THE case is urgent and the messenger intensely interested. The son of a nobleman is at the point of death. The father hears that Jesus has come within fifteen miles of his dying boy, and straightway sets forth from Capernaum to Cana to fetch Him. He reaches the ever-gracious One and makes his appeal. But Jesus knows the workings of the heart, and says, “Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.” Probably, like Naaman the Syrian, he had made up his mind how Jesus would do it. At least, thought he, His personal presence will be necessary. But he reckons wrongly in this. He who could command a burning fever to depart forthwith and cause a dying child to spring into fresh health again, could do it as easily at a distance as nigh at hand.
Still, the case is critical, the danger is great, and once more the suppliant presses his anguished petition— “Sir, come down ere my child die”; and then, without the craved-for sign, the father’s faith is put to the test— “Go thy way; thy son liveth.”
Was his faith up to it? Yes. The man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way; that is, the Saviour’s word was enough—enough without a sign.
On the way home his servants met him with a message. What was it? It was identically what Jesus had said; nothing was added to what he knew before— “Thy son liveth.” And even, when he reached home, what his eyes saw added nothing to the truth of what his ears heard and his heart had believed when he knelt, a suppliant, at the feet of Jesus.
And so with the believer in Christ today. When once I have, by the Spirit’s power, received His word, and rested my soul upon it because it is His word, if all the angels in heaven came out to assure me, they could add nothing to what their Master had said, nor would a thousand years of heavenly bliss in His immediate presence make one word of His more true.
A woman in the country once related a bit of her soul-history to the writer. At the age of seventeen she had been awakened to the needs of her soul at a cottage prayer meeting. Thirty years afterward she was still without peace. At this point she became very much alarmed because, as yet, she had no real assurance of her blessing.
One day she went upstairs feeling determined to know if the assurance that she was the Lord’s could be reached by one like herself. She would, therefore, not get off her knees without coming to some certainty about it.
But, alas! she was looking for some sign in herself, some unmistakable token in the shape of an assured feeling that she was all right. After remaining some considerable time on her knees, she rose, but, alas! feeling, as she expressed it, “as hard as a stone.”
She then made up her mind it was no use trying any longer. It must be that she was not one of God’s children; so she would give it up forever. She would just look after her children, lead as good a life as she could, and chance the rest!
“You see,” she said, “I had left out the chart.” Yes, and with this the One to whom the chart would have directed her. But God had not forgotten this poor baffled seeker, and deliverance was not far off.
One day shortly after this she was doing something near her little bookcase. Seeing a Bible, she took it down and began to read the twentieth chapter of the Gospel of John. When she came to the story of Thomas she felt unusually interested, as she saw in him one who wanted some visible sign before he could believe. She read on, and when she got to the Lord’s words to that disciple— “Thomas, because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed” (v. 29)—the light entered, and she exclaimed, “Lord, I do believe,” and immediately rejoiced in Him whom her heart had trusted.
The scripture was the means of bringing Christ and His words before her, and instead of looking any longer for the comforting results of believing, as a sign that she really believed, she had turned her eye to Him who could alone win the heart’s confidence and produce those blessed results.
How is it with my reader? Is Christ your confidence, or are you trying to find satisfaction in a spiritualized self? Like a good pilot, the Spirit of God will direct you by the chart to the only “Light” that is to be trusted for getting safely into harbor. “They looked to HIM, and were lightened, and their faces were not ashamed.”
“I’d look to Him till sight endear
That Saviour to my heart;
To Him I’d look, who calms my fear,
Nor from Himself depart.”
GEO. C.