He eked out a miserable existence doing odd jobs down near the wharves and scavenging anything he might sell to get enough for drink.
Degraded though he was, one Eye pitied him and one Heart yearned over him. “God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins” ({vi 29234-29235}Ephesians 2:4-5), was about to display those riches of mercy.
A sudden stroke of paralysis laid the old man helpless on his filthy bed. To the wretched shack he called “home” came a messenger of mercy, a Christian who had often tried in vain to reach his ear and rouse his conscience.
As his visitor entered, the afflicted man fiercely demanded: “Who told you to come?”
“No one told me to come. I heard you were ill, and I came to see if I could be of help” was the reply.
“Then you can go again,” the sick man answered roughly. If he had not been helpless, he would have forced his visitor to leave.
“I’m not going until I’ve told you what I came for,” the Christian responded. He was afraid that this might be his last chance to tell the poor man the good news of God’s grace, and in spite of threats and curses he stayed.
“Now that you are paralyzed you have time to think. Think of your wicked life! It is God’s mercy that He did not take you away with this stroke. He is giving you a chance to hear His Word and be saved.” Rapidly he told the helpless man of another paralyzed man who was brought to Jesus when He was on earth. He ended by saying, “You need what he got—his sins forgiven!”
No response but curses did he hear, and he left, thankful for this one more opportunity to tell this slave of sin of a Deliverer. But the warning fell on deaf ears.
Time passed. One day the same messenger of God’s grace was called to see a dying barkeeper. The only entrance to the sick man’s room was through the bar, and at the bar he spied the old man, recovered from his paralysis, drinking with another as disreputable in appearance as he.
The building was old and the walls thin, and as the missionary read the Bible and told the dying man of the Saviour, voices in the bar easily penetrated to the sickroom. The missionary soon realized that the two men drinking together were plotting against his life. What a scene! Death rapidly approaching to claim its victim here and murder plotted against him there! His visit over, the Christian confidently commended himself to God and went out to face his would-be murderers. He eventually got safely away, although for nearly an hour they barred his way—the two who, refusing his Master, hated His servant also. Again time slipped by. Walking down the street one night the missionary was suddenly accosted by the same old man, now older and feebler and—yes—dirtier. “Preacher, straight as one man to another, will you do me a favor? Lend me a dollar.”
“And also speaking straight to you as one man to another, what do you want it for? Drink? If so, you have come to the wrong man.”
“No, preacher, I don’t. I’m hungry. I want to buy some bread.”
Like rats deserting a sinking ship, his old companions had turned their backs on him. With advancing years and infirmity, his meager earnings had dwindled to nothing. He had come to an end of all his resources and was indeed in want.
Assuring himself by a few questions that the man was telling the truth, his friend entered a nearby bakery and bought a loaf of bread and handed it to him. Taking it, the man poised it on the palm of his hand. He looked earnestly first at it and then at the missionary.
“Do I understand,” he said at length, “that you lend me this loaf?”
“No, I give it to you.”
“Do you remember coming to see me when I was laid up?”
“Perfectly.”
“Do you remember what happened in the bar when you went to see the man who was dying?”
“Yes.”
“And remembering all that, you will lend me this loaf?”
“No, I give it to you,” repeated the missionary.
“Then don’t be surprised if you see me at the Mission Hall on Sunday!”
“I’m not surprised at anything that happens there!”—and they parted.
Sunday night came. The old derelict was true to his word. Attentively he listened to the news of salvation waiting for and offered to him. His heart had been touched by the kind act of a few days before. That loaf freely given in his dire need by the man whom he had abused and tried to murder made him willing to hear about God’s free gift: “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
Now the Holy Spirit could give him understanding of the gift of God from above, and as simply as he had taken the loaf of bread as a gift, he received the Lord Jesus Christ as his Saviour.
He was caught—caught in the chains of divine love. His new life shone out in the old surroundings. Throughout his remaining years he witnessed to all of the free gift of God’s love and brought many other poor souls to Christ.
Jesus said, “Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). His invitation to lost sinners still goes out, “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Revelation 22:17).