With a deep sense of gratitude to God I relate the story of my conversion. Twenty-six years ago in Melbourne, Australia, whilst listening to a servant of the Lord proclaiming the gospel, God spoke to my heart.
Conviction lasted for six months, during which sleep left me. Repeated searching of God’s Book only seemed to make every text on hell focus on me. My concern brought forth from relatives: “You have always been a good boy” “have done no harm,” etc. Such whitewashings mocked me, and made my heart’s need re-echo.
With strength depleted through sleeplessness, I was advised to take a tonic. I consulted a chemist, but my “heart, knowing its own bitterness,” craved the medicine for a sin-sick soul.
Special leave enabled me to visit Sydney; where I stayed with a Roman Catholic uncle and aunt. They were kind, but not understanding my agony of mind, suggested medical treatment, and wound up by thinking I must have committed some crime!
With no further light, I returned home. Visits to Universalist, Seventh-day, and Millennial-dawn meetings only added confusion. The first-named gave no comfort in saying that “God was a God of love and would not condemn to everlasting punishment.” The voice of Scripture drowned such Satan-evolved whispers. The Spirit of God, Who convicts, will always lead to His word, that converts: I knew that. “the wages of sin” spelled “death,” but I had yet to learn that “the gift of God was eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Truly, ceasing from self, I needed to understand that terse truth: “Forsaking all I trust Him.” Yes, faith in the One Who fully satisfied every claim of God against me. I felt like the Irish lass who had heard many great preachers, but not until a plain and pointed questioner appeared on the scene did the clouds begin to disappear. He read: “Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6,6For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. (Romans 5:6)), and asked: “Are you ungodly? “Yes,” she said. “Then Christ died for you.” And, with the flashing of this diamond, light broke into her soul. “He died for me.”
Late one night, forlorn and weary, I said: “If I perish, I perish trusting Christ.” Sweet sleep followed in the wake of this absolute trust and abandonment. The knowledge of sins forgiven made the joy bells ring, and the ringing has never ceased. Praise be to His Holy Name!
“I came to Jesus as I was―
Weary and worn and sad;
I found in Him a resting place,
And He has made me glad.
H. Mears.