I AM expecting my sister and brother at the meeting to-night," said Miss H. to me.
“I have long been praying for her, and trust the Lord may have a word for her; will you join your prayers with mine, and if possible get an opportunity of speaking to her personally?”
“Most assuredly I will," I answered, and did not forget her both before and at the meeting.
The subject of the preaching was John 20; a risen Christ Himself is seen announcing peace, and showing the tokens of its accomplishment in the wounded hands and side.
I kept my eye upon the person next. Miss H., making sure it was her sister, and felt certain that there was a word for her; and as the company dispersed, I went up to her quietly, and said, “Have you got peace with God?”
She colored up, and, turning from me, hurried from the room as fast as possible. She evidently felt the power of the question; but could not conscientiously reply to it.
“I am so sorry my sister was unable to come,” said Miss H., a few moments after; " I am sure that address would just have suited her!”
“What, "I said," you don't mean to say that the person sitting next you was not your sister?
I made sure it was, and felt the Lord was speaking to her through His word, and actually went and addressed her personally ere she left the room.
“No, that was not my sister; that was a perfect stranger to me.”
I own that I felt a little disappointed, but thought perhaps I had some lesson to learn, and had been more anxious about one than I should have been for all the rest.
However, I went home, and next day went out to visit; and at one house was glad to learn that a young person had been so arrested through the word at the meeting that she had passed a sleepless night, and was most anxious to see me. She presently came in, and to my joy I saw the very person I had seen and spoken to the night before.
“Oh!" she said, “I am so glad to see you.
That question you put to me as I left the room last night has rested on my mind ever since. I felt so ashamed at not being able to answer it, and vet I knew I could not truthfully; for I have never had, and have not now, true peace with God.' I believe that Jesus died, and died for me, and that through Him alone I must be saved; hut to say that I have peace is quite impossible. I know I have not got it.”
“Well," I said, "I am glad then, very glad, that I spoke to you; and now shall I tell you how you may have peace without a cloud, or doubt, or fear?”
“Do, please," she said, quite anxiously," for I am miserable, and shall be till I get it.”
“Well," I said, "the Christ I spoke of yesterday, as we read in Col. 1:2020And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. (Colossians 1:20), has made peace by the blood of His cross; and now, just as in. John 20 He announced peace Himself to His disciples, He now, by the Holy Ghost, proclaims it to you, to all; and the moment you believe in God as the One who raised Him from the dead, who was delivered for your offenses, and raised again for your justification, this peace is yours, you are justified by faith, and have peace with God (Rom. 5:11Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: (Romans 5:1)). God announces to you that He has raised, and glorified, and seated at His right hand, the One who made peace for sinners by the blood of His Cross, in token that He is glorified and satisfied with respect to the sinner's sins.
“You, by believing in God' in this character, set to your seal to His acceptance of His Son's finished work, and thus the peace that He has made becomes your own, and you have peace with God.
“It is not, you will notice, peace of mind; this is quite another thing, and one which is the consequence of peace with God, and fluctuates continually as the soul walks with or apart from God; but ' peace with God ' is a thing that never changes. It is what Christ has made, and, because He is changeless, is like Him unalterable; and though your appreciation or enjoyment of it may rise or fall in proportion as you maintain your fellowship with God, nothing can touch your portion, thus secured to you by God's own precious Word.”
“Oh!" she said," I think I see it; I have been trying to feel peace within, while I should have been in simple faith resting on God's acceptance of the finished work of Jesus. I see it now quite clearly. I believe in God, who raised up Jesus; and, through faith, the peace He made is mine. I have settled peace with God. Oh! how I thank and praise the God that has accepted Jesus, and the precious Saviour that died to make my peace with God!..
Four years have passed since then, and still she stands a blessed monument of God's free grace, apart from the world while busily engaged in it, and rejoicing week after week to be amongst those gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose privilege it is to show His death until He comes again.
Dear reader! as your eye rests on this page, can you from your inmost soul say, "My peace, too, is made; for Jesus is my peace, and He it was who made it on the cross of Calvary; and now His own peace
"Lord, while our souls in faith repose Upon Thy precious blood, Peace like an even river flows, And mercy like a flood.”