SUCH were the words of a woman who was lying very ill. God’s word had found entrance, and light had dawned in her soul.
The change from darkness to light was great, and the exhibition of God’s grace most wonderful and blessed.
When I first visited her, a year before, she was an infidel. She said she did not believe in God, nor in the Bible. She had once, she told me, believed in the reality of God and eternity; but so many different beliefs had been presented to her, both through conversations with persons, and through reading matter that had been put in her hands, such as Roman Catholicism, Spiritualism, the Jewish religion, Seventh Day Adventism, &c., that she had come to believe there was no reality in anything; and she had seen so much in professing Christians to stumble her, that she had lost confidence in Christians. I asked her if she did not think there was such a thing as a genuine Christian. The question seemed to touch a tender chord; it carried her back, in memory, to a loved sister, whom she had not seen for years, the reality of whose conversion and Christianity she could not question I saw that she was not thoroughly hardened,―there was a tender spot there,―and I lifted up my heart to God that He would reach and save the poor woman.
After seeking to put before her the importance of eternal things, I gave her a tract and left.
In the course of a few weeks I called again to see her. She received me kindly, and soon we were speaking of that which was nearest my heart.
But not in two visits, nor yet in a score of visits did the blessed truth do its work. The harvest does not follow immediately the sowing of the seed. The ground has first to be prepared, then the seed sown, then time must be given for the seed to spring up and grow, after that the harvest.
In the case of this dear woman, God had, I believe, been preparing the ground, for, as came out later on, I found that for some three or four years there had been uneasiness and a state of unrest, and an inmost conviction that there was a God, ―although she was resisting the truth, ―and that she was not fit to meet that God.
And now God, in His great mercy, was about to lead her on. The ground had been prepared, and now the seed was being sown.
After frequent visits had been made, in all of which I sought to set the truth before her, she told me one day there had been a change.
“Now,” said she, “I believe there is a God, and I believe the Bible is God’s Word. When you first came I did not believe that, but I do not see that these things are for me.” I could thank God for that. It filled my heart with fresh hope that the Lord would yet bring her to Himself; but I was first made to realize that the “sowing in tears” comes before the “reaping in joy.” I tried to show her that these things were for her.
When I asked her if she did not want to be saved, she replied, “Yes, I would give all the world to be a real Christian.”
Then, when I put before her the gospel in its broadness, its fullness, its simplicity, ― “Whosoever;” “Ho, every one that thirsteth;” “He that heareth;” ―she would meet me with, “Does not God say, ‘He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy.’ If God is going to save me, He will save me any way; I can do nothing. And does it not say, ‘Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated,’ and was not this spoken of the children before they were born?” There was evidently a mixture of cavil and real difficulty in her mind. I turned to Obadiah and to Malachi, and showed her that Esau’s course―foreknown to God―had been so bad that God could only visit judgment upon him; and that in Romans 9 the result simply is mentioned, and neither is it there said He hated him before he was born.
Again and again did she meet me with these words, “It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.” All this but served to show out the unbelief of the human heart. Thus I found her as I visited her from time to time. Sometimes she was softened and would even weep; she recognized that she was a sinner, deserving only of hell. Many times did she say to me, “I know that I deserve to go to hell; and if I die now, God will send me there.” At times she listened as one who heard not; and again she hardened herself, till it seemed as if her heart was like the nether millstone. But the Word of God is able to break the flinty rock in pieces, and it was doing its work in her soul. The Lord had marked her as His own, and in faithfulness He was dealing with her. Her health was poor during most of the year; finally, she was taken down with a severe illness.
The last two times I saw her before her conversion, I spoke specially of the need of giving up all to follow Him, saying to her that to “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ” is to own Him as Lord, in heart to bow in submission to Him. If we submit to Him, we will follow Him; and true following involves the giving up all for Him. The last of these two times was one Saturday afternoon. I had been speaking of these things; she said suddenly, “Do you think that is what hinders me?” I said, “No, Mrs. L―, I think in you it is want of faith; you harden your heart against God.” She soon after became much distressed, covered her face with her hands, and turned away.
I said a little more to her, and then left her. But God was dealing mightily with her soul; the darkness was soon to give place to light. She told me afterward, that as I. talked with her, and after I left her, she was “wretched, oh, so wretched!” She said she felt herself to be “the wickedest human being in the world.” From that time until nearly nine in the evening―some five or six hours―her heart was calling on God, “Lord, help me. O Lord, lead me into the light, that I may know where the difficulty is. Lord, save me, save me now, if ever.” Thus it was the struggle went on, but it was not until her heart bowed in submission, and she could say, “Lord, I give up all for Thee,” that the light broke in upon her.
Then it was that “the voice of the Son of God” was heard in her soul, and it seemed as if the words “Be at rest” were spoken to her. At first she could hardly take it in; then joy took possession of her, such a joy as filled her soul, and scarce knew bounds. So intense was it, that sleep did not visit her eyes that night, ―it was one happy night of praise and thanksgiving, the welling up and overflowing of a heart delivered from the shackles of sin and unbelief, brought into blessed light and liberty, and now free to praise God. Oh, if such be the joy of a new-born soul down here, surrounded by circumstances of sorrow and trial, what will the “fullness of joy” in His presence be! Surely the courts of heaven will resound with the hallelujahs of praise that will burst from the lips of the redeemed “unto him who has loved us.”
Next morning she sent her little girl with a message for me to come to her. When I got there she at once began to tell me of the wonderful change that had taken place, and truly she was a changed woman. She was so weak and sick that it was with difficulty she spoke at all, but in broken sentences she made known what God had done for her soul.
“I am saved.... Saved eternally and forever.... No person, nothing can take it from me.... But God’s appointed time had come; yea, it was God’s appointed time.... I told you I had given up everything; but I hadn’t, I was clinging to the world.... I was a wretched sinner.... I’m not afraid to die; but even when such a wretched sinner I was not afraid to die, for I had the thought that in some way God would bring me into light and enjoyment of His blessing.”
“I know the Lord has forgiven me. He died a long time ago, and I’ve done a heap against Him, but I know it’s all put away; I know He has redeemed my soul from hell. What does that hymn say? ― ‘I was blind, but now I see.”
Yes, God had indeed opened her eyes and made her to see. Wondrously had He wrought in her in His marvelous grace, and now praise and thanksgiving filled her soul. And the fruit too of the soul that has tasted of the love of God was manifest, for at once she began to tell what great things God had done for her, and to preach Christ to others.
Satan had lost his prey; but while he could not succeed in disturbing her peace, he did not leave her without troublers. Of those who went in to see her, there were some who told her that was not religion, she was not converted, and like things; but such talk did not move her, ―her feet had been planted on the Rock.
She was not taken away, as we feared she might be, the Lord in mercy sparing her to her family.
As she grew stronger, I visited and talked with her. It was her delight to recount God’s dealings with her soul. She told me she believed she would have gone on sinning had I not visited her and continued to go. As I talked with her she desired to “really feel and know the true love of God,” but argued in her heart, “God knows I want it, and He does not give it, so I don’t believe there is a God!” How this shows out the deceitfulness of the human heart! It seems quite a number of different persons had been interested in her, ―ministers, teachers, and others having talked with her, but she usually led them into argument, and, as she told me, nearly always gained her point. She would insist that the Bible was made by man, was only a law book, &c.
When I visited her I usually left a tract for her to read, ―this was before her conversion. She told me afterward she longed to understand and be made sensible of what was in those tracts, and she would wait until the children were off to school, and would then kneel down and pray earnestly that God would make her realize and feel what was in the book as I felt it. And God in His sovereign goodness and grace was pleased to hear, and to make her realize in her soul the blessed power of the truth.
Is there not encouragement in all this for the one in whose breast there is a longing for better things?
Is there a desire to know the love of God to know Christ, to know salvation? Press on, dear soul; God Himself has implanted the desire, and He will meet the need. “He satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.”
And is there not encouragement here also, for those who are seeking to win souls to Christ, to persevere with earnest prayer to God and travail of soul in their endeavor to turn the lost “from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God?”
“In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand, for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good.”
“They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.”
R. E.