A battlefield worker writes: Three days and three nights I had worked. Fully exhausted, I lay myself down at last to sleep. Toward midnight I was awakened by a call to visit a badly wounded soldier. I was very much inclined to refuse the messenger seeing that I was so very weary. However, as the man informed me that the soldier was in a very bad way, I arose with an effort, and went with him. Never shall I forget the expression on the countenance of the wounded man as I looked into his face. Upon asking him what he wished of me, his reply was: ‘Help me―I am dying;’ I told him how gladly I would, if such were possible, carry him in my hands to heaven. I explained to him the Gospel of Christ as well as I was able. But he wearily shook his head and answered me only with the words: He cannot save me; all my life have I sinned against Him.’ I reminded him of his home, and told him his believing mother would be praying for him. One promise after another I held before him, but all with the same result. Then said I to him: ‘I will now read you the account of a conversation with a man that Jesus had while He yet walked in the flesh on earth.’ I began to read to him slowly and with emphasis the third chapter of the Gospel of John. While I read he
Kept His Eyes Steadily upon Me,
and it seemed as though he was receiving the Word of God with intense desire, as a dry and thirsty land receives the rain. As I came to the place: ‘As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life,’ he interrupted me with these words: ‘Is that in the Bible?’ When I answered him in the affirmative, he exclaimed: I did not know that. Oh, please read it once more!’ Upon his elbow he raised himself half up with his last remaining strength, and listened with great attention while I read again, slowly and earnestly, the words that had so appealed to him (John 3:14,15). As I finished he exclaimed: That is good, that is beautiful. Oh, please read it yet once more!’ As I read it the third time his eyes were closed, and he lay exhausted upon his bed. On his face was a peaceful smile and his lips were whispering. As I bowed over him I heard these words repeated: ‘As Moses―lifted up the serpent―in the wilderness, ―even so―must the Son of Man―be lifted up; that whosoever―believeth in Him―should not perish―but have―eternal life.’ The dying soldier opened his eyes, looked at me happily, and said: ‘It is enough—read no more!’ As I came next morning into the hospital I found his bed empty. Upon inquiring from the guard how it had gone with the man, he told me that the soldier had died shortly after my departure, but in great peace of soul. He said the dying man’s last words before he departed this life were: ‘That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.’”
“Help me, I am dying.” This is the inarticulate cry of thousands today. They are dying without Christ, and they want the Lord Jesus. It is an awful thing to die unsaved. Better never to have been born than to die without Christ.