INNUMERABLE are the devil’s methods of blinding the minds of men and women, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto them. He knows that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth and by all the wiles in his power he seeks to hinder and to deceive anxious souls. Joy, peace, liberty, and forgiveness of sins accompany God’s salvation, but so long as souls are kept in bondage these cannot be known.
It is the one simple enough to believe the Word of God that “Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:33For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; (1 Corinthians 15:3)), and who in faith puts himself or herself in the “our,” or changes it to “Christ died for my sins,” that is made joyous in the knowledge of sins pardoned.
Reader, do you know the blessedness of the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered? (Psa. 32:11<<A Psalm of David, Maschil.>> Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. (Psalm 32:1)). I was speaking to a man not long since about his soul, and at last he sought to wind up our conversation by saying, “Well, if I have to be saved I shall be saved, and if I have to be lost I shall be lost.”
“Oh! I see,” I replied, “when you are brought before God in judgment your plea will be, ‘I am here because I was not one of those who had to be saved.’ Rather,” I continued, “if speech be granted you in that day, you will say, ‘I am here because I would not be saved.’”
Unsaved reader, the Lord Jesus said on earth, “Ye will not come to me that ye might have life” (John 5:4040And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life. (John 5:40)), and true enough still it is that men will not go to Him, who alone can give life. Many are in a state of unrest. Their sins trouble them. They know not what to do. Are you one? Are you in earnest enough to ask yourself the question, “What must I do to be saved?”
“What is the first thing a man should do who wants to be a Christian” I asked a man who had been attentively listening to an open-air preaching.
“Lead a good life,” was his reply.
“Nay,” I said, “friend, that is the wrong end to begin. You must confess yourself a lost, undone sinner before God, accept the eternal life which is His gift, and then lead a new life.”
How many today are trying to be saved, hoping they are saved, or saying as a man said in a railway compartment where I was recently, “I don’t think we can know we are saved till the judgment day.”
Praise God for better news than that. “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation (judgment); but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:2424Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. (John 5:24)), are the words of the Lord Jesus.
Careless reader, do you say with one who answered me on being asked about eternal things, “I never let these things worry me”? God grant you may awake from your sleep.
“You have an engagement with God you will have to keep,” a Christian brother answered a man, who on being invited to a gospel meeting said he had “another engagement.” Time is fleeting. While God in mercy is calling, answer, “Lord, I come.”
Trust Christ now.
“Let it be now swift, swift the moments fly,
Each moment lost, is lost eternally,
And, with each, death and doom are drawing nigh,
Oh waste no more, no more.”
Trifler, let it be now.
G. W. S.