MANY years since the Lord unexpectedly found me and turned me to Himself. Deep and short work He made of it. It happened thus: His servant, Mr. R —, who has now entered heaven, had just arrived in A — on a visit to a friend.
Permission having been obtained for Mr. R — to conduct a Wednesday evening service in — Church, my father, in response to an invitation to be present, took me, with my mother and sisters, to the service then held.
The interesting address and straight way of talking to people on their personal need of “being born again” were strangely new to the audience; and still more so was the hitherto unheard of “after-meeting,” at which those who remained to inquire about salvation were shown how they could be “saved” on the spot, and go out by the church doors as truly justified as the glorified ones already in heaven.
My father’s pressing engagements called him away at the close of the first address, but I remained, and from the front gallery I most narrowly watched the people below, thinking I could detect, in the spirit of an inquisitive spectator, whether these people underwent any spiritual change or not.
Such statements as “saved on the spot” and to “know it,” to my ultra-Calvinistic and dead views, seemed most extraordinary and quite incomprehensible, so I intently watched the whole proceedings. Seeing one after another rise and go out without any apparent transformation of their persons, I turned to my sisters and pronounced my verdict, “There’s nothing in it, these people are just the same as before;” and having satisfied myself on the point, I dismissed the whole subject from my mind. Such is the spiritual ignorance and hateful pride of the natural heart!
Fortunately my mother sought an interview with Mr. R —, and after a considerable absence returned to us much absorbed with what had been said. I secured her attention by the remark, “Mother, you might have introduced us,” which was quickly followed by our being left in the vestry with this remarkable preacher.
Instead of the usual recognition and friendly interchange of words that follows an ordinary introduction to a stranger, Mr. R — grasped my hand, and earnestly gazing at me with a look that seemed to penetrate my soul, he said, “Are you saved?”
That one arrow from the Almighty shot through my heart, and like a cloak dropping from me, my former life of worldly ease, blameless religiousness, and happy carelessness was gone. I stood in the presence of God, most fully realizing my lost and undone condition, with nothing but the slender thread of life between me and hell.
The fountain of my tears was unlocked, and, heeding nothing else that was said, as we drove home, the awfulness of my position weighed heavily upon me. All through the hours of that night — spent not in bed, but in musing over the marvelous mercy that had not cut me off in an unconverted state — I thought of how I might have quietly gone down to a lost eternity, amid the praises of my friends and acquaintances, at a largely attended and decorous funeral, but all the while, and forever and ever, have been hopelessly and irrecoverably weeping and wailing in outer darkness.
At the breakfast-table next morning, my parents did not fail to notice the depth of my distress. Particularly disliking anything of an exciting or fanatical spirit in religion, they advised me to go to Mr. R—, whose query had brought me into that awakened condition, probe this question to the bottom, and get the matter settled once for all.
By ten o’clock in the morning I was again in Mr. R — ‘s company. Failing to enlighten me with any of the texts quoted, he warned me to beware of being like some who are “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
With increased earnestness, if possible, I listened as for my life. Then Romans 10:99That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. (Romans 10:9) was blessed to me: “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” This was unhesitatingly complied with — indeed, in my case neither compromise nor concealment was possible. My whole being I gave up to Him on whose “death and resurrection” the Lord enabled me to hang my soul; and, after trusting the bare word of the living God, the Holy Ghost entered and filled my heart with joy and peace in believing.
My separation from worldly society came then and there. An acquaintance, with whom I had enjoyed waltzing several times at a fashionable ball a few nights before my conversion, happened to meet me as I went with Mr. R — to the forenoon meeting at which I found my Saviour. His look of disdain and angry disapproval of such a course revealed to me the separation which the supreme choice of Christ ever necessitates. Three balls which I had accepted previously were declined, with full explanation of my change of heart, and I was never led that way again.
Friends and everything became new. “The river of pleasure” in Jesus, and the life of genuine happiness which Christ opens up for His own, made the small relinquishing’s dwindle into their true insignificance. It is quite impossible to tell the joys present and in prospect. It will require eternity to unfold how much loving-kindness God can compress into the short lives of His children here below. Truly He blesses them with “all spiritual blessings” as they pursue the heavenly life of abiding in Jesus and seeking to bring others to Him.
My girlhood has now emerged into elderly widow hood, with tokens of an early autumn; but spiritually, thank God, eternal youth is our inheritance; and the “locks black as a raven” may abide with us, although ofttimes wet with the dews of the night.
We know that the tears of sorrow, all lustered with His love, in His bright coming day will be transmuted into an exceeding and eternal weight of glory. So we continue, to look, not at the things which are seen, but at those things which are unseen and eternal.
With an earnest purpose this personal testimony is written, and the fact of your having read it shows that God has a purpose in sending it to you. Surely He desires you also to know your true condition before Him, and if not already one of His ransomed ones, He would have you know that, though a straying lost sheep, helpless to save yourself, the Lord Jesus Christ, on whom “was laid the iniquity of us all,” is ready and willing to save you on the spot.
Some reader may inwardly reflect: The sunny plains of existence, stretching before me, invite my advance in the course I have already entered. Life has great charms for me, and the ladder of my ambition now seems by no means unattainable. Why should I descend to the level of the sinful and vile, and be found seeking the Saviour of the lost?
If life apart from Christ could continue bright, if reaching the top of your ambition could satisfy, you might hesitate; but, separated from Christ, life must be a failure, and ultimately result in the blackness of darkness forever and ever.
Some other reader more advanced in years and experience may have a very different view of life.
Having drunk deeply of the world’s so-called “pleasures,” you feel weary and tired of them all, and are keenly conscious of “the aching void” you have within.
Friend, you are the very one to come to Jesus. He, and He alone, can satisfy that big heart of yours, too large to be filled with anything this world can afford.
Jesus can make you “sing for very joy of heart,” and satisfy you to overflowing. “We have known and believed the love that God hath to us. “God is love,” and He “commends His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,” and from the moment you trust Him, you have eternal life, and shall never perish. One of His blood-bought precious people, He will keep, lead, and feed you, if needs be even to hoar hairs, and then He will carry you safely home to His own Glory-Land, where He has gone on before to prepare a place for us.
Other readers may have always trod the shady side of life, and some such are nearly broken-hearted today, weighed down with care, want, sorrow, and unforgiven sin.
Listen! To you the Great Deliverer comes, and in His glad news for “every creature” is willing to befriend you. If you are willing to “receive Him,” He is willing to become your Redeemer “from all iniquity,” your Preserver “from all evil,” your gracious Keeper and Deliverer “every moment.” When you thus know the Lord you will praise Him in heart and in life, and prove Jesus to be the “Bliss of the purified,” the “Bliss of the free.”
H. L. G.