ONE day I noticed an aged man coming slowly down a garden path. He could not hold his body in an upright position, so that it was a great difficulty for him to walk. As I looked on his poor bent body, I longed to speak to him of his soul; so, leaning over the garden gate, asked him if it did not cause him pain to walk about. The old man was rather deaf, and beckoned me to go into the garden.
Bending down to him, I said, “My friend, do you know the Lord?” He looked up quickly and replied, “Yes, perhaps better than you do.”
Then he told me how he went to church regularly, took the sacrament, read the Bible, said his prayers, and indeed had lived for eighty-four years, and during that time had never knowingly harmed anyone.
Saddened by this self-righteous statement, I took out my Bible, and read, “There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not” (Eccl. 7:2020For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not. (Ecclesiastes 7:20)); “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Rom. 3:1010As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: (Romans 3:10)); “There is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Rom. 3:1212They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. (Romans 3:12)); and “ By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh he justified in His (God’s) sight.” (Rom. 3:1010As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: (Romans 3:10).) The old man seemed a little astonished when I read, “We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (Isa. 64:66But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. (Isaiah 64:6)); but even then his confidence in himself did not forsake him, and he continued to think he should be “all right.”
Reader, are you hoping to gain salvation by your works? If by them you could enter heaven, why was the Lord Jesus Christ expended on the cross? As “there is none righteous,” no one can do anything which merits the favor of God. So, dear reader, “cast your deadly doings down,” and come to Jesus, owning your lost condition, and He will in no wise cast you out, but will abundantly pardon, and cause you to go on your way rejoicing.