SOME years since, Gospel Meetings were being held in a hall in Carlisle Street, off Edgware Road, London. Bills announcing the meetings were printed and scattered among those who lived near. One Sunday morning two Christian men were out giving them from door to door. As they went along one street. they came to a barber’s shop: it was open, for on that morning very often the best trade is done. They went in and handed the barber a bill. Looking at it, he quickly said, “No use to me: here, take it back, I am not coming.” One of them said, “But why not? The meeting is not till evening, and you will be shut up then. Why not come, the seats are free, and a welcome for you?” Immediately he said, “Oh, that’s true, I shall close my shop before then: but I am not coming, I know what you would tell if I did come.” “What would we tell you?” “Oh, you would tell me to close my shop, so as to keep the Sabbath.” “Nothing of the kind; you come tonight, and you will not hear a word about shutting your shop, but you will hear the Gospel.” When assured once and again that nothing would be said about closing up, he said, “Well, I’ll not promise, but I may come along.” Passing on as they handed the bills out, their prayer went up to God that He would incline him to be there.
As the meeting began, they looked round and soon discovered the barber sitting among others. Just as they had told him, there was no word as to “Shutting shop” or anything else put before the sinner as needful to be done. All stress was laid upon the fact that man is a sinner before God, guilty and vile: no efforts on his part could suffice to cleanse that guilt away. The barber thought but of one thing, viz., “Shutting his shop.” Now he was being led to see his own heart in the presence of God. The heart is “desperately wicked.” Sin is there—it has poisoned, and is poisoning. The doing of a sinful man is sin. If the barber had, as a sinner, shut his shop, would it have helped him as to his salvation? Impossible; “Ye must be born again.” To that end Christ must be lifted up—Christ must die, or sin never could be judged in righteousness for man’s salvation, and, therefore, never could be forgiven.
That evening, the barber lost sight of his doing, and became absorbed in the thought “I am a sinner.” “I am, never mind others.” He saw himself, and therefore was gladly ready to listen to the Gospel. As the Gospel was told out, be eagerly listened to Christ’s death for the sinner—for him—salvation the gift of God, he saw it, rejoiced in it, then and there. “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life” (Rom. 4:2323Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; (Romans 4:23)). That death deserved by him he clearly saw could not be averted by shutting his shop, or by any other so-called good work of his. His sin deserved death, and that death awaited him, must have been his, but Christ died. Reader, there is the grand simple truth for you at this moment. Your life will not bear inspection, though better than that of many others. Your heart is the same— nothing can avail you but the death of Christ. The barber left the hall that evening “a saved man, rejoicing in Christ,” as he told it out to those who had invited him. Grace had done it all. They brought Christ before him in the fulness of His love and His power to save. How it would have spoiled it all to appeal to him to try and do something! The following Lord’s Day morning, those two Christians were round with bills again. As they came near the barber’s shop, they looked, it was his best morning for customers. What would he do? The answer was before them. The door was shut, several customers had come as usual, and were startled as they looked, not at the well-known pole, the usual sign, but a new one, a most singular one; there on the closed shutters was nailed a large text, “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 3:1616For 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)). Grace had taught him to deny himself; taught him that moneymaking is not everything: taught him to trust in the Living God.
Reader, ere I close, let me earnestly appeal to you to listen to God’s message. Like the barber, you may have thought it would be a charge to you to change your ways, to do something, to be religious, at least an injunction to pray. No: I repeat it firmly. No! That is not the message, but as you read, see your heart in all its sinfulness, in its wretchedness, and let the love of God in the gift of His Son appeal to you—neither doing nor praying will avail. Receive Christ as your Saviour, trust in Him, the One who died for sinners: then, saved for ever, you shall join your hallelujahs with the host of the redeemed. Never shall you regret a decision, now to give up all effort and to believe in Him.
“Then will you come to Jesus,
In spite of fear and doubt?
He’s waiting now to save you,
And will not cast you out.
If but, in true repentance,
Before His cross you bow,
He’ll give you free forgiveness,
And full salvation—NOW.”
R. T. H.