THE grace of God may meet and arrest a lost sinner in any way, or at any time. With God time and repetition are as nothing. Only believe and live.
A party of pleasure-seekers were enjoying the splendid sailing of a fine yacht. All was fresh and fair, and lively. None had any thought beyond present enjoyment.
Not long after an accident precipitated two of that gay party in the deep. One never rose again. The other, after much gallant exertion, was rescued at length. At first he seemed half dead, unable to open his lips or utter a word, though he had only for a short time lost consciousness, but when his strength partially returned, what a tale was his to tell!
"When I could struggle no longer afloat," said he, "I sank. As the water closed over my head, every event, every scene, every sin of my past life rose up before me with the utmost vividness. No picture ever colored by a painter could have been more clearly seen. In that moment of time it pierced me, like a lightning flash, that I was an immortal creature, on the very verge of an eternal existence; that I was an unsaved soul in the presence of God—a holy God. I felt my doom clearly enough, felt that I possessed the principle of an immortal, but not a redeemed, existence. For that second of time my misery was beyond conception, thoughts or expression.
"Without a screen, at one burst was seen,
The Presence in which I had ever been.”
Let those who doubt the necessity, the value of the divine work of the cross be but placed in my position, as I then was, and they will doubt no longer. Brought face to face with eternity, everything in that second slipped away from me but "the Blood." Down there, in that dying condition, with every pulse of my life ebbing away fainter and fester as the seconds flew by—they seemed like ages to me—I learned that God is just, that I was a justly condemned soul, but that He is the justifier of Him that believeth in Jesus. Three such simple words, `Believeth in Jesus;' but oh! the reality of them, the necessity of them, how great and how deep. The tremendous position I was in showed me the soul's need to be atoned for, and that it is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul (Lev. 17:1111For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. (Leviticus 17:11)). Then I heard God saying to me, ' Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee' Oh! the rest, the peace, the bliss that filled my heart, that seemed to take possession of my whole being through the blood reaching down even to me. All my misery was forgotten—it was behind me—past, that was where the blood had put it. Then I began to lose the power to think, but before my senses left me I felt I had divine life linked up with God Himself, a life that all the waters of the ocean could not destroy, though they might drown my poor body. I felt that I belonged to God, and that He loved me.”
Long years have rolled by since this happened. Time has but tested and proved the reality of the occurrence, proved in the daily life, and walk, and conversation, of this man, the reality of the salvation of God he then experienced, when he saw he was lost, saw what Christ is to God, and heard those divinely blessed words, " Son, be of good cheer thy sins be forgiven thee." The wear and tear, the trials of life have but made Christ more precious, as showing out the grace and love of the One who died, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.
“This the ransomed sinner's story
All the Father's heart made known,
All His grace to ma, the sinner,
Told by judgment on His Son,
Told by Him from depths of anguish;
All the Father's love to me,
By the cross, the curse, the darkness,
Measuring what that love must
Reader, do you know it?
R. B.