At one of our gospel meetings a man waited in the inquiry room. He said he had tried nine religions but none of them had done him any good. Bitterly he told us that he had been baptized three times: now he called himself a "Materialist.”
I took a box of safety matches out of my pocket. Removing one of the matches and placing it in his hand, I requested him to light it.
He said, "Let me have the box.”
"Oh! no, do it without the box," I replied. "Scratch it on a brick, or stone, or anywhere else you like.”
He tried to light it but he failed. I handed to him, and to the young men standing near-by, several more matches. All of them tried to light them on anything but the proper composition, which was on the box. At last I exclaimed: "How like that match is your precious soul!" God has made plain that our souls can never be converted merely by the forms of religion, whether there be nine or ninety.
"Nothing can strike fire to the soul—the fire of divine love, and eternal life, and endless light,—but coming into direct contact with the Lord Jesus.
"I do not wonder that those nine religions have done you no good. Now take the box and apply the match to it.”
He did so and it was ablaze in a moment. Just so, dear one, as soon as your sinful soul meets with the Savior and touches Him, it is "made whole." Nothing but personal contact with the Son of God can quicken us into life, forgive us our sins, or cleanse us from our iniquities. Nothing and nobody but Jesus and His blood can do it.
God says, "My glory will I not give to another." Isa. 42:88I am the Lord: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images. (Isaiah 42:8). God has once and forever decided and settled it, that all men should bow the knee to Jesus, and that every tongue shall confess that He is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Some time later this same man came to our meeting again. He said, "Sir, I have read that once upon a time a little country boy found his way up to London. He was hungry, thirsty and penniless. He stood looking through a shop window in Sackville Street at nine tailors at work. The tailors called him in and found out his history and condition. They had pity upon him. They fed him and let him sleep under their table. These nine tailors subscribed some money and one took him to Covent Garden Market. He bought some fruit, put it into a basket, and sent the boy around to sell it. He did so, and returned to them with double the amount of money.
"They repeated this daily, and the lad succeeded in the sale of the fruit. This went on until he had a donkey and a cart, then a shop; and ultimately he had the chief shop in the principal avenue of Covent Garden Market. He became very rich and rode about in his own carriage, and had the words written on it: 'Nine tailors made me a man.'
"Well, sir, I was thinking that those nine tailors succeeded in making him a man, but my nine religions utterly failed to make me a Christian. After your talk with me I had no peace. Every time I saw a match-box I got irritable, and tried to light the matches without the box. When I failed to do it, it generally ended with my striking one on the box, and off it went in a fiery blaze in a moment. I thought of your words, that I should never get right, and be all in a heavenly blaze with the love of God until I came into contact with the Lord Jesus Himself.
"So I began to read the Scriptures. One day I was reading in Luke 17 about ten lepers coming to Jesus. He healed them all; but only one out of the lot returned to give Him thanks. And Jesus said, `Were there not ten cleansed, but where are the nine?' And I thought to myself, 'Well, if those nine lepers ain't exactly like my nine religions. They are a guilty, good-for-nothing lot!" Then I decided, `I'll be like the tenth man, and come to Jesus Himself, and give Him thanks. For you had read to us that Jesus said: "'I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.'" John 14:66Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (John 14:6).
"Now, sir, I can thankfully say that I came to Him as a poor, lost sinner; and, praise His name, Jesus has made a Christian out of me!”