“THERE’S no sin I have not committed, except murder! “The speaker was a man of colossal dimensions, standing over six feet six inches high and of proportionate bulk. From his huge size he often got the name of “The Giant.”
The words were spoken in no tone of bravado, but rather to show the exceeding greatness of God’s mercy, which could bring such a man as he had been to look up to Him without a fear. That he did not think lightly of his past sinful life was proved by his words―almost the last I remember from him― “I would be willing to have my arms or legs chopped off if I could lose the remembrance of the wicked things I have done. I know they are all washed out in the blood of Christ, and that God has said, ‘Your sins and your iniquities will I remember no more,’ and I have no fears, but it’s the remembrance of them!”
Of highly respectable family and connections, and of good education, he had been sent from home by his father when he was eighteen, on account of his bad conduct. He then sailed for Australia, where for twenty-two years he lived a life of unrestrained wickedness.
“When I got back to England,” he said, “I found that eight of my family had died very suddenly, three of them had dropped down dead, and I trembled, thinking my turn may come next.”
He had returned almost penniless, but his father’s death having left him in comfortable circumstances, he determined to have what he called a “hut” built on the outskirts of one of the Yorkshire dales. “I always had a hut at the diggings,” he said. A prettier room than the sitting-room of his “hut,” with its conservatory filled with choice ferns and flowers, and its large bay window overlooking the beautiful country round, it would be hard to find. In this out-of-the-way spot he settled down.
Possessed of a violent, ungoverned temper, and of physical strength in keeping with his giant-like proportions, his frequent mad drinking bouts made him for years a terror to the people of the quiet dale, who always ran into their houses if they saw him coming.
But the time came when in God’s mercy the thought of death, and of “after death the judgment,” began to weigh heavily upon him, and he made some great changes in his life, gave up his drinking habits, got married, and attended church and chapel. But none of these reforms brought any rest to his conscience, and as time went on his past sins rose up in still blacker array before him. His distress was increased by finding he was powerless to bring his hitherto uncontrolled temper into subjection, and that in spite of his efforts he was really more quarrelsome than ever.
He seems to have been in heathen darkness as to the gospel―God’s good news “that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 2:10), and that His blood “cleanseth from all sin” (1 John 1:7). How fully this would have met his need! How perfectly it meets the case of every sinner, not only of the grossly evil and profligate character, but that of the refined, amiable, and respectable sinner also, for in God’s sight both are on the same platform “sinner” the name of both equally. The humbling bit to human pride is what God says, “There is no difference: for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” ({vi 28014-28015}Rom. 3:22, 23).
His distress of soul soon got noised about, and a Christian gentleman hearing of it went to see him. And now he hoped to find out how he could get rid of the heavy load of his sins. During a walk he unburdened his mind and told of his unavailing efforts.
“Ah! I see where you stand,” said his visitor, when he had finished. “You must go to God about it.”
The much looked for advice was not what he expected it would be. As yet it conveyed no meaning whatever to him, and he was both disappointed and angry.
“I was very near hurling him into the beck when he said it,” he exclaimed afterward. No doubt he thought he should have been told what more he could do, what greater efforts and more earnest resolves he could make, but his friend had sought to turn his eyes away from all this to the God “with whom we have to do,” who has so graciously said, “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isa. 1:18). But how can God be just in doing this? someone may ask. Because “Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6). “He died, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). Therefore God can be “just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26).
The vicar also called to see him, and advised a more regular attendance at church and closer attention to certain prayers in the church service, as that which would in time give his mind relief and enable him to exercise more self-control; but this was too much for one already irritated by his fruitless efforts in this direction.
“Man,” he roared, “haven’t I been doing it for the last two years, and what better am I for it?”
But the time soon came when the teacher and the taught exchanged places, the latter putting before the kind-hearted but unconverted vicar God’s plan of salvation, as opposed to man’s own efforts and religious observances, but it is to be feared the vicar never understood the finished work of Christ, as years after, when the “giant” was thought to be at the point of death, he was praying at his bedside that “he might die in peace.” The sick man, suddenly recovering from his half-unconscious state, heard the words, and they thoroughly roused him up. “Die in peace! man. Why, that was settled years ago.”
That a man is not saved by his own efforts, religious observances, or good works, is shown by every scripture where the gospel is set forth. “For by grace (the free favor of God) are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast” ({vi 29238-29239}Eph. 2:8, 9). “To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Rom. 4:3).
Good works are the fruit and proof of true conversion to God, and are like the fruit on a tree, which does not make the tree alive, but shows that it is alive. The apostle Paul, in writing to Titus, said, “I will that thou affirm constantly that they which have believed God might be careful to maintain good works” (Titus 3:8).
Months passed, and our poor friend was still in the same sad plight, haunted with the stinging remembrances of the past, and with the dread of death and of God’s judgment in the near future. But one winter’s night (a night ever memorable afterward, of which he always promptly gave the hour and full date, as that in which he had “passed from death unto life”) he was sitting brooding over the fire. It may be in his heart he was “going to God about it,” crying to Him in his helpless distress. His wife, who had not yet got peace either, was reading a book which had been sent to them, called” Grace and Truth,” when she suddenly exclaimed, “Why, Ted, this must be what you want.” He read the passage pointed out. “Ah! that’s it,” he cried, jumping up in the greatest excitement and delight.
“Don’t you see it, woman?” he shouted, as he saw her astonished look. “Why, it’s as plain as a pikestaff. Don’t you see it?”
At last his mind had been turned to the atoning death of Christ. He saw that it was for him, a sinner, and that in virtue of it his sins were gone from the sight of God, borne by Christ on the cross. “His own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). No wonder it made him a happy, rejoicing man, and that henceforth his chief subject of conversation was God’s wonderful salvation for the sinner who turns to Him.
I am not able to say with certainty the words in “Grace and Truth” which brought him into the knowledge and joy of salvation, but I am told the scripture he specially rested on was the verse he afterward placed over his mantel-shelf― “He that heareth my words and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24). In a well-thumbed part of his old book, I find the following passages marked with black pencil. Probably it was one of these that his wife pointed out to him which brought him to see God’s rich provision for him in the gospel.
“My salvation depends solely on the work and person of Jesus Christ, our Lord.”
“The knowledge that, I am saved depends solely on the word of God.”
“He that believeth not God hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son; and this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life” ({vi 30635-30637}1 John 5:10-12).
“A man is saved the moment he accepts Christ, on account of Christ having died in his place. He knows that he is saved when he believes the record God gave of His Son.”
“In a word then, what shall I do? Take the lost sinner’s place and claim the lost sinner’s Saviour.” “He is a real Saviour for real sinners.”
“My only qualification for such a Saviour is that I am such a sinner.”
“And now I believe my sins are not on me, not because I feel them gone, for I do not, but because God says they were laid on Christ” (Isa. 53:6).
For many years our friend visited his neighbors and the farms in the out-lying districts with gospel periodicals and books, telling them in plain, unvarnished words their fate for eternity if they refused Goad’s offered mercy. But to the last he retained many of his rough ways and expressions which, though wonderfully modified, must often have proved a stumbling-block to those he tried to bring to the Saviour, so there was but little known fruit from his labors. “It only took effect on two or three,” he said. “One was a man I used to go to see over in the dale there, who was very ill. Every time I went I took a fresh gospel verse to read to him, but nothing I ever said or read made the least impression on him. One evening, however, I went again, for I heard that he was worse. The snow lay thick on the ground, up to my knees in places.
“After I started I began to think what I should read to him, and then it struck me that I had never once asked God what I should give him, and I stopped and said, Lord, if Thou art sending me to this man, give me a verse for him,’ and then this came to my mind― ‘Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe fare justified from all things.’ Now this was one I had never used before, and I did not know where to find it. I had my Bible in my pocket, but the Bible Concordance was at home, and I always used it when I wanted to find anything. ‘What a fool I shall look,’ I said to myself, ‘when I tell him I’ve a message from God to him and can’t find it,’ and I turned back for the Concordance. But, no,’ I thought, if God is sending me I shall find it,’ and I went on. Still the thought of what a fool. I should look made me turn back three times for that Concordance. At last I got so excited that the sweat poured off me, and I knelt down in the snow and prayed, ‘Now, Lord, let this be a token. If Thou art sending me with a message to this man, let me find it when I get there.’ When I got to the house, I said to him, ‘I’ve a message from God for you.’
“I sat down and began turning over the pages of my Bible. I was terribly excited, and the sweat rained oil’ me. At last I saw it there in the Acts (Acts 13:39). I jumped up and read it out to him, ‘Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this Man (Christ Jesus) is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe are justified from all things.’ ‘There, that’s God’s message to you. Good night.’ I never saw him again, for he died next morning, but before he died he gathered them all round him and said, ‘Now, remember, I’m saved,’ and I believe he was,” and the big man’s face twitched, and his eyes filled with tears.
Have you received this message as from God, dear reader? offering you “forgiveness of sins” and “justification from all things.” If not, oh! think of the awful eternity which lies before you “where (as our Lord Himself says) their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:44). Could you plead that you had been deceived and lulled into a false security by the teaching of man, while all the time you had the Word of God within your reach? There God offers you a full, free, and eternal salvation on the ground of Christ’s atoning death and blood-shedding, but He shows also that an eternity of endless woe awaits you if you refuse it. “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation” (Heb. 2:3).
“Rock of Ages! hid in Thee,
I am now from judgment free,
Thou hast borne the cross and shame;
Thine the judgment, mine the blame.
Rock of Ages! hid in Thee,
Judgment hath no fears for me.”
F. A.