A YOUNG Christian one day called at the house of the village saddler and left a gospel booklet. The old man read it over, and silently it preached the gospel to him, pointing him to the Saviour of sinners, through whom alone forgiveness and salvation can be possessed. Light broke into his soul, and he is now rejoicing in the knowledge of the forgiveness of all his sins.
But can such a thing be possible I perhaps our reader inquires. Certainly. And on what does such assurance rest? In the soul’s experiences? No. In our frames or feelings? No. What then?
ON DIVINE AUTHORITY―
the Word of God.
Many are looking within, for this blessed assurance; but faith looks without.
The evidence that the believer’s sins are forever put away, lies not within him, but altogether outside of him. Turn to the tenth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews for proof of this. In verse 15 the Holy Spirit’s witness is spoken of, and to what does He witness? To two facts: — First, That Christ having offered one sacrifice for sins, sits now in perpetuity at the right hand of God (vs. 12).
Second, That on the ground of His one offering for sins, God has in righteousness put them away to be remembered “no more” (vs. 17). So that the believer can say without presumption that they are gone―
“FORGIVEN, FORGOTTEN FOREVER,”
as dear Suso wrote some hundreds of years ago. Reader, is this your assurance? Remember, they are the words of God who cannot lie.
But to return to our narrative. Some days after, a friend of ours was passing the old saddler’s house, when he called him in, and after showing him some books he had been reading, produced a copy of the Gospel Messenger, which he said was “the sweetest of all,” and that it had opened up such a lot to him, and had been such a blessing to his soul.
Thank God, the light through the pages of the magazine had shone into the old man’s soul. May it shine likewise into yours, dear reader, and then may you go forth to make known to others the salvation of God.
“Rise, my soul! behold, ‘tis Jesus,
Jesus fills thy wondering eyes:
See Him now, in glory seated,
Where thy sins no more can rise.
There, in righteousness transcendent,
Lo, He doth in heaven appear,
Shows the blood of His atonement
As thy title to be there.”
E. E. N.