JOHN SLATER became a faithful gospel preacher and was much used of the Lord.
One Sunday afternoon he was returning from his Bible class very tired. He had not been feeling very well for some days, so going to a cupboard he reached for some medicine the doctor had given him. Very foolishly and without taking proper precautions, he pulled the cork from the bottle and took a drink. But it did not taste right. He looked at the bottle and saw with horror the word “Poison.” He had drunk from the wrong bottle. In a few moments he was seized with pains and felt the poison at work within him. He threw himself down on the sofa and called his sister.
“Margie! Margie!". Margie came running in. “What is it, John?” she asked.
“Send for the doctor. I’m poisoned,” he moaned.
“What did you do it for, John?” she gasped.
“Fancy, asking a dying man what he did it for!” he exclaimed. ‘Don’t wait till I’m dead, Margie. Get the doctor.” Margie obeyed.
Soon the doctor had arrived. John told him he had taken poison and how it was working and bubbling in his inside. “Do something quick, Doctor, or it will be too late,” plead John.
“Where is the bottle?” asked the doctor.
Margie handed him the blue bottle marked “POISON.” It contained about a tablespoon full of liquid with sediment at the bottom.
“Did you shake the bottle?” inquired the doctor.
“No,” replied the groaning victim. “Well then, you have not taken enough to poison a mouse.”
John sat up and looked at the doctor to see whether he really meant what he said.
“Do you mean it?” he asked.
“Of course I do,” replied the doctor.
“Well, would you believe it,” said John, “the rumbling and working in my stomach has ceased almost as if by magic.
“Do you know what did it?” John asked when telling the story at the gospel meeting. “It was because I had confidence in the doctor and I believed what he said.”
And so it is with a sinner in distress about his sins. When he comes to Jesus, and the Lord says to him, “your sins are forgiven,” you believe Him, and you have peace, joy and life eternal.
Weary, burdened one, you believe what men may tell you, can you not believe God? Can you not trust Christ, the Saviour of sinners. Jesus is God and as such He knows how great, how awful sin is in God’s sight, but He has met all your need as a sinner upon the cross of Calvary. Now all you have to do is believe Him, trust Him, to be saved. That is all that you can do.
ML-09/24/1972