WE LIVE on a farm in Manitoba, Canada, a long way from town. I found it very tiresome here at first, as it was so different from the busy city where I had lived. There were no worldly entertainments, and few companions. I was unsaved then, and the words of my faithful Sunday school teacher often came to my mind and gave me a good deal of trouble.
My cousin Winnie, who lived in the Old Country, kept sending me letters and gospel tracts, and every time she wrote she told me “not to put off my salvation till my dying hour.” All this, I see now, was being used of God to waken me to a sense of my sin and my need of the Saviour.
There was a Sunday evening gospel service in the old schoolhouse a few miles away, and my father and I went there one evening. The preacher was a farmer’s son, and he spoke just as I had so often heard it in my childhood. He told us of his conversion, and of how that it came about by his believing 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). I thought that was surely very easily done, so I turned to the verse in the Bible. I had read and repeated it many a time, but I never saw before the real meaning of it.
The young farmer pointed out that the verse had two parts—God’s part, and ours. He put it this way: loved the world gave His Son believe on Him have everlasting life.
He said that “believing” and “hang” go together; just as God’s love and God’s gift go together. That simple word was used to give me light. I believed on Jesus, and was saved in the old schoolhouse that night.
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation [judgment]; but is passed from death unto life.” John 5:2424Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. (John 5:24).
ML-11/01/1964