A FRIEND of mine was preaching a few years ago, when someone from the crowd called out, “May I speak?” After getting permission, he pushed his way through the crowd until he was standing on the platform beside my friend.
“Friends,” he exclaimed, “I do not believe what this man has been talking about. I do not believe in a hell. I do not believe in a judgment, I do not believe in a God, for I never saw, any of them.”
He went on talking in this way for a while, when another voice was heard from the crowd: “May speak?” The infidel sat down and the next man began.
“Friends, you say there is a rivet running not far from this place. There is no such thing: it is not true. You tell me that there are grass and trees growing around me where I now stand. There are no such things that also is untrue. You tell me that there are a great many people standing here. Again I say, that is not true.
“I suppose you wonder what I am talking about. But, friends, I was born blind. I have never seen one of you; and while I talk, it only shows that I am blind, or I would not say such things. And you” he said, addressing the infidel, “the more you talk, the more it exposes your own ignorance, because you are spiritually blind and cannot see.”
The Scripture tells us that “If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” 2 Cor. 4:3, 43But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: 4In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. (2 Corinthians 4:3‑4). Are you among the number who are still blinded by Satan and who see no beauty in the Saviour, or can you say with the hymn writer:
“Once I was blind, now I can see,
Once I was bound, but now I am free;
For now I know there’s a Saviour for me;
Oh, what a Saviour!”
ML-07/01/1962