A PREACHER of the gospel was holding a series of meetings in a village schoolroom. Amongst the people who came to hear was a farmer, who listened with intense eagerness to the wondrous story of redeeming love. At the close of the meeting the hymn was sung:
“Pardon is offered! Pardon is offered!
A pardon, full, present, and free.
The mighty debt was paid
When on Calvary Jesus died
To atone for a rebel like thee.”
These words made the farmer feel uneasy. He went home, and, after a sleepless night, found himself very unhappy in the morning.
Next day, as he was coming home from the plow after a hard day’s work, still unhappy, his son, a boy of thirteen years of age, who had been with him on the previous evening, began singing the verse given above. Immediately the truth broke upon his father’s soul, that there was pardon for him, and that he had simply to believe on the Lord Jesus who had borne his sins away on the cross, coming to Him just as he was.
He there and then believed, and now he can say, as the apostle Paul said, “I know in whom I have believed, and that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him against that day.” It is nearly five years since the farmer knew Jesus as his Saviour, and he is still rejoicing in the knowledge of sins forgiven.
Dear reader, may you, like him, be enabled to trust in Jesus, and to know Him as your Saviour. God tells us in His word that “Now is the accepted time, and that now is the day of salvation.” Come, just as you are, and accept the free gift.
A. C.