I want to tell you about a man who was lost, not for some hours, but for three days. This man went walking alone in a great forest; he had taken nothing with him but a gun and some eatables. When he had walked for some hours, it seemed to him impossible to find his way back again.
What three terrible days and nights he passed through there! They seemed to him as so many years. He was despairing of ever getting out, when he heard suddenly a gun-shot. You can imagine, what an effect this had on him. That shot sounded sweeter in his ears than the most beautiful music. Now he hoped to be saved. And what do you think he did? He answered that shot directly by shooting off his own gun. He did not wait; he did not put it off. O no! his position was too serious to allow of delay.
Scarcely had he fired off his gun, when an Indian appeared from behind the trees. Although the latter understood very little English, and our friend knew nothing of the Indian language, they managed to understand one ather. Our lost friend had but one desire, and that was, to get out of the forest, and to be brought to a safe place. The Indian agreed to be his guide, on condition that he gave him a certain number of dollars. The bargain was soon arranged. They set off, and after some time the wanderer was at home, and gladly paid the Indian the money he had promised him.
If the shot from a gun was such joy for the poor, lost man, how delightful must be the glad tidings of God’s grace to a poor sinner, who feels that he is lost! How earnest was the question of the jailor at Philippi:
“What must I do to be saved?” And how beautiful the answer of the servants of the Lord:
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Acts 16:30,31.
Have you, dear reader, heard God’s glad tidings to lost sinners? O, yes! surely. It has come to you often. And have you acted as wisely as the waerer in the woods, who immediately answered the shot? In other words, is your soul now saved through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ?
ML 03/25/1945