TO one who has felt his need—who has groaned beneath the weight of sin—the tidings of a great salvation is a pleasant sound; to his troubled and anxious heart it comes like balm of Gilead to soothe and heal. For it is worthy to be called a great salvation, because there is no sinner whose need it is not able to meet.
Satan has two great lies which he uses—oftentimes, alas, with conspicuous success—to destroy the souls of men. First, he persuades them that they do not need salvation; that they are so good, their character so upright, their morality of such a high tone, and their religious profession of such a dree that they have no need to come as lost and guilty rebels to God to receive mercy like common sinners. But by the grace of God, in spite of this satanic lie, sinners do become anxious and alarmed. God speaks to their consciences by His word and Spirit, and they become exercised about their state before Him. Then Satan has another lie ready for them, exactly opposite to the former one. He turns round and says, “Consider what sins you have committed. Remember how you have treated God. How you have scoffed at His mercy and refused His love, and gone on taking pleasure in your sins in spite of all his warnings and entreaties. How can you expect to be saved? There may be mercy for others, but not for you.”
Thus he seeks to plunge the trembling sinner into despair. But how the “Great Salvation” confronts and confounds him. There is no sinner with crimes of so deep a dye, with guilt so aggravated, with need so great, that he is beyond the reach of this great salvation. Yea, the greater sinner, the more is God’s grace magnified in saving him. Let not your heart be discouraged, then, if you have felt your guiltiness before a holy God, and have even, perhaps, been caused to doubt whether His salvation could extend to one so vile as you. A Magdalene, a dying thief, a brutal Philippian jailer, and the arch-persecutor of the saints, Saul of Tarsus—chief of sinners—bear eloquent witness to the greatness of God’s salvation. If sin abounds, grace much more abounds, and those who have been brought up from the lowest depths of sin and shame will be the most bright and shining monuments of the exceeding riches of God’s abounding grace. C. A. C.