Through the faithful testimony of one who had been saved from a fast and worldly life, a number of the sons and daughters of city merchants and others were brought to the Lord. This caused no little stir, as true conversion ever must, because it means a turning to God from the vanities and trifles of the world, as well as the lower grades of self-indulgence and sin. When it became known that certain balls and private theatricals had to be cancelled, owing to many of the chief performers and leaders having been converted, the record concerning the gospel’s power in ancient Ephesus in the first century, became true near the close of the nineteenth.
“There took place at that time no small disturbance about the Way.” Acts 19:23. (N. Tr.)
The common talk at table and in visitation was the effects produced in the lives of certain well-known figures of that neighborhood, who had confessed Christ as their Savior and Lord, and were following Him as true disciples.
A young lady who had been under conviction of sin for several weeks, but had not personally confessed Christ to others, was on a weekend visit to her cousins in the country. The sound of the Lord’s doings had travelled there, and before she was an hour in the house of her friends, several slighting references were made to the “revivalists.” She was asked if she knew any of them, and what she thought of it all.
“I wish I were like them,” was her quiet but decided answer, which so astonished her cousins, that they immediately dropped the subject. The fact was, that the sneering reference to what she knew to be a work of grace, and had the power in her own soul, was used to bring her to take her stand openly as one who had truly believed on the Savior.
Like some of olden time, of whom we read in the Word of God, she had been up till then “a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear” (John 19:38), of what might be said about her. But in that strange position, while in the house of her friends, she was first enabled to give a feeble yet true testimony as to where her heart and sympathies were, and before many days she was found openly and fearlessly “confessing with her mouth the Lord Jesus” (Rom. 10:9), and taking her place among His redeemed people.
There can never be liberty to the soul, or the joy of God’s salvation in the life, apart from confession of the Lord Jesus. Faith in His person (John 3:36), gives life, and trust in His finished work gives peace (Rom. 5:1), but an honest confession of Him as personal Savior and Lord brings light, liberty, and joy.
If you have discovered that you are a sinner before God, guilty and condemned (Rom. 3:19); if you have learned that Christ died for the ungodly (Rom. 5:6), and that in virtue of His finished work, sin has been atoned for, do not fear to confess your faith and say,
“Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid.” Isa. 12:2.