I was holding a series of meetings in Aberdeen, Scotland. After dismissing the large audience one night I noticed that I was being followed by a small girl who kept at my heels like a little dog. Finally I turned to her and asked a little sharply: "Lassie, what do you want? Why have you not gone home with the rest of the folk?"
Then for the first time I scanned her a little more carefully, and I was attracted by her face. There were evidences that tears had been running down her cheeks. Her eyes were large and hungry looking, and still filled with tears. She was barefooted, and her clothes were very shabby. When I asked her what she wanted, I fully expected that she wanted money.
"Lassie, what do you want?" I repeated gently. Then the little girl reached up on her tiptoes and whispered in my ear, "I want to be saved." Surprised and startled at the intensity of her words, I drew back. "You want to get saved?" "Aye, sir, I do!"—oh, so pathetically, still in a whisper.
"And why do you want to get saved?"
Again on her tiptoes she reached up and whispered in my ear, "Because I am a sinner."
This was so satisfactory a reason, and by this time the child had so interested me, that I drew her to one side. "How do you know you are a sinner? Who told you so?"
"Because God says so in the Book, and I feel it right here," laying her hand on her breast as the publican did.
"Well," I said, "do you think I can save you?"
Hitherto she had spoken in a whisper, but now, drawing away from me, her words rang out short and clear: "No, no, man, you cannot save me. No man can save a sinner! Only Jesus can save me."
"Yes, my dear, you are quite right. Only Jesus can save. What has He done to save you?"
"Oh, sir, He died for me."
I do not know why I answered as I did. "Then He is dead, is He? How can He save you if He is dead?"
The little thing sprang from me. No whisper now—no timid putting her lips to my ear—but her voice rang out as before: "Man, Jesus is not dead. He died for me, but He is not a dead man—He is God's Son. Man, did you not tell us this very night that God raised Him from the dead? He was dead, but He's not dead now. Oh, man, I want to get saved!" Her voice dropped into the old pathetic tones. "Tell me all about it, and how I can get saved."
I had preached that night from the text: "He was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification." Here was a little child who had grasped the whole blessed gospel with a clearness that I have often seen among Scottish children. All of them, however poor, have been taught the Scriptures all their lives. She knew that she was a sinner. She knew that only Jesus could save her. He had died, but God had raised Him from the dead, and now He was able to save. I need not say that the little one soon went away saved and happy.
"He is not dead. He died for me; but He is not dead." How often these words have come back to me, presenting as they do a living, loving Savior for every sin-sick soul. Will you not believe on Him, then, as simply and trust Him as fully as did the little Scottish lassie?
"I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death." Revelation 1:18.