“WELL! I find that. you have walked over three miles to see me, and that you wish to have some talk to me about your soul.”
“Yes, I heard that you would be willing to speak, to me, and I thought you might be able to tell me something that would do me good.”
“How long is it that you have been thinking about your state?”
“Why, these twenty years I have been more or less troubled about myself; but I cannot get any satisfaction.”
“How old are you?”
“I am in my eightieth year, and, as you see, I am quite crippled. I took more than two hours to walk over these three miles.”
“You have, indeed, much reason to be troubled, as you have a heavy load of sin to answer for. Nearly eighty years of sin, in thought, word, and deed! Much of your past life, doubtless, you cannot now recollect. Many a scene of your early days, when, I daresay, you rioted in iniquity, you have forgotten. But all stands recorded in the book of God’s remembrance. And even you can recall enough to your mind to make you tremble.”
“Ah, yes. I am, indeed, a sinner. I was a soldier when young, and a soldier’s life is not likely to make one good.”
“And what hope have you about getting rid of all this great weight of guilt? How do you expect to be saved from hell?”
“Why, I do not know exactly. But I do what I can. I pray to the Almighty to forgive me, and say over ‘ The Belief ‘ and the Ten Commandments ‘ every day. But I cannot get any satisfaction. I do not know what to do.”
“Did you ever hear or think of Jesus Christ, and of His having died on the cross? “
“Oh, yes; I think of Him and about His death; but I cannot get any rest. to my mind.”
“You are, then, I trust, really in earnest about your soul; and, indeed, it is high time. You cannot expect to remain long in this world, and dreadful would it be for you, to have all the sins of your long life brought up against you when you stand before the throne of God. But God has provided a refuge, even for such a sinner as yourself, and I will try to explain to you the meaning and use of the death of Christ; for through faith in His death alone can you be saved? Do you know the meaning of one person being a substitute for another?”
“To be sure I do, well enough; for I was a substitute in the army for another man.”
“Were you, indeed! Then you can truly understand the meaning of the word. You served in the army as the substitute for another man; that is, you wore his regimentals, you shouldered his musket, you took his place in the ranks, you went through his exercise or drill, and you exposed yourself to the enemy’s fire instead of him, risking your life for him, and received his wages.”
“Yes, all that is quite true.”
“Now, Jesus Christ, God’s blessed and only begotten Son, came down from the glory and joy of heaven on purpose to be this, and far more, for the sinner. God sent Him to be the sinner’s substitute; so He came to serve in the sinner’s stead. Jesus ‘took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men,’ in order that He might go through all the service and obedience that God required; and at the end of His life on earth, He took the sinner’s place in judgment; He exposed Himself to all the fierce wrath of God, and bore it instead of the sinner. The ‘arrows’ of God stuck fast in Him, and God’s hand pressed Him sore; for out of His love for poor lost men, He of His own accord bore the punishment which they deserved. ‘For Christ hath once suffered for sins, the just instead of the unjust, that He might bring us to God.’ (1 Pet. 3:1818For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: (1 Peter 3:18).) He received the wages which sinners have earned; that is, death. God smote Him in order that He might not smite them. God made Him to be a curse, in order that those for whom He died might not be cursed. 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 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)). ‘Who His own self bare our sins in His own both on the tree’ (Pet. 2:24).
“And now God sends the blessed message that all this has been clone; that the Substitute whom God provided has finished His work; that judgment for sin has been borne by another, so that the poor lost sinner may look at Christ’s death, and be at peace. Anyone, therefore, that knows and feels himself to be a ruined, defiled creature need not think he has to do anything in order to get rid of his sins, need not look forward with a kind of vain hope that perhaps he will be better by-and-by, and may perchance find mercy; but let him look back at. Christ on the cross, and there behold God’s blessed Son bearing all the wrath due to himself, and let him believe that, in His death, God has finished the whole work of putting away sins forever. God does not bid you to hope to be saved; but He points you back to a salvation finished in the death and resurrection of Christ.
“Look at your past life There you find fearful depths of sin and evil, as you well know; and such as you cannot alter or get rid of, even if you were to live to another eighty years of innocence; for no future change of conduct can blot out the past.
“Supposing I were in debt a large sum of money at a shop, and that I went to my creditor, and told him that I would solemnly promise not to run in debt for the future; would that pay the debt I already owed? Would it be any, even the least, cancelling of the debt? Surely not; surely no one would be so foolish as to expect to pay his debts in this world after this fashion.
“Do not you, then, be so foolish as to suppose that God will be satisfied with this kind of settlement for sin. But look back again, and far, far behind; yea, farther back than your sins reach; and you will see the cross of Christ; you will see the Substitute bearing the sins of many. There, even upon His own Son, God judged sin. There God thought beforehand, and settled beforehand, in the blood of Christ, for the wicked lives and sins of thousands of sinners. If, therefore, you were a believer in Christ, you would be able to say, whenever you hear or read of His death on the cross, ‘It was for me that He was thus slain. It was for me God’s blessed Son was crucified, My sins weighed heavily on His head. The wrath due to me was borne by Him. I have been judged and executed there, for I see my Substitute suffering in my stead.’
“Do not, therefore, look forward to, or ask for, mercy, as if it were something yet to come; but believe that God has already provided, and manifested His mercy in delivering up His own dear Son to death, for the sake of sinners. If I want proof of God’s love to me a sinner, I look back at the death of Christ; and God commends His love to me, in that, while I was yet a sinner, Christ died for me. (Rom. 5:88But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8).) God’s love to the world is proved by His giving His only begotten Son in order that ‘whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life’ (John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)).
“And what, I may ask you, is the use of daily repeating, as you say you have been accustomed to do, the Belief and the Ten Commandments? Repeating a creed will not save a soul. And as to saying the Ten Commandments, I will tell you what it is like: it is as if a poor criminal, sentenced to death, and shut up in the condemned cell waiting for execution, were to read over and over again the judge’s warrant for his being hanged, and were to think that by this means he could escape the sentence. But would this in anywise avail him? Would his doing this make the prison doors open, or give him a prospect of escape? Surely not; the effect that would be produced by thus reading over the sentence of death would be the fastening upon his soul the certainty of his being executed.
“Now, this is exactly your case, and the case of those who read over and over again the Ten Commandments with the vain hope of getting better thereby. For these Commandments are the ministration of death (2 Cor. 3:77But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: (2 Corinthians 3:7))) They are, as it were, God’s warrant for the sinner’s condemnation; and they can never help the guilty sinner the least, either to escape from the punishment due to his sins, or to get the mastery over his lusts or evil passions. Instead of this, God has sent Christ, and He is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth” (Rom. 10:44For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. (Romans 10:4)). He is the way of salvation, the way of righteousness, the way to heaven. If you believe in Him, you have everything: wisdom, righteousness, holiness, redemption. In the death of Christ, God has judged and avenged every broken commandment of which the sinner may be guilty.
“When you were serving in the army as a substitute for another man, he for whom you thus enlisted was free. The, Government could not again call on him to enter the ranks, because he could point to you, and say, ‘Here is a man in my stead; my place is filled up by another, and you have accepted him for me.’ So if you believe in Christ, you may safely point to Christ and say,
‘He has served, and I am free. Since He has suffered in my stead, no condemnation can reach me: since He has been judged for me, I cannot be brought into judgment, for it would not be just to punish me and my Substitute also.’ Fix, then, your eye on Him; let Him be your strong tower; His death your ground of safety; His precious blood your boast. Then
‘I hear the accuser roar
Of ills that I have done;
I know them well, and thousands more:
Jehovah findeth none.’”
S.
Christ is the Saviour of sinners;
Christ is the Saviour for me;
Long I was chained in sin’s darkness;
Now by His grace I am free.
Now I can say I am pardoned,
Happy and justified, free;
Saved by my blessed Redeemer:
This is the Saviour for me.
Just as I was He received me,
Seeking from judgment to flee;
Now there is no condemnation:
This is the Saviour for me.
Loved with a love that’s unchanging,
Blessed with all blessings so free,
How shall I tell out His praises?
This is the Saviour for me.
Soon shall the glory be dawning;
Then, too, His face I shall see;
Sing, O my soul, in thy gladness:
This is the Saviour for me.