“Nothing Right!”
AT THE BEGINNING! “NOTHING” AT THE END
It is Sunday evening during the summer of 1854, and a boy of 15 is listening to the preaching of the gospel in the old William Street Chapel, in the north of London.
He has heard the same earnest appeals from the same lips before, and the response of his heart has been, “I will never hear that man again! To preach such a sermon, and then to speak to me personally at the door it is too bad! I won’t go near him”; but that determination has been overruled, and tonight, as the preacher again urges his congregation with tears to come to Jesus, the conviction seizes the boy’s heart “I have a soul that must live forever, and this man cares for my soul and what becomes of it, though I have never thought about it.” And in deadly earnest he now began to think about it.
So did the prodigal of Luke 15, when, in the far country, amid the pig troughs, he “came to himself”; then “he arose and came to his father.”
The result was the same in both cases; and before the lad left the building that evening, the sinner and the Saviour had met, and he had rested his soul on the precious words, “him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.”
Oh, how different, how bright, how happy he was as he traversed the London streets that evening with the newborn joy of forgiveness welling up in his soul! How new everything looked! and how new everything was! for he himself was “new.” “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature!”
But there was one who would not let his prey escape so easily, and before he had reached home the birds of the air were attempting to devour the good seed that had been sown. “Then cometh that evil one,” with many an insidious suggestion. “It was all a delusion! he had not come to Jesus! or if he had, he had not come in the right way!” Thoroughly distressed, the lad looked up, “Lord”! he said, “there is NOTHING RIGHT about me. But I have come to Thee; and Thou hast said, ‘him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out,’ and I take Thee at Thy word.”
It was enough. Faced with the blessed declaration of Him Whom Satan knows to be the Truth, as well as his own Vanquisher, the “father of lies” was powerless; and the youthful believer proved the truth of the words “Resist the devil, and he shall flee from you.”
~~~
It is the close of 1917, and he who had begun his Christian course with the confession, “There is nothing right about me” is nearing the end of it with sixty-three years behind him of consistent and devoted service to the Best of masters.
His wife and daughter are sitting by, his bedside, and the former reads aloud the fourteenth chapter of The Book of the Revelation. Then the eyes close, the feeble hands clasp, and faintly but distinctly the words come, “Our gracious God and Father, we thank Thee that we are redeemed to God and to the Lamb by His precious blood, to the praise of Thy glory and NOTHING of ourselves,” and then follow petitions for those near and dear to him.
Ah, on the borders of eternity, he needs a sure resting place! and to find it, he looks outside himself altogether. “By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” The youthful stripling in his teens, taking the first step of the heavenward journey, must confess, “There is NOTHING RIGHT about me”; the matured saint and servant, just on the borderland, must own his salvation is “NOTHING OF OURSELVES.”
Reader, have you come to this? Have you ever owned to God, “There is nothing right about me”? He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and cannot look upon sin, and He knows you through and through. You have often taken up an apple, ripe and rosy, and, on cutting it, have found if rotten at the core! You have cut the rotten part away, and eaten the remainder. You have taken up another apple, and noticed it brown instead of red or green: you have cut it in half, and found it rotten throughout, without a particle that was fit for food! And to own “There is nothing right about me” is just to own oneself to be but a thoroughly rotten apple, fit for nothing but the fire. And this is the truth. “A corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit,” and every evil thought and word and deed you have been guilty of tells that the tree, the nature whence they sprang, is corrupt. But oh, if you own it in the sight of God, there is a superabundance of mercy in His heart to supply your need.
It was God’s provision under the law, that when a man or woman became a leper, and the leprosy had covered every part of the body, back and front, head and hand “wheresoever the priest looketh” that priest was to have the solemn, but pleasant, duty of declaring them “clean” (Lev. 13:12, 1312And if a leprosy break out abroad in the skin, and the leprosy cover all the skin of him that hath the plague from his head even to his foot, wheresoever the priest looketh; 13Then the priest shall consider: and, behold, if the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague: it is all turned white: he is clean. (Leviticus 13:12‑13)); whereas the one with but one spot upon him. was “utterly unclean” (ver. 44).
“The good-for-nothing, hopeless ones
Find mercy on the spot;
For thus God’s gracious message runs,
To him that worketh not.”
The only title for the sinner to enter the presence of a holy God is the precious blood, and the finished work, of the Lord Jesus Christ. And as another faithful and long devoted servant of the Lord could say, on his death bed, “I find the precious blood of Jesus ample to enter the presence of God with.” “By grace are ye saved, through faith and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8, 98For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2:8‑9)). “To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Rom. 4:55But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. (Romans 4:5)). “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us” (Titus 3:55Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; (Titus 3:5)).
And that which is a sufficient title for the vilest sinner, is the only title likewise for the most devoted saint. The dying thief and the apostle Paul have an equal title to heaven THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF THE LORD JESUS. Reader, is it yours? or are you seeking any anchorage of hope in anything of yourself? Aught else must prove but “sinking sand,” but “Trust ye in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is the Rock of Ages.”
T.
“There is a kind of omnipotency in prayer, as having an interest and prevalence with God’s omnipotency.”