SOME years ago a servant of Christ was led to go one Friday morning to a distant village. He had no special purpose in going, no one particular to visit, but simply intended to call upon anyone to whom he might be directed of the Lord. The first person he visited told him that an old man, known to him as formerly an occasional attendant at the meetings, had been stricken that afternoon with paralysis as he was walking in his garden, and now lay in a very critical state, expecting death every moment.
On arriving at the house, he found quite an assembly of the aged man’s adult children gathered around his bedside, for he had had a very large family, several of whom were believers. The aged mother was there too, and, as the visitor approached the bed, began telling him that her poor husband was dying, but that he had been a good husband and a good father, had done his duty in the world, and, in short, was “not as other men are.” To this the dying man seemed to assent, although, from the partially paralyzed state of his tongue, it was difficult to understand anything he said, as he could not articulate without great difficulty. The Lord’s servant, while sympathizing with the true-hearted sorrowing wife, who fain would represent her dying husband as the best of men, and who, in the very love she felt for the companion of a long life’s journey through storm and calm, through cloud and sunshine, verily believed him fit for heaven, was nevertheless deeply stirred to see a man on the very verge of eternity, apparently about to enter upon that most solemn scene with a lie in his right hand. That the poor old man had done his duty as a father, a husband, a neighbor, a servant—that he had led a moral and an industrious life—there could be little doubt. His stalwart sons and married daughters—not one of them a reproach to his name, but rather a credit to his memory—stood witnesses around his death-bed that he had not been a drunken, careless father.
The nervous haste of the heart-broken wife to soothe his dying pillow with kind words, seeing she could now do no more for him whose once strong, but now withered, arm had been her support and protection for many a long year, proved he had been no bad husband. She could not save his life, but she would, if possible, persuade both God and man to save his soul, and take him into heaven as he was! It was a solemn and a painful scene. To wound a heart already so stricken was hard, yet love and truth and the glory of Christ demanded it. To disturb the quiet of the dying pillow, and stir up the agonies of conviction at the last moment, to awaken from the lethargy of a death in trespasses and sins to the alarms of a guilty conscience was but the duty of the Lord’s servant, let who would think it cruel. But how was this to be accomplished?
Having formerly seen him at preaching meetings both in the open air as well as in houses in the village, the preacher knew that the old man had heard God’s Word again and again. The message of grace had been sounded clearly in his hearing, and he had not received it. When, therefore, the poor old wife closed her tearful remarks by saying, “He has done no harm, sir, to anyone,” the visitor instantly replied, —
“There is one thing he has done, to my knowledge, which alone would condemn him forever: HE HAS MADE GOD A LIAR FOR YEARS! for ‘he that believeth not God hath made Him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave of His Son.’” That this statement of truth, uttered aloud before all, must have pained the afflicted wife none can doubt; that it startled the dying man is most certain. But a moment before he appeared quite indifferent to all that was going on around him. His death was expected every moment, and he seemed about to sink into it without a thought or care concerning the future that awaited him. But now he was suddenly aroused, as if the Word of God had gone like an arrow into his inmost soul, “sharper than any two-edged sword;” he appeared to become instantly aware of his actual state and terrible danger. And when that word (1 John 5:1010He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. (1 John 5:10)) was again repeated and explained to him, and he was reminded how he had heard the Gospel at intervals through many years, yet had still gone on not believing, conviction seemed complete.
He was then asked whether he wished to be prayed for, and, giving an anxious affirmative, all present knelt down and commended him to the throne of grace with earnestness, which the urgency of his ease demanded. There were those there whose faith and fellowship the Lord’s servant could count upon, in his appeal to his gracious Master, and he was especially led to plead that sweet promise, “If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven” (Matt. 18:1919Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 18:19)). After prayer, Christ and His finished and all-sufficient work were again fully set before the now-anxious listener. He was told how GOD declared that “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth from all sin;” and he was exhorted to believe GOD. The LOVE of Christ in dying for sinners was pressed upon his attention, and he was persuaded to trust the love thus wondrously manifested, and be drawn by it to believe that, late as it was—yea, all but too late—Christ the Saviour of sinners would not reject him. How much seemed to hang upon the moments which were so rapidly fleeting by! How intently some there present listened to catch what the dying man might say! Would he continue only to fear and tremble in doubt of the love of God, and disbelief of the all-sufficiency of the precious blood of Christ to meet his desperate need? Would those glazing eyes close in death, while yet looking in alarm at its approach? No, the Lord, ever faithful to His promise, gave the answer faith expected, and the power of His Word to quicken the dead was manifested. At first, on being asked whether he could trust the love of God and the all-sufficiency of the blood of Christ, the poor old man hesitated to reply. But soon power was given him, and while all listened to catch his words, and none more anxiously than his aged wife, he declared that he believed! — believed not merely that he might be forgiven at some future moment, or that God would perhaps have mercy on him, but that ALL HIS SINS WERE FULLY PUT AWAY BY THE BLOOD OF CHRIST!
Contrary to all expectation, he did, not expire that night; his life was remarkably prolonged for four or five days, for God had a purpose of grace in it. There had been those in that village who had gone about for years, teaching that none can be assured of everlasting life, and a full and free forgiveness, till the day of judgment, or, at the very earliest, till they stand in the presence of God. The Lord is not indifferent to the deep need of the population of our rural villages, whatever man may be.
The old man’s fast-failing breath was therefore spared, that his dying testimony might bring glory to God, and blessing to those around. Although assailed, on the day following his conversion, with grievous doubts and misgivings as to the certainty of his salvation, Satan was not allowed to triumph long. In a few hours the gloom departed; the eye, which had been for awhile turned in upon self, looked once more to Christ, and he presently burst out singing aloud. On being asked what he was singing about, he replied, in broken accents, “Praise to Jesus!” And that there might be no question as to whether mere excitement or any self-delusion accounted for his happy condition (sometimes, alas, the case even in dying moments!), he was heard by the writer, on the day before he died, to speak calmly for nearly twenty minutes, though with the utmost difficulty; first, of the sins of a long life, and then of the full and free forgiveness he enjoyed through the precious blood of Christ. With stammering tongue he told of the sad past, the happy present, the eternally-blessed future. He had probably pressed. Christianity before, but now he knew and loved CHRIST HIMSELF.
Two cases of real conversion are known to have sprung from the dear old man’s death-bed scene. In one, the prayer first offered by his bedside, as mentioned above, was used to bring under conviction a married daughter who had come from a distant village to see her father die. In ill-health at the time, she subsequently went home to get worse; was followed thither by the writer; got settled peace before he left the house; and, after much suffering, eventually died triumphing in the love and finished work of Christ, testifying almost with her last breath to her certainty of everlasting life through the precious blood of Christ alone.
But the other case was even more important, taken in connection with the false teaching so prevalent in the village, since the individual referred to lived long enough to discuss the question frequently with one of the very persons who insisted on the impossibility of knowing of sin forgiven till at least after death. This man repeatedly visited him, no doubt with the kindest intentions, but with mistaken zeal, during a long illness. Educated for the ministry at college, he thought and asserted that he ought to know best, but an unlettered laborer, taught of the Spirit, convinced him at last that he was wrong, and he finally had the honesty and candor to acknowledge it! Thus God was glorified, His truth exalted, and the name and value of the blood of Christ triumphantly asserted in the very place where it had been so long denied. Might not one apply that word here, “Out of the mouths of babes and suckling’s Thou hast ordained praise?” for this young man was but a babe in Christ when this occurred. The dying testimony of his aged father, who sent for and solemnly spoke to him concerning the things which belonged to his eternal peace, had come with power to his soul; and, when he was subsequently taken ill himself, got peace in believing, and lay for many months slowly wasting away under the ravages of consumption; no effort of man or Satan could ever shake his confidence in Christ. The writer never saw him otherwise than calmly happy in the full assurance of everlasting life, and delighted with every opportunity of declaring it.
He, too, after a lingering illness, followed his father and sister into eternal rest, where now they are united again in joy forever; and, though unknown to the writer, other fruit will doubtless yet follow the testimony of these three to the glory of Christ “in that day!” What a day will that be when the village churchyards of our native land yield up the dust of departed saints! Thence, “where the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep,” many a king and priest to God will rise to meet HIM in the air, whose precious blood washed them from their sins, whose love, working in secret, sought them out among the neglected and forgotten, and, raising them from the dunghill, set them with His princes to reign with Him in glory everlasting! How stupendous and how marvelous tile change! With what glad and wondering surprise will these simple ones, often ignorant of their high destiny to the very last hour of life upon earth, and barely conscious of salvation, receive “the crown of glory that fadeth not away!” All praise to His most holy name, whose love knows no distinctions, no hindrance, no end, and but for whose most precious grace the toiling rustic must have lived and died but little more regarded than “the beasts that perish,” or the clods his sturdy strength has turned to fruitfulness!