SOME years ago God awakened me to anxiety about my soul. I tried different churches and chapels, but without finding Christ. A preacher came to our village while I was in this state, and I went regularly to hear him. He used to press us very closely as to whether we could say we were saved, which I, in common with others, much disliked.
A man said to me, “When he comes next time, if you answer him, ‘Yes, I am saved,’ he will go straight away and not trouble you again.” So when the preacher asked me, “Are you saved? Are you happy?” I promptly replied, “Yes!” and he went to someone else. This was a victory for the devil.
However, though I had deceived the preacher, I could not feel before God that I was saved, and I went back once more to my old religion and ways, hastening downwards to hell.
But God again spoke to my uneasy conscience, which I tried to quiet by all kinds of good works, such as signing the pledge and inducing others to do the same, also by giving away tracts, and by frequent prayer, hoping by such means to fit myself for His presence. All was in vain, and I continued in this state until another servant of God preached Christ in the village. He was the means of opening my eyes to see that praying, morality, religion, Bible-reading, and saying “Yes” because others did so, was not God’s way of saving me, but that I must be “born again.”
God now graciously showed me that I was lost, that Christ had died for such, and that in coming to Him there is forgiveness of sins. Joy and peace filled my soul, and I found how different was my former state of uncertainty from the blessedness of knowing present salvation through the blood of Christ.
Friend! if unsaved, I beseech you to inquire whether you are honestly submitting yourself to God’s testimony concerning His Son, for “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” than the name of Jesus. (Acts 4:12.)
ML-01/17/1960