She was an elderly woman well past the threescore and ten years of Scripture. Her hair was white and her face wore a look of deep distress. I observed her sitting regularly in the same place in the meeting room every night, and I longed to speak to her. She gave me no chance, as she left the hall as soon as my message was ended. Her sad and anxious face haunted me. I could not rest until I found out where she lived; then I visited her.
Her cottage was in a back lane and spotlessly clean. She was busy working when I entered, but willingly stopped to talk about her soul. When I asked if she knew the Lord Jesus as her Savior, her one cry was: "Oh, my sins!”
My next question was: "How long have you been so burdened about your sins?" To this she answered that she had wept and prayed for forgiveness of sins for about thirty long, weary years. All that time she had been going to the meeting room, hoping to find pardon and peace there; but she could not yet claim salvation.
She assented to all this, but it brought her no comfort. She still cried mournfully: "Oh, my sins!”
Desiring to help her if I could through the comfort of the Scriptures, I continued: "You do believe that Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree (1 Peter 2:2424Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. (1 Peter 2:24)), and that He had put them all away by shedding His precious blood before He left the cross, and that He is now in heaven without them?”
Seeing that the blessed Spirit of God was dealing with this divinely awakened soul, I longed that she might have the knowledge of the forgiveness of her sins. I endeavored to show her simply by the Scriptures that Christ had all her sins laid on Him on the cross; that He put them all away before He left the cross; and that He is now upon His Father's throne in the glory without one sin upon Him. For how could God have sins in His holy presence?
I asked her: "If Christ had your sins upon Him on the cross, and is now in heaven without them, where are they?”
For a moment she gazed at me with wide, startled eyes. Then a radiant smile spread over her face as she exclaimed: "Why, they are all gone, and I never realized that before." As the immensity of this so great salvation which she now knew was hers began to flood her being, with reverent adoration she murmured: "Oh, my Savior!”
She now knew the joy of sins forgiven and was sure of having a Savior in heaven. She could look confidently up into His face there and say: "For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day." 2 Tim. 1:1212For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. (2 Timothy 1:12).
"There is no peace, saith
my God, to the wicked.”
For He (the Lord) is
our peace.”