A wild swearing longshoreman was helping load freight onto a big steamer. Going up the gangplank, he was jostled by another workman and fell overboard into the water. He uttered a horrible oath as he disappeared under the waves.
A few minutes later his comrades got him out of the water but at first he appeared to be drowned. They worked hard to revive him, and finally they were successful. As he came back to consciousness, his first words were, “Praise God! I’m saved.”
“Yes, you were nearly gone,” remarked one of his mates.
“I don’t mean being saved from drowning,” he said. “I mean the Lord has saved me from my sins. He has forgiven me. He has taken my sins away.”
Then the rescued man told what had happened when he found himself down there in the water, under the ship’s hull. He thought his end had surely come. In a moment of time his past life passed before him. He saw himself as a boy kneeling at his mother’s side, saying his prayers in his tender years. He heard his mother praying for him. His sins rose up before him mountains high. He cried to God for mercy, and pleaded with Him to save him for Jesus’ sake. God heard his cries. In that moment, he knew that God had forgiven him; his sins were cleansed away in the blood of Jesus Christ. Well might he praise God!
Have you cried to God, “God be merciful to me, a sinner,” dear reader? If you have, you too can praise God. If you haven’t, then call upon him in faith now, and He will hear your prayer, for He is willing and able to save.
ML 04/16/1967