COME with me into a scattered colliery district amongst the miners and weavers, where you will find rough manners, but warm hearts. Many a kindly greeting meets you as you go down the village road from the women, who are standing at their doors, either talking to their neighbors or watching such as are coming back from the adjoining country town, where the marketing is done.
Presently we meet a collier sauntering along; he is “at play”—he has no work, having only made two days this week.
“Well, John, how are you? I have missed you lately from your seat on Sundays—you used to come so regularly to the services, and your wife, too—what has happened to keep you away?”
“Well, missus, you see I have not been lately, I know, but somehow I could not come.”
“Why, John? Have you received no blessing all the many times you have been to hear the gospel?”
“Well, no, missus, I have not. I have come and come, and I’ve listened; but it hasn’t come.”
What did he mean by “it hasn’t come”? On talking further to him you could see he expected some outward evidence, an extraordinary shock, or some strange thing to happen to make him receive Christ into his heart.
Poor man! the great enemy had duped n him into this notion, and to this day, as far, as I know, he has not received the truth as it is in Jesus.
Have you any feeling like this? You go week after week perhaps to the Sunday school, or to the Bible-class, or to the preaching of the gospel, and you find your condition no different from what it always was. There is no sense of reality in what you hear. Are you, too, expecting some strange shock or some extraordinary feeling to make you a child of God? Take care how you let this go on—remember what we read in Luke 16:31: “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.”
Let God’s holy word enter into your heart, and by it His Spirit will do His quickening work.
How strange it would be thought if you sat inside your house, just at your door, and as knock after knock came, you never opened to let the person who knocked come in, but waited until some unseen hand forced you from your seat to undo the door! You have often acted in this way to the Saviour: you have listened, and listened, and listened to the story of His love, but have never opened your heart by faith for Him to enter to give you peace and rest of soul. He has knocked, oh! so many times; at the door of your heart, as you have listened to God’s word, and yet you are “waiting for it to come!”
Behold the Saviour at the door!
He gently knocks—has knocked before;
Has waited long—it waiting still:
You use no other friend so ill.
Open the door, He’ll enter in,
And sup with you, and you with Him.
ML 12/03/1916