“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; 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).
THIS is positive. Nothing can touch that “life.” “I live.” Christ is my life. Have you got it, precious soul? Is it yours? The soul that accepts not, who stops not to listen, must surely “come into judgment.” He does not “hear.”
The “Word” finds not an “entrance.” The incorruptible, living, and abiding Word of God is not there. Only darkness and death reigns. The soul that has not life eternal is not “passed out of death.” May God open the eyes of such.
More than fourteen years have passed since the Word of God entered into my heart, dispelling darkness and giving light. Not by any effort on my part, though try to obtain forgiveness I did, in my own foolish way. Many a miserable week was I trying to be saved, and nights spent in sleepless misery of soul. The devil was pleased to keep me from “giving up.” We are safe in the devil’s grasp as long as ever we go on trying to be saved, for until we cease there is “no hope,” for we are trying to do something when all is done, and to make ourselves fit for God’s presence we never can. ‘It is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.’ It is by Jesus’ blood we are redeemed unto God.
God knows the nature of that “precious blood.” Its cleansing power is without measure. The redeemed will sing its preciousness, and glory in that Lamb who was slain, throughout eternity.
To return to the subject of trying. I got tired of that. Having locked myself in a closet, in order that no one should find me out, there on my knees before God I cried in agony of soul. What a fearful time it was! Hell would only have been a continuation throughout eternity of what I felt, and that in the fire that never shall be quenched; but God, who is rich in mercy, plucked me as a brand from the fire. (Oh, sinners, as I value my own soul, I speak to you.) Being exhausted with weeping and kneeling, weary and worn with effort day by day, at last I sank on my face and hands prostrate on the floor, saying, “Then, O God, I must be lost!” I gave up trying. My rebellious will was broken. I thought that only hell was before me, and thus in agony, in the last extremity, I gave myself up, knowing I was only fit to burn, and that forever, and justly so, before God. Immediately that cry had been wrung from my wretched heart, “O God, I must be lost!” there, in that utter helplessness, the living and abiding Word of God found an entrance. I heard, I believed. By faith I saw the Saviour on Calvary’s cross, and those precious words, “It is finished,” spake peace to my soul. My load was gone. I, a new creature, “passed out of death into life.”
M. A. M. T.