ONE fine Sunday afternoon, about 5 o’clock, a relative of the writer was returning from her Bible class along a quiet road in a Surrey town, bordered by the hedges of the large gardens surrounding the gentlemen’s residences on either side. All seemed particularly peaceful; very few people were about, and she was enjoying the quiet and solitude, when suddenly her meditations were interrupted by a shout, “Make for the gate! Make for the gate!”
She started and looked round; no one was in sight. “Make for the gate!” What gate? Were the words addressed to her? If so, by whom? These and similar questions rapidly crossed her mind; but before thought could frame her answer, again the words fell, more loudly, more imperatively and clearly, “Make for the gate!” And now she could distinguish hurried though distant footsteps; and feeling sure the injunction was addressed to her, she hastily entered the nearest gate —a small tradesmen’s entrance in the thick-set hedge, and closed it behind her. Hardly had she done so, when an infuriated bull dashed past the spot, followed by several panting drovers. In safety, but only just in time, and with profound thankfulness for her escape from danger (for, if memory serves aright, the beast badly gored someone else before it was captured) the lady watched all go by, and then when all was again quiet, went on her way.
Reader, circumstances around you may seem as fair and as peaceful as that country road seemed that Sunday afternoon; but if you are still on the broad way that leadeth to destruction the voice of an unseen Speaker is calling to you, “Make for the gate!” “Enter ye in at the straight gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that go in thereat” (Matt. 7:1313Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: (Matthew 7:13)). “Enter ye in at the straight gate!” It is the voice of entreaty as well as command—the voice of One who knows your danger, and who has provided one way, one only way of escape. “I am the Door,” declares the Lord Jesus; and that Door stands wide open. You need no prayers, no tears, no almsgiving to open heaven’s portals. Divine love and divine justice have already swung them wide—the love that sent the Son to die, and the justice that accepted His sacrifice—wide enough to admit any sinner, however great, who comes just as he is, to take refuge within.
“Oh, enter, enter now!”
Come then in all your need as a guilty sinner, bowing to God’s word that tells us we have all sinned, and we come short of His glory—God “looketh upon men; and if any say I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not, He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light.” A ransom has been found—Jesus gave Himself a ransom for all. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
T.