"I would go regularly to church, if only they would abolish preaching. I like the rest of the Jervice, especially the music; but the preaching always annoys me." So said a clever lawyer one afternoon as he sat in a pleasant room with a friend.
"I call myself a churchman," he continued, "though I seldom go to church. The last time I went I was irritable all day afterward. It positively made me worse!”
Warming to his subject—he was a most entertaining conversationalist—he proceeded to express his "views" on religion in general.
"My views may be very unorthodox," he said, "but I hold to them anyhow and try to practice them. I don't believe God will reject any man who does this in sincerity, even if he does not worship in the way that some people prescribe. Tell me, do you think God will reject a man for all eternity who is just in all his dealings with others, simply because he has not worshiped Him at church service?—A man who has never done a mean action, and has always done his best for every one?”
His friend thought for a moment, and then said that certainly attendance at church would not be the deciding factor. "But," he continued, "on the other hand, do you answer to all your conditions? Can you say that you have always done the right thing, never done a mean action, and always done your best for everybody?”
This was a rather new thought for the lawyer, and he murmured hesitantly that "we all fail.”
"Of course we do," was the reply. "Our only hope is to own it, and accept the mercy of God and what He offers through the atoning death of Christ—pardon and salvation. God will never reject one who does this. In His great love for sinners He sent His own Son into the world 'not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved' (John 3:1717For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (John 3:17)).
"All your dependence for salvation and justification must be through faith in the atoning sacrifice of God's own Son.”
My reader, will you look only to Jesus for your soul's eternal gain? You must settle this question sooner or later. Sooner—you cannot be too soon! Later—you may be too late!