“I WOULD like to have a few words with you in private.”
It was at the close of a gospel service in Chicago that a middle-aged woman approached the preacher with this request.
An appointment was made for two o'clock the next day. The preacher, in company with a Christian friend, sat in his room, waiting for the visitor.
Presently she appeared. After a few moments' conversation, the preacher asked:
“Now, what is your trouble?”
“Oh!" gasped the woman, "I am a murderess. Fourteen years ago, away in the old country, in the darkness of a forest, I drove a dagger into a man's throat. I escaped without anybody seeing me. The man was found with the dagger by his side, and everybody thought that he had committed suicide. For two years I remained in that district. No one ever suspected me, but I was wretched.
“At last I came to America, to see if I could find peace here. First I went to New York and then came to Chicago, and I have been here for twelve years, but have not found peace.
“I often go to the lake and stand on the pier and look into the dark waters beneath. I would have jumped in if I had not been afraid of what lies beyond death.”
Can you conceive, reader, a more terrible state of mind for anyone to be in than to be haunted and hunted for fourteen years, as this woman was, by an accusing conscience? It must have been a veritable hell upon earth.
What was it that had brought her to such a condition? Her sin. And "are there not with you, even with you, sins against the Lord your God?" Answer me: Are there no sins of which your conscience accuses you?
"Of course, I am a sinner," perhaps you reply "we are all sinners. But I have never committed such an awful sin as murder,”
But, reader, who told you that one sin is more awful in God's sight than another? Men may speak of "little sins," but God does not. No sin is trivial or excusable in His regard. The smallest bit of wrong-doing is sufficient to exclude a man from His presence forever. In His sight there is no difference between the religiously brought-up sinner, who has never done anything grossly and outrageously wrong, and the poor woman who drove the dagger into the throat of a fellow-creature.
If you, reader, were as much awake as you should be, to the seriousness of sin, your conscience would be as burdened as was that of the murderess. You would be haunted by the fearful knowledge of your guilt. You would be filled with unrest and anxiety.
That you do not feel like this is only a proof that your conscience is seared and your eyes blinded. It is a fact that Satan, as the god of this world, has power to blind men's eyes. (See 2 Cor. 4:44In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. (2 Corinthians 4:4).) To think that he should have blinded yours!
Now God—who made you, and cares for you, and seeks your eternal blessing—desires to open your eyes. (See Acts 26:1818To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. (Acts 26:18).) He has various ways of doing this. Sometimes He does it by means of a heavy blow—a bereavement, an illness, a pecuniary loss, a disappointment.
At Dresden, in Germany, not long ago, a blind man was crossing the street, when he was struck on the head by a passing cart. As a result of the shock, the man recovered his long-lost eyesight.
Have you ever suffered any grievous blow? Any sore trial? Any heavy affliction? Any serious loss? It was from the loving hand of God that it came that your eyes might be opened!
But there is also power in His own Word, when applied to the heart by the Holy Spirit, to open blind eyes. In His Word God expresses His abhorrence of sin. He shows that it cannot be passed over, but that it must be punished.
If only you saw this, how concerned you would be about your own sinful condition!
But there is another sight for the opened eye to gaze upon besides sin in all its ugliness and blackness. There is JESUS, who willingly became the Sin-bearer upon the cross, and endured the bitter punishment that was our due in order that we might be forgiven.
Only by believing in Jesus, and knowing something of the results of His atoning work, can the accusing conscience be set at rest. Only in this way can salvation and peace be known. Only by this means can the burden of guilt be removed. Only thus can the sins of a lifetime be washed away.
Stephen Holcombe was a most vicious man and one of the worst gamblers on the Mississippi. One night, at the gaming table, a man accused him of cheating. Quick as thought, Holcombe whipped his revolver from his pocket and fired. The bullet went straight to the mark, the blood poured from the gaping wound, and in a few minutes the man was dead.
The murderer was arrested and tried, but was acquitted on the ground that he had shot the man in self-defense. But though acquitted by a human court he felt condemned before the bar of God, and before the bar of his own conscience.
He tried in every way to find peace. Two years after that awful night he was in his room alone, miserable, his face buried in his hands, and the memory of his crime haunting him. Kneeling down, he cried, "O God, can anything blot out the awful memory of what I have done?" And immediately the strains of the old familiar hymn, learned long ago in the days of his boyhood, came ringing through his heart:—
“What can wash away my stain?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”
Then and there Stephen Holcombe staked his confidence upon that precious blood. He understood that Christ had died on the cross for his sin. He believed that all his sins, the murder and all, were laid on Christ, and that He was punished in his stead.
Believing this, he found peace, and from that day he has been a faithful servant of the One who saved him.
Reader, go thou and do likewise! H. P. B.