SOME years ago, an evangelist was preaching to a vast assemblage of people, and among them was a young lady.
The preacher took for his theme the text, “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” (1 Tim. 1:1515This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. (1 Timothy 1:15).)
After showing various ways in which we sin, and describing different classes of sinners, he added, “I have another class among the ‘chief of sinners’ to point out; I myself belonged to it, and therefore I speak with feeling. I address those who have had much light, and yet have sinned against it, who have been taught better, who have had a knowledge of the way of truth, and yet have turned aside to crooked paths.”
“To have been nursed upon the lap of piety,” continued the preacher, “to have been rocked in the cradle and hushed to sleep with a lullaby in which the name of Jesus comes as a sweet refrain—this involves an awful responsibility.” No man can go to hell over a mothers’ tears without accumulated vengeance. No son can rebel against a father’s affectionate and tearful admonitions without perishing ten times more frightfully than if he had never been thus privileged.
“Ah, my hearers, alas, alas, for the hardness of your hearts! there are many such here now.”
“I would charitably suppose that very few of you belong to the other classes I have been speaking of, but the great mass of you who are unconverted belong to this class.”
“Dost thou remember, young man, how thy mother put her arms around thy neck, and wooed thee to turn to Christ?”
“Do you remember that little Bible, given you when you first went to school, and that verse, inscribed as a motto? She watered it with her tears, as she wrote it.”
“Do you recollect those letters she addressed to you?” She is now in heaven—is she—and yet you are unconverted. You have the light shining upon your eyeballs, and yet they are sightless still.
“Have I not the privilege of speaking to some whose old familiar associations are awakened by these feeble glances at their life-story? Do you not feel just now as if you were kneeling down again in that little room, and again hearing the native accents of your mother’s prayer, while you can hardly refrain from repeating afresh the words of your own prayer, which she taught your lips to frame, before putting you to rest? Do you not remember it? And do you not remember sometimes when your conscience was awakened, and your heart was almost broken, and you said, ‘I could almost be a Christian’? Ah, you put the message from God by, saying in your heart, ‘Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season I will call for thee.’ (Acts 24:2525And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee. (Acts 24:25).)
“But, alas, that convenient season has never yet come. Your conscience becomes seared, drugged with the opiates of sin, the affectionate appeal affects it less and less. Woe to the day of your visitation, for it shall be cloudy, indeed, unless you turn at the voice of reproof. But to you, O chief of sinners, is the word of this salvation sent.”
Every word pierced this young lady’s soul. She lost sight of the vast assembly around her, and felt that she was the only one addressed in that large meeting—her own history had been set in order before her.
She was the child of many prayers; a mother, now in heaven, when on earth had often prayed for her; her terrible guilt rose up in its dread reality before her, and O! how she longed for salvation, while she feared it could not be for one who was such a sinner in the sight of God.
The preacher continued thus:
“Let the fact that the ‘chief of sinners’ is spoken of here attract you. I have heard it said of the elephant that before crossing a bridge he will place his trunk, and perhaps one foot, upon it. He wants to be assured that it is quite safe, for he is not going to trust his bulky body to a bridge built only for horses and men. Well, after he has tried the bridge, if he finds it strong enough, he at once trusts his great weight to it, and safely reaches the other side.
“Now, suppose you and I sat on the further side, and said we were afraid the bridge would not bear us! Why, how absurd our unbelief would be. So, when you see a great elephantine sinner, like the Apostle Paul, go lumbering over the Bridge of Mercy, while not a timber creaks, and the bridge does not even strain under the load, why, then, methinks, you may come rushing in a crowd and say, ‘It will bear us if it will bear him; it will carry us across, if it can take the chief of sinners to heaven.’”
The young lady did come at once, just as she was, and found that the bridge was strong enough for her.
The joy, the happiness, which filled her soul, words cannot tell. That evening she sang the first note of that new song, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain” (Rev. 5:1212Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing. (Revelation 5:12)), and she has since found the second line of this little hymn to be as true as she then found the first.
“The chief of sinners He receives,
His saints He loves, and never leaves,” and she writes the following verses to invite you also to come to Jesus:—
Weary, wasted, guilty one,
By thine own foul sin undone,
Who could ransom such as thee?
Christ, who died upon the tree.
If to Him alone you trust,
Counting all things else as dust,
Then, poor sinner, you shall be
Safe for all Eternity.
ML 07/15/1917