting harder to burn some of these. “Wish I’d saved some of them to read again,” he thought. His eyes fell on it and went back with a jerk.
Something here asked to be read again. His hand, already pulling at the top corner, relaxed. He could not do it, not this page, not these words. Here was the secret. Answers to so many questions were crying out together - this said it all.
He read it again. Only 25 words, but never had so few said so much: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)).
The words stood up off the page, the greatest he’d read yet. “God so loved the world”? Surely, this was the Greatest Mystery. How could He? Didn’t He know about the cruelty, the selfishness? The heartaches from fractured and hurting relationships?
No arguing though; it said it plainly: “God so loved the world.”
His hand trembled on the page. A tear dropped silently. He thought, “God’s heart must hurt as He looks on the restlessness, war, casualties. Young ones, old ones. The hurts, the hate, the hardness.” Yet in these next words was the evidence of that love. Without doubt, here was the Greatest Gift. He gave His Son.
There was the old saying - who hadn’t heard it? - “God helps those who help themselves.” But he remembered pages he had burned. They told how Jesus had helped those who couldn’t help themselves.
His love was strangely unconditional.
Words drifted back to him, “Those who are sick need the physician, not those who are well.” Yes, the helpless, the empty, the lost. Here it was plain. He gave His Son not only to live, but to die.
It struck him forcefully. “He wasn’t just a teacher; no, more than this. He was a Saviour. The wounded, the sinners, those who honestly confessed their helplessness - for these He died.
“They had all broken God’s law and were liable for its penalty. They deserved judgment, but God gave His Son to take the penalty.”
The words were coming clearer. This was the answer! “Whosoever believeth in Him should not perish” - the Greatest Promise.
“Oh, this is me,” he thought. “Perishing, lost, in danger. But He only asks that I believe in Him. It wouldn’t be hard to have confidence in this One.”
He thought about those pages, long gone now. He could remember some of His words, His ways, His tender compassion. It wasn’t hard to trust Him, knowing who He was. Faith was only as sound as the object it rested in, and faith in those words then meant faith in the unmovable and eternal Word of God.
He felt warm; he felt free. The burden, the emptiness was gone. And there were no more torn pages!