IT is a solemn, and yet a blessed moment when light from God breaks in upon the soul of a sinner.
Light which exposes all the secrets of our hearts in a way which makes us know that we are in the presence of One who reads us through and through.
May such a moment come now, if never before in the history of my reader!
When the search-light falls upon the conscience, “I have sinned,” is the soul’s confession. “God be merciful to me a sinner!” becomes the penitent’s prayer.
He finds himself in the presence of God, and there he discovers that he has completely failed; he finds sin lurking beneath every motive of his nature; he knows consciously that he is sinful, and he has to admit that he is a fallen man. What is to be done?Can he remove the stains of guilt from his heart?
Must the dark tide of death and judgment sweep over the human race?
Nay! God has a resource, and it is this. The One who from eternity was “with God and was God” was “made flesh and dwelt among us.” I beseech you to think of the amazing pity―of the infinite compassion― of the love beyond degree revealed to sinners in the fact that the Son of God has become a man, that He might “by the grace of God taste death for every man.”
Oh! where shall we find a parallel to love like this? When David, dethroned and exiled by the rebellion of his son, heard of that son’s death, his love rose above all its injuries and he wept and said, “Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!”
What David could not do for Absalom, the Son of God has done for us.
The lamented Princess Alice was nursing her child in diphtheria, when the little hands were put up for the mother’s kiss.
She stooped down―breaking through the restraints of prudence―and kissed the little one at the expense of her life, and a nation’s tears fell, when it heard the pathetic story.
But think, oh think! of the Son of God coming into the world to give, expression to what was in God’s heart for a world of sinners―stooping down to put the kiss of divine love on poor, ruined sinners―but at the cost of His life. Will you not turn to Him now, and thank Him for the love that was stronger than death? Will you not thank the blessed God who “so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life?”
And now the One who died for us is no longer on the cross or in the tomb. He is risen from the dead, and is glorified at the right hand of God. Believe then now on the Son of God, and be saved. His “one sacrifice for sins” is available for you. “Through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe are justified from all things” (Acts 13:3838Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: (Acts 13:38)).
C. A. C.