ONE day the writer was visiting an old Christian in the country, when a daughter of hers from a distance came to see her, thus giving him the opportunity of speaking to her about Jesus and His precious blood. This person was a sinner, and she knew it, and was undoubtedly very anxious about her soul.
She was, however, making a mistake, a very common mistake, for many really anxious people make the same. Instead of simply believing on Christ and resting on the finished work which He had already done at Calvary, she thought she must do something, plead anxiously and pray more earnestly, in order to get the forgiveness of sins.
“Oh, I do so long to be saved!” she said. “I do beseech Him to have mercy on me and save my poor soul.”
John 7:37 was quoted, “Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink.”
“Oh, what shall I do? I do pray the best way I know how.”
“Yes, dear friend, but suppose when you were coming here this morning, hot, tire& and thirsty, some kind person, seeing your condition, came out of her house with a glass of nice clear, cold water, and offered it to you, saying, ‘You look very tired, and must be thirsty. Come, drink this water, it will do you good,’ what would you have done? You would not, of course, have accepted it, but would have begged and entreated her to have given it you, saying, ‘Oh, pray give me that water; I am so thirsty and faint, I feel I shall die if I don’t get something to drink. Oh, have pity upon me, and give me that water!”
“No,” she replied, “I would not have acted like that, but I would have taken the glass and drunk the whole up.”
“Well, now, you say you are longing to be saved, you are thirsting for salvation, and God’s Word tells us that Jesus stood and cried, saying, ‘If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink.’ Now what will you do with the living water so freely and so graciously offered?”
“Oh, I see now,” she said, “there is no need to cry and pray for that which is so freely offered me. I will therefore take that also.”
And we believe from the earnestness and reality of her manner and words, as also from our further conversation with her, that there and then she received Christ Jesus as her Saviour. Hallelujah! Praise His holy name!
Now, beloved reader, we do not know you or your spiritual condition, but we do know that whoever you are, wherever you are, or whatever you may have done, His Word still stands as true as ever.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting-life” (John 3:16).
If you are yet unsaved, we beg of you before Him to consider well the import of that big, comprehensive word “whosoever,” and from your heart say, “There is room for me in that word, and by His grace I will at once take my place within its wide embrace, and believing on Him who died for the ungodly, claim the eternal benefits thus fully held out. All my life I have been included in that awful word ‘ungodly,’ and since for such He died, I know that He received, the full judgment due to my sins, and that, believing on Him, I can never perish, but have everlasting life. Blessed be His holy name!”
C. P. W. N.