Being of Scotch extraction, I always greatly enjoy the broad Scotch translation of the New Testament. In that you will never find our English word, “believe,” but you will find the word “lippen.” For instance, John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) reads, “For God se loved the warld as to gie His Son, the only begotten Ane, that ilka ane wha lippens till Him sudna dee, but hae life for aye.” What does that word mean, the word “lippen”? It just means to trust your whole weight on a thing, trust it implicitly.
A Scotch minister was visiting a poor woman who was in great distress about her soul. She just could not seem to understand. By and by he left her, and on his way back to the manse he was troubled to think he had not been able to help her. He came to a bridge over a burn in front of the house, which he started to cross, going step by step very carefully with his buckthorn cane.
An old Scotch woman called out, “Why, Doctor Man, can ye no lippen the brig?” He laughed and waved his hand, and said to himself, “I have the word for my auld lady.” So he went back to the cottage. She opened the door and said, “O Doctor, you’ve come back again?”
He said, “I have the word for you now.”
“What is it, Doctor?”
“Can you no lippen to Jesus?”
“Oh, is it just to lippen to Him? Why, surely I can lippen to Him. He will never let me doon, will He?”
They bowed together, and she settled it. That is all God asks you to do. Believe the record He has given concerning Jesus; put your heart’s trust in Him. You may be assured that you have life eternal for “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know” — not merely hope, not just have a reasonable assurance, but full assurance — “that ye have eternal life.”