“I AM not hungry, therefore it is no use your pressing me. Would you eat if you were not hungry? No. Well, I am not hungry, yet you press me, you persuade me, and you ask me, ‘Why not receive Christ now — now tonight — and have everlasting life?’ Well, all I can say is, as I said before, I hope someday to be a Christian, but as regards now I am not – hungry.”
The speaker was a young man of about seventeen years, and he turned away with a look which showed he felt satisfied with the way he had evaded another of the many, many presentations of the glorious gospel of Christ to his soul. He little thought of that Good Shepherd who laid down His life for the sheep, and who goeth after that which is lost till He find it, and when He hath found it, layeth it on His shoulders rejoicing; little thought of the gracious Saviour, who now sits exalted at the right hand of the Majesty on high, and who now this moment looketh down from the throne of God, and upon the lost, unrepentant sinner, still negligent of God’s great salvation, wandering like a lost sheep in the path which, however right in his own eyes, will surely end in eternal misery.
The young man of our narrative for this time again put off the Saviour, and the servant of the Lord left him and turned to others in that hall to point them to Jesus. For some months he continued his daily routine of life, but one morning while at his bench doing his work, suddenly he became troubled in mind about the question of salvation, and pausing in his work, a real conflict began in his soul. One voice seemed to sound in his ear, saying, It’s all a fable, there’s no proof of there being any hereafter, take no further notice; there is no God and no hell. But another voice came, saying, Behold My works in the heaven above and in the earth death. Who wrought these mighty wonders, and these countless variations in this work of creation? Who but I, I the Almighty Creator; and now again I am calling thee to repent and believe the gospel.
The Holy Spirit began to work deeply in his heart, laying it bare before him, showing him how deceitful it was and desperately wicked. Scriptures like Jer. 17:99The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9) and Matt. 15:1919For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: (Matthew 15:19) came before his mind, making him feel how unfit he was (although respectable and upright) to dwell in the presence of God. Isa. 6:55Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. (Isaiah 6:5) came before him, where seraphims veil their faces, crying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory.” He felt convinced of the reality of all he had heard of God and Christ as revealed in the Scriptures, and dropping his tools on the bench, he walked to the other end, and there in secret poured out his heart to God, and cried unto Him who is mighty to save.
The Good Shepherd had found His sheep, and there at the end of his bench he found peace through believing; and now after thirteen years is still rejoicing in Christ his Saviour. A memorable day for him is the 9th of April 1883. Often has he thought of his own words, spoken in the hall, “I am not hungry,” and as often has he praised God for creating a hunger in his soul, and then leading him to the One, the only One, JESUS, who can satisfy that hunger. “The bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world” (John 6:3333For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. (John 6:33)). And Jesus says to you, my reader, “I am the living bread, which came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever.”
“Jesus, of Thee we ne’er would tire;
The new and living food
Can satisfy our hearts’ desire,
And life is in Thy blood.”
F. R. H.