A traveler one day stopped at a cottage to ask for a drink of water. Entering, he found the parents cursing and quarreling, the children crouched in a corner, trembling; and wherever he looked he saw only marks of degradation and poverty. Greeting the inmates, he asked them, “Dear friends, why do you make your home so miserable?”
“Ah, sir,” said the poor man, “you don’t know the life and trials of a poor man when everything goes wrong, no matter what you do.”
The stranger drank the water they gave him, and said softly (as he noticed in a dark and dusty corner a Bible): “Dear friends, I know what would help you, if you could find it. There is a treasure concealed in your house. Search for it.”
And so he left them.
At first the cottagers thought it a joke, but after a while they began to reflect. When the woman went out to gather sticks, the man began to search and even dig, that he might find the treasure. When the man was away, the woman did the same. Still they found nothing, and increasing poverty brought only more quarrels, discontent, and strife.
One day, as the woman was left alone, she was thinking upon the stranger’s words when her eyes fell on the old Bible. It had been a gift from her mother, but since her death it had been unused and unheeded. A strange foreboding seized her mind. Could this be what the stranger meant? She took it from the shelf, opened it, and found a verse written on the title page in her mother’s handwriting: “The law of Thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver.” Psa. 119:7272The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver. (Psalm 119:72). It went straight to her heart.
“Ah!” thought she, “this is the treasure, then, that we have been seeking.” Now her tears fell fast upon the leaves. From that time she read the Bible daily and prayed, and taught the children to pray, but without the husband’s knowledge.
One day he came home as usual, quarreling, and in a rage. Instead of meeting his angry words with angry replies, she spoke to him gently and kindly. “Husband,” she said, “we have sinned greatly. We have ourselves to blame for all our misery.”
He looked amazed. “What did you say?” he exclaimed.
She brought the old Bible and, sobbing, cried, “There is the treasure. See, I have found it.”
The husband’s heart was moved. She read to him of the Lord Jesus and His love. Next day she read, and again and again. She, her husband, and her children drank in the blessed Word of God.
A year later the stranger returned that way. Seeing the cottage, he remembered the circumstances of his visit, and thought he would call again. He entered the gate, but he would scarcely have known the place it was so clean, so neat and orderly. At the door he at first thought he was mistaken, for the man and his wife greeted him so kindly. The peace of God beamed in their faces. “How are you, my dear people?” Said he. Then they recognized the stranger, and for a moment they could not speak.
“Thanks, thanks, dear sir, we have found the treasure,” they at length cried out. “Now the blessing of the Lord is in our home and His peace is in our hearts.”
It was indeed a transformed home the stranger had entered. They found that precious treasure—the Word of God; and as they searched through it, they had found that supremely glorious treasure—the Lord Jesus. They learned their ruined state, that they were guilty before God, and that sin had caused their misery and wretchedness. But they found, too, that God “hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” 2 Cor. 5:2121For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (2 Corinthians 5:21). They had received that Savior as their own, and had become children of God, and were taken out of darkness and brought into His glorious light.
Dear friend, are your sins gone? Or do you stand before God a poor, condemned, guilty one? “He that believeth not is condemned already.” But blessed be God! His well beloved Son has taken the guilty sinner’s place, and was condemned in our stead; for “Christ died for the ungodly.” Own yourself as ungodly, for that is what every sinner is, and take the Savior who died that you might live.