"Okay, Jose, within an hour you must board your ship!"
Jose shrugged his shoulders and contemplated the voyage indifferently. There was nothing to indicate that it would be any different from the many others he had made. A steward's job aboard a freighter doesn't provide much excitement, and regular trips to South African ports can become pretty monotonous.
While waiting, he was sitting in the humble living room of their neat little home near Lisbon. While his wife packed the clothes he would need for four or five weeks at sea, Jose casually picked up a book that lay beside the sewing machine.
"Christian Reading," he mused. "Evidently a religious book, judging from the title."
"Well", he soliliquised, "I'm forty years old now and have knocked about the world too much to bother about religion. If all Christians were like my mother, there might be something to it."
It was years since he had seen his mother, though she never failed to write and he knew that she never ceased to pray for him.
"It's good to have a mother like mine," he continued to himself. "What a pity that our ship doesn't cross the Atlantic sometimes—then there might be a chance of putting in at Bermuda where mother lives."
To while away a few more minutes he listlessly opened the Book in his hands. But immediately he did so, an arrow from God's quiver struck him, as his eyes fell on the words: "So then everyone of us shall give account of himself to God."
Here was a meeting Jose had never reckoned on! He had always been careful to keep short accounts with his mates. Now all of a sudden he realized a day was coming when he must settle up with God.
His wife glanced up and saw something was the matter, and asked him what was wrong. He gave an evasive answer; but asked her to put a Bible in his kit-bag.
He made his way to the ship, pre-occupied with this strangely solemn thought: He would have to meet God about his sins.
His sins! All his thoughts now revolved around his sinful past. Feelings of guilt and horror possessed him.
Once on board, he took the first opportunity to open his Bible, but everywhere he read it seemed only to add to his dread of condemnation. Divine statements such as—
"Be sure your sins will find you out," and "The wages of sin is death," haunted him.
He could not sleep at night, but tossed for hours in his bunk. Nor did the morning bring relief. So great became his distress that he could not eat. When he sought a quiet corner of the deck to search the Scriptures again, every sin he had ever committed seemed to be written down there in terms of judgment.
The other members of the crew counseled him to throw the Bible overboard—otherwise they said, he would go mad. But he dared not do that, although its message filled him with the terrors of hell. Days went by and his anguish only increased. There was not a single ray of light to pierce the gloom.
But behind the clouds God was working to prepare Jose's soul for blessing. In His time and in His way, He caused the unhappy man to at last discover the following verse: "All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme." Mark 3:2828Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: (Mark 3:28).
Here was a promise from the lips of the Savior Himself, and the Holy Spirit led him to lay hold of it. As he did so a wonderful calm descended upon his storm-tossed soul. Jose at once resolved that as soon as his boat returned to Lisbon he would seek someone who could show him the way of salvation.
His first evening on shore found him in a gospel meeting. There he heard the wonderful truth that has brought peace to millions: "The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin." 1 John 1:77But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. (1 John 1:7). He believed and was saved and rejoiced.
His first act was to write to his saintly old mother and tell her that her prayers had been heard in heaven and gloriously answered. Who can estimate the power of a mother's prayers?
God can save a repentent sinner at any age, and in any place, regardless of nationality or his moral condition. He can use a few words in print to tear the veil from our eyes. Yes, He can use Jose's brief, true story to bring the reader face to face with the realities of eternity.
That day of wrath, that dreadful day,
When heaven and earth shall pass away!
What power shall be the sinner's stay?
How shall he meet that dreadful day?