“LORD JESUS CHRIST!”
It was not a curse—it was not blasphemy—it was a desperate cry for help as Mary Garner stood on the shore watching her sister struggle with the outgoing tide.
Mary and her sister were spending their vacation at the beach. One day they went swimming and evidently had not paid attention to the time, for the tide, unnoticed by them, had begun to recede. Everyone else had left the beach, but Mary’s sister went back into the water for one more swim. Now to her dismay she was being swept out to sea by the strong current.
Mary stood on the shore helplessly watching her; she could not swim herself—she dared not venture into the rolling surf. No one else was near to call on for help.
For years Mary had claimed to be an atheist and had insisted that “there is no God,” but as she stood there alone, helpless and terror-stricken, a verse she had often heard her Christian parents quote flashed into her hard, unbelieving heart: “Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:2121And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Acts 2:21)).
Like lightning came the thought, Now I will see if there is a God. With no one to turn to, in her agony of mind she cried aloud, “LORD JESUS CHRIST! If there is a living God, save my sister!”
Almost immediately a great wave came rolling into the shore, bearing on its crest her beloved sister and washing her up onto the sands almost at her feet. What joy and relief and thankfulness she felt at receiving her sister safely back again, out of the very jaws of death!
And what joy to know that there is a God—a living God! To Him she confessed the wickedness of her atheistic thoughts and words, and she found pardon and peace through believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, who had died for her on the cross.
Now you are as helplessly tossed on the waves of sin as Mary’s sister was on the waves of the sea, and none but God can save you. Remember that “whosoever [that means you] shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
“The name of the Lord is
a strong tower:
the righteous runneth into it,
and is safe.”