WE stood at the door of the preaching room at the close of a gospel service one fine summer evening, when there passed out a young Irish schoolmaster. He looked so utterly dejected that we departed from our usual custom of not “buttonholing” our hearers, and putting our hand on his shoulder, we asked:
“Are you saved?”
“No, sir,” he replied; “I wish I was.”
“Well,” we said, “God’s desire to save you is much stronger than your desire to be saved. Pray, what is your difficulty?”
In characteristic fashion he answered, “My difficulty is that I don’t know my difficulty.”
“Let us get into a quiet corner,” said we, “and talk the matter over.”
Passing again into the hall, we set before him his condition as lost and undone, but we found he was quite ready to admit that. We then told him simply of God’s love for sinners, and showed him how that by His death the Lord Jesus Christ had met all God’s righteous claims, and all our great need; and that, redemption’s work having been finished, there was nothing left for us to do but believe in Him, and rest upon that which He has done.
We found that he was intelligent as to these simple, yet all-important, facts. Still, there was some difficulty which he could not explain, and which up to that moment we had been unable to discover.
At length we said to him:
“On what do you consider your being at peace with God as to the question of your, sins depends? Does it depend upon God’s acceptance of the work of Christ, or upon your acceptance of it?”
After a few moments’ serious consideration he said, “I should say, sir, it depends upon my acceptance.”
“Now,” said we, “we see wherein lies your difficulty, and the hindrance to your enjoyment of peace with God.”
Looking not a little surprised, yet perhaps in a measure relieved, he inquired, “How is that, sir?”
“Let us attempt an illustration which may help you,” we responded. “Suppose that we owed our grocer ten pounds sterling, and had no money with which to meet his claim suppose we were out of work, and had no one to whom we could turn for assistance. To make matters worse, our merchant, who had exercised long patience, at last sent word that unless our debt was paid within ten days he must at once resort to extreme measures for its recovery.
“We will further suppose that you heard of our plight, went to our grocer, placed on his counter ten sovereigns, and got the receipt. You immediately came to us, told us that you had seen our creditor, paid our debt, and in proof thereof you produced his receipt. On what does our being at peace with regard to our debt depend—our acceptance of the payment or our grocer’s acceptance of the payment of it?”
We stopped and waited. Presently his face lit up with that gleam of light and joy which is so delightful to witness in a newborn soul, as he exclaimed, “I see it!”
“What do you see?” we asked.
He replied:
“I see that my being at peace with God as to the question of my sins depends upon God’s acceptance of the work of Christ, and I know that He has accepted it.”
Desiring that he should rest upon the sure foundation of God’s Word, and not upon a feeble human illustration, we opened our Bible at Romans 10:99That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. (Romans 10:9), and read that golden text, which God has used for the blessing of countless thousands:
“If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”
We showed him that the One whom men crucified God had made “both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:3636Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. (Acts 2:36)). That because of the work that He had accomplished, God had placed His Son on the very highest pinnacle in glory, the evidence of His delight in His Person and His appreciation of His work. And that He, by His Spirit and through His Word, now called upon us to confess Him as our Lord, and gave us the oft-repeated assurance that
Then, as to the question of our sins, the resurrection of Christ was the incontestable proof of God’s entire satisfaction with, and acceptance of, what He had done. Christ, with His own most precious blood, paid the believer’s mighty debt; God accepted that payment as righteously meeting His every claim, and a risen, ascended, glorified Christ at His right hand is the everlasting witness of it, so that now the simple believer can sing:
“God will not payment twice demand:
First at my bleeding Surety’s hand,
And then again at mine.”
How easy, then, to understand that to the one who confesses with the mouth Jesus as Lord, and who believes in the heart that God has raised Him from the dead, God gives the instant assurance that he is saved.
Our friend saw it clearly, and went home with the happy consciousness that he was saved, and that he knew it for an absolute certainty because God had said it.
And you, too, may today have the peace of God, not by working, or praying, or any effort of yours; but by simple, unquestioning, childlike faith you may know that your sins are forgiven, and that you are a possessor of “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
“Peace with a holy God,
Peace from the fear of death,
Peace through our Saviour’s precious blood—
Sweet Peace! The fruit of faith.”
W. B. D.