I WAS traveling lately with a friend from London to the North of England. The train was about to start when a gentleman got into the carriage. A friend, who had just bidden him farewell, came back and said, "By-the-bye, have you got an insurance ticket?" "Oh, yes," said the gentleman, "I am insured.”
My friend turned to him and said very quietly, "Are you insured forever?" The gentleman looked up surprised, but answered (not at all understanding what was really meant), "No, I only insure for a year at a time." "But I," said my friend, "am insured forever." Still misunderstanding, the gentleman replied, "Oh, yes, I know you can do it by one payment, but it costs a great deal." My friend answered, "Yes, mine was done by one payment, and cost a great deal indeed. It cost me nothing, but it cost God His Son.”
I thought as I listened, How simple and how beautiful is the gospel of the grace of God "It cost me nothing, but it cost God His Son." Can he resist such a message of love as that? Yes, alas the heart of man rebels against, the free love of God, though that love could only find its full expression in giving up to death and judgment His own beloved. Son, that the poor, unlovely and unloving sinner might be saved.
Now that there could be no misunderstanding what my friend meant the gentleman at once turned away angry, and did not want to hear more.
A short time afterward I said a few words to him, but he replied that it was out of place to speak of those things in a railway carriage. Out of place to speak of Christ anywhere! I asked him, if an earthly friend had done him some service of immeasurable value to prove his great love for him would he think it out of place to speak of him anywhere? and yet he thought it out of place to speak of the One who had left the glory of God to become a Man, and bear death and judgment for poor lost sinners. Could any earthly love bear comparison with that? But he only turned angrily away, and said he did not like my conversation. Such is ever the heart of man. They "saw no beauty in Him" when He was in the world, and they see no beauty in Him now.
And now, reader, let me turn my friend's simple searching question upon yourself. "Are you insured forever?" Are you obliged to say No, when the "one payment" has been made, sealed in the Savior’s blood, and that Savior the Son of God, who became a Man for you? If you were going to-morrow on a railway journey, you would not hesitate to insure your life, and by the payment of a few pence insure a thousand pounds for your nearest relations if you were killed. But how little do you think of those solemn words, "After death the judgment." The world will promise you a thousand pounds for your relations, if you die, upon payment of a certain sum; God offers you eternal life without any payment at all from you. "The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Yes, it is all through Him, and at what a cost! In my friend's words, "It cost God His Son." Oh, what love,! what immeasurable love, mercy, and grace! And all may be yours by believing on Him, whom man has rejected, and whom God has glorified. That is what God owns and honors now, and that alone; faith in Him whom this world cast out. That indeed is to be "insured forever," and none need wait for death to get the benefit of it. Eternal life is yours the moment you in truth believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life." (John 6:47.) A. P. G.