THE Editor of this magazine was holding lately some evangelistic meetings in one of the largest cities of Mid-England, to which came vast numbers of people to hear the Word of God, and in the hearts of not a few the Spirit wrought in quickening and peace-giving power.
At one of these meetings a lady found peace in believing, after having passed through deep exercise of soul. She heard the preacher speak of the blessed Lord as being rejected of man, and forsaken of God, when on the cross; and, as the meaning of that forsaken state was brought before her―Christ having once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, she learned at once the value of His atoning death; and, believing in Him, she found immediate relief from her spiritual darkness.
I called on her a few days after, and found just what I have related―a clear work of God in her soul.
She was joyful. The knowledge of Christ as a personal Saviour makes the heart glad. The sense of His love―His dying, suffering love―fills it with a holy, heavenly peace and joy, and a deep longing, too, that others should share the blessing.
Accordingly, she wished that I should speak about these things to her maid, and do what I could to help her, “Only,” she added, “I fear she is in spiritual despair.”
That seemed an obstacle indeed How can one in despair be delivered from such a condition?
Only by the power and grace of God! “With God nothing shall be impossible.” His grate is boundless. It was so in the case of Maud. We had a long talk about the sinfulness of the heart, and the inability of the sinner to save himself. Then we spoke of the love of God to such, and of the substitutionary work of our blessed Lord on Calvary, and how that all are welcome on the ground of faith in His blood. Light seemed to be gradually breaking on her once despairing spirit; and believing that I might now safely apply the balm of assurance, I asked her to allow me to place a word of Scripture on each of her fingers.
I pointed out that the first word was “Blessed,” and the last “Him,” and that, between, the character of those who get the blessing is described: ― “They that put their trust,” not that feel, or weep, of toil, or do anything, but that trust in Him, and all that do so—these are the “blessed”! Thus speaks the Word of God!
I prayed; and, without pressing for a confession, I left her with a word on each finger (so to say) and a passage of Holy Scripture, of deep and far-reaching value, in her memory. How God honors His Word! Accordingly, some ten days after, I happened to be holding a meeting, and saw, not far from the platform, a very bright face. I failed to identify the owner of it until the close of the service, when Maud afresh made herself known to me. Despair and doubt were gone, and light and peace had filled their place.
“All things are possible to him that believeth.” Maud had, through grace, believed, had put her trust in the Lord, and hence the mighty change in her heart. She had received God’s blessing and the assurance of it too.
Faith links the soul with God, lifts it clean out of every conceivable spiritual difficulty, sends it on its way rejoicing, and gives it power to live for God. How divinely true in every sense, “Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.”
J. W. S.
FANCY Paul going to be brought out of heaven after being there for eighteen hundred years, to be judged, to see if he were fit to be there! There is nothing so absurd as the thought of a future judgment to settle my case. It is too late to judge if a man is fit for heaven when he is raised in the likeness of Christ!
J. N. D.