The other day I was telling a man that the gospel is just what sinful man needs; death stares him in the face and all the science of man cannot deliver him. The man, a professed infidel, replied, "But I do not believe in the gospel." "Well," I asked, "have you anything to put in its place? Have you any other remedy?" "No," he said, "I have no other remedy." This gave me an opportunity to say, "You have no other remedy, and yet you will not believe the only remedy that has been provided."
The gospel is the only remedy; that is the great thing to arrive at. People may split up Christianity into different sects, but there is no other thing offered by men to meet man's ruin, but the gospel. It 'has no rival.
A little later I asked him another question—"Suppose for a moment that the gospel is true, would it suit you to have a triumphant Savior out of all the ruin and misery into which man has fallen?" "Admirably," he replied, "admirably." "Well," I said, "see where you are. You have no rival scheme in place of this one, and it is one, you admit yourself, that would suit you admirably; but you meet my appeal by saying you do not believe it! I have a third question to put to you—did you ever try it? If you heard of a certain cure for a headache or a toothache, do you think it would be a wire thing for you to say, 'I do not believe in it,' if you had not some other cure, or if you had never tried it?"
You see man treats the proposal God has made—the most wonderful thing that ever came into the world—in a way that shows you what a set of people cavilers are, and how true Scripture is when it says, "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." Man would not treat a common remedy for a common pain in the way he treats the gospel that relates to his immortal soul. If he said, "I did try the cure but it was no good," or if he said, "I have a better one," it would be something; but here he does not say, "I have a better," but "I have not one at all. It would suit me admirably if it were true."
I further said, "You admit you never tried it; how dare you then say you do not believe it? If you had tried it and found it would not do, then you might say something about not believing in it; but until then, you have no right to say you do not believe it."
Take the case of the children of Israel when bitten by the fiery serpents. There they were suffering, and an evangelist of the day goes up to one of his friends or neighbors who has been struck down, and he says to him, "Do you see that serpent up there?" "Yes." "Well, God says if you look at that you will be healed." The man says, "I do not see any sense in that; it is unreasonable." The evangelist replies, "I have two reasons why you should try it. The one is that God says it; the other is that I have looked at it, and I have proved the benefit of it." That is what makes an evangelist. He always has two reasons—the Word—God says so—that is the first witness. The second is, I know it experimentally. Here is a man in the agony of the serpent's bite, and he looks up at the brazen serpent, and he is well in a moment! Would all the world convince that man that looking at the serpent had not cured him? Would the man not go to his neighbor and say, "Now, neighbor, there is a cure for you. I have two reasons why you should try it; and 'In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established': God has said it! and I have tried it myself, and I am well." It was a most instantaneous cure. He that looked lived.
May the Lord make us better evangelists of this sort—those who say, "God says it, and I have proved it."