FINDING my boots had “sprung a leak,” I walked into a cobbler’s shop on a dreary, wet December morning to have them “caulked.” The cobbler said they had “bonny uppers,” and that a new pair of soles would make them as good as new.
“Put on the soles at once,” I said; and he got right down to business on my leaky boots. With the assistance of hammer, knife, and pincers, he quickly pulled off one of the old soles, pronounced it bad, spongy leather, and threw it into the fire saying, “It’s nae quid for onything.” Picking up a new piece of sole leather, he held it up for my inspection, and said, “Ye’ll walk weel when ye get this on.”
I was more occupied with the salvation of the cobbler’s soul than with his leather, and thought he might, like the old sole of my boot, reach a point where he would find that he was “nae guid for onything,” and be “cast into the lake of fire” (Rev. 20:1515And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:15)).
As my sturdy cobbler pegged on the soles, he turned to me and said again with evident confidence in his ability and material, “Ye’ll walk weel when ye get these on.” He was evidently determined that I should not only have dry feet, but “walk weel” in my old cobbled boots.
I made no reply, but thought of the religious cobblers who are cobbling sinners, and of sinners who are cobbling themselves, that they might “walk weel” in their sins to heaven. If these cobbled sinners are not born again, and cleansed from their sins in “the blood of Jesus Christ,” like the old sole of my boot, they will be found “nae guid for onything,” and be committed to the lake of fire. My cobbled old boots are old boots still, and the cobbled sinner is still a sinner “guilty before God” (Rom. 3:1919Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. (Romans 3:19)). No religious cobbling can clear him of his guilt, and save him from the judgment of God.
Just before the cobbler handed me my boots with the new soles on them, I said: “Your business is to put new soles on old boots, but mine is to get souls saved. Is your soul saved?”
“That’s a great question,” he replied.
“So thought Jesus when He asked, ‘What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and shall lose his own soul?’” (Mark 8:3636For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? (Mark 8:36)).
The cobbler looked at me earnestly, and said: “What does saved mean? Does it mean peace with God?”
“Yes, a saved man has peace with God. How are you to get that peace?”
“By believing and living right,” he replied.
“That is not the way to be saved and get peace with God. We get ‘peace in believing’ without ‘living right.’ The ‘living right’ comes after we are saved and have peace with God. Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Rom. 5:11Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: (Romans 5:1)). There is nothing there about living right’ to be saved and get peace with God. Jesus became our surety, assumed all your liabilities as guilty sinners before God, and met them all in His death, to God’s infinite satisfaction; and His witness of this to you, is Christ raised from the dead by Him for your justification. He has cleared Christ from all your liabilities in raising Him from the dead; and if you now believe on Him who has raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, you are cleared and justified from all things ‘“(Rom. 4:24, 2524But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; 25Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. (Romans 4:24‑25); Acts 13:3939And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses. (Acts 13:39)).
“I see it!” he exclaimed. “My mistake was beginning at the wrong end.”
I left my hard-working, honest cobbler, who was so determined to cobble my old boots that I might “walk weel,” saved by the grace of God, and started to “walk weel,” by that grace, to his new home “over there” where Jesus is in His Father’s house of love, light, and eternal joy.
Reader, if you are making the cobbler’s mistake stop right here, and with 6: look of faith see Jesus, who, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God (Heb. 10:1111And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: (Hebrews 10:11)). Remember His dying words, “It is finished.” Hear His immortal words, as the Peacemaker, the mighty Victor on the other side of death― “Peace to you” (John 19:30, 20:19).
W. B―n.