NOWADAYS people take nothing for granted. Everything must be turned inside out and rigidly scrutinized, and hence it is that no expression more frequently falls from our lips than “Why?”
I daresay you would like to know the why and wherefore of a good many things, and especially things that relate to religion.
Why on earth do people go about trying to ram religion down people’s throats by thrusting tracts into their hands?
Why? Now listen! Simply because their eyes by the grace of God have been opened to see a certain danger, both imminent and of fearful magnitude, towards which you are drifting with absolute unconcern.
Of course if you are “all right,” as you unconcernedly profess, and if the ruin of man, and death, and judgment, and hell-fire as the sinner’s doom are fables, then religion is all twaddle, and we―i.e., the writer of this booklet, and the individual who put it into your hand — are, to put it mildly, an unwarrantable nuisance. But, on the other hand, if you are all wrong, and these things are facts, and not fables, then we are rendering you a true service in urging upon you, in love to your soul, the fact that there lies before you a great collision.
Why? Let me answer by an illustration. A few weeks ago a party of excursionists went for a day’s outing on a motor-car in the neighborhood of Sandringham―the Norfolk home of the King―and were approaching Wolferton Station, which is situated at the foot of a very steep hill. The car had no sooner turned the crest of the hill than the driver attempted to apply his brake, but to his dismay found it out of order, and utterly useless. The terrified occupants had no other alternative but to sit still. The car swept on with ever-increasing speed until it rounded a corner which brought the railway line with its level crossing full in view, and the sight of a train on the up-line making for the same crossing, and slowing up for Wolferton Station, froze their blood, and turned their dismay into despair. They were face to face with collision.
Why? Because their paths met at a certain point.
(1.) There was a train which could not leave its appointed road, i.e., the rails.
(1.) There was a motor-car which could not be stopped!
Let us in thought step into the presence of a Creator God. You and I are the creatures of His hand. We are responsible to Him, and He certainly has a right to command us, and demand subjection to His will. Moreover ire can rule this world, you and me included, as He pleases, and what He pleases is very clearly indicated in Scripture.
The lines then on which God runs are the lines of righteousness, and from these, being what He is, He never swerves. He will take His righteous way through time and through eternity, and if in eternity mortal man is found athwart the righteousness of God, so much the worse for him. This is the God, my reader, in whose presence you are soon to stand.
Now what about yourself. One thing is certain; you are still on the journey of life. Thank God! you have not yet died in your sins.
Perhaps you are young, and still climbing up the hill. What do you live for? The pursuit of pleasure? The greed of gold? Ah! believe me, so long as your life is on the rise of the hill you may find a little passing excitement, but presently you will reach the crest. What then?
Let us face the matter plainly. They say that for the first thirty years of life a man’s journey is uphill. At thirty or thereabouts a man reaches the prime of life, and for a space of about twenty years he runs along a level stretch of road. After fifty he starts downhill. Slowly at first, more rapidly later, the signs of age creep on until the level crossing of death is reached.
That is the downhill journey, but what about your brakes? The fact is you have none, at least none that are of any use.
Your pleasures? They are all very well so long as you are young, but their charm soon fades away.
Your money? Very useful, no doubt, and very truly called “The provider of everything save happiness, and the passport to everywhere save heaven,” and yet your wealth―if you have it―cannot stave off death one hour, and the gold which by its glitter intoxicates the covetous, slips from the miser’s grasp and is as valueless as mud to the man that is dead.
Your friends? They are helpless for this. They can influence you much for good or for evil. But even that decreases as life advances, and death will hush their voices forever.
Your religion? No! If it be without Christ it is worse than useless, for having a good outward appearance it is more calculated to deceive. It has all the appearances of a good brake. Beware lest you are deceived thereby, and trusting to it, you will discover when too late that it will not act, and you are left to rush helplessly forward to your death, and to your doom.
You have no brakes! You cannot stop! If you could stop, if you could put back the wheels of time, if you could alter what you are, or undo what you have done, there would be hope; or if God were other than what He is, and ran on lines other than what He does, there might be some way of escape; or if His righteousness were a matter of small account so that He could alter His principles to accommodate your case, then, perhaps, collision might be averted. But, no! this cannot be. There lies before you a great collision, and who knows how soon the crash may come.
Reader! this is the reason why of our concern.
Now for the rest of our story.
As the motor-car swept round the curve it was seen by the driver of the train, who, suspecting that something was wrong, applied the brakes in their full power, and managed to come to a standstill in the center of the crossing, just as the motor, with its terrified occupants, came crashing through the white gates, and shattered itself to pieces against the great hulk of his engine. The engine was, of course, unhurt, and the occupants almost miraculously escaped with severe shakings and bruising’s, nothing worse.
Nothing averted that collision, only its character was modified by the fact of the engine being at a standstill; but how gladly can I tell you that though you must meet God and stand before Him face to face, yet He stands still, so to speak, and if you but rightly approach Him, what would have been a disastrous collision may become a most blessed welcome.
God has made it possible for you to be saved, but not without very great and personal cost to Himself, even the gift of His beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. For if the penalty which your sins deserve is to be averted, and salvation becomes yours, then something or someone must be found to satisfy the claims of divine righteousness, and at the same time come down to you in all your need.
One Person is needed―The Lord Jesus Christ.
One thing is needed―His precious Blood.
And, thank God, about these there is not the least shadow of doubt. Both are real. The Saviour has stooped from heaven to this earth of sin and sorrow.
Having come, He took His toilsome journey of life through shame and reproach right on to the cross of Calvary, and there His precious blood was shed.
“Then onward to the cross,
Through suffering, shame, and loss,
The Man of Sorrows wends His way,
To sheathe the judgment sword,
The wrath He there endured,
And now is crowned in brightest day.”
The claims of righteousness are met, and now it is possible for God―in the words of our illustration― to run on the rails of righteousness without collision with you, the guilty sinner, if you on your side are characterized by two things―
1. Repentance toward God.
Repent! Why? Because nothing else can stop the inevitable march of doom.
Repent! But what is it to repent? It is to change your mind about yourself, and your whole history, in a spirit of self-judgment. It is to have a collision with yourself now instead of with God hereafter. Your life has been defiled, your sins are many, your soul is precious, your moments are fleeting. God grant that you may repent toward Him, and then believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
“Faith toward Christ.” What is that Let me answer in an illustrative way by saying that every sovereign has two sides. One bears the likeness of the King’s head upon it, and is called the obverse; the other a device known as “St George and the dragon,” called the reverse. Repentance and faith are the two sides of the gospel coin. Repentance the reverse. Faith the obverse.
When you repent, you reverse all your previous opinions, and pass a vote of no confidence in yourself.
When you turn in faith to Christ, you pass a vote of confidence in Him.
And you may well do so. Think, my friend, of His claims upon you—claims of love; claims established by the fact of His having died for you Confide in Him you may, with perfect safety, for God has confided to Him everything.
See to it that you rest where God rests, and you will become possessor of a rest which nothing can disturb, and become one of those concerning whom the Holy Ghost testifies―
“Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more” (Heb. 10:1717And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. (Hebrews 10:17)), and then you will be able truly to sing―
“Oh, Infinite Redeemer,
I bring no other plea; Because
Thou dost invite me,
I cast myself on Thee!
Because Thou dost accept me,
I love and I adore!
Because Thy love constraineth,
I’ll praise Thee evermore!”
F. B. H.