“THEY tell me that I ought to see all my sins set out before me, before I can believe,” said a poor girl, whose days were numbered, and who had long been anxious about her soul.
“As to your sins, let us see what the Bible says about them,” I replied, and I read part of Rom. 3, ending with, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God,” asking if that was true of her.
“Oh, yes,” she said; “I know I deserve nothing but hell.”
“God’s words are different from man’s,” I said. “God does not say your sins are to be set out before you, but He bids you believe His word as to your condition before Him—a condition which you cannot improve, and which I know you feel, or you would not be anxious to be saved. He says that you have never done one good thing in your life, and you believe it, and own it. Do you also believe what He says about His Son?”
“But,” she interrupted, “they (meaning some of her religious friends who had been visiting her) say when I believe I shall know it by a fine flush of feeling.”
Again we turned to God’s word, and again we found how often man puts difficulties where God puts none, and that the word “feeling” does not even occur in it, with regard to salvation, at all. It was not until the poor woman in the crowd, in Mark 5, had touched Jesus that she could feel in her body that she was healed, much less can joy and peace be known before believing; scripture says “Joy and peace in believing.” (Rom. 15:1313Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost. (Romans 15:13)).
This poor girl’s next remark was, “I was lying awake for hours, last night, wondering whether I did believe, or whether God could be satisfied with me.”
“Satisfied with you!” I exclaimed; “God will never be satisfied with you, but He is satisfied with Jesus, and what He has done for you. Think of the poor dying thief; he had never done anything to please God, nor would he ever have been able to do anything; but one thing he could do, and that was, own himself a sinner, as you have done. He said, ‘We indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds.’ He condemned himself, and then he turned away from himself to Christ, saying, ‘This man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise.’ God was so satisfied with the work of His Son on the cross for that poor thief that He could take such a sinner as he had been straight into heaven. If God could be satisfied with you He need not have said ‘justified freely.’ The work of Christ is so perfect that He asks nothing from you but ‘to trust to the One who did it.’”
“Then I must have peace with God,” she replied. But, dear reader, we may grasp truth with the mind, and yet not with the heart “believe unto salvation;” and not until face to face with death, a few days later, did my poor friend, like that dying thief, turn away from herself altogether. Then she was able to assure those around her that she “rested only on the finished work of Christ.” She talked no more of feelings. “I’ve done with all that,” she said; “I’m trusting only to Christ.” And truly during her remaining days we saw the truth of “Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed.”
Suffering and death did not shake her confidence. She had come to Him, and He had given her rest, and she departed to be with Christ, leaving us to exclaim, “Thanks be to God, which giveth is the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I have related some of the difficulties of this young woman, knowing them to be so common, but in the light of the Word of God found to be only suggestions of the enemy of souls, who loves to make much of sinners and little of Christ. God has judged and set aside the first man as bad and useless, but He has One in His presence in whom is all His delight— “The Son of Man whom Thou (God) made strong for Thyself.” Ask yourself, not what do I think of the work of Christ, but what does God think? Is He so satisfied with that work that He can receive such a vile sinner as I am? Yes, an “ungodly” one, a “sinner,” an “enemy” —for such Christ died, and “such were some of you, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus,” “whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood.” Will you seek to set forth anything else, or will you set to your “seal that God is true,” and thank Him that you are “justified freely by His grace?”
H. L. H.