“YOU know I am not so very ill! It’s only this cough and the weakness. The doctor says he is sure he will be able to raise me up again when the fine weather comes.”
Alas! the doctor was telling those around her a different tale, for consumption had almost done its cruel work.” There is no hope whatever, she may linger on a few weeks longer, but she may die at any moment,” was his real verdict.
This was the first time I had been able to see Mrs.―, and now, when at last I had gained admittance to her sick-room, I found, to my disappointment, that two visitors were there already. We talked on about her illness, and I was feeling how the precious opportunity of speaking to her about eternal things was slipping away, when she said wearily, “How I wish I could be well wrapped up and taken to a warmer climate till the next two spring months are over! You know they say I ought to be resigned to die; that I ought to be resigned to leave my husband and children; but oh, I am not resigned; I want to live; I cannot leave them!”
Her voice had deepened into a wail pitiful to hear, but before I could steady mine to tell her of the One who would make Himself more to her than all she was leaving, one of the ladies who was present said, “When Mrs. gets low about herself like this, she gets low about spiritual things too.”
“Then you are a Christian?” I said, looking at her inquiringly.
A deep, painful flush suffused the invalid’s face, and with great effort she said: “This is how it has been with me. Some years ago I was in great trouble about my soul; I knew I was not prepared to die, and I could not rest about it. Then I went to some revival meetings; they saw I was in great trouble, and wanted me to go up to the penitent form. I did not go, but somehow they got the impression that I was converted, and after that I went to class; but oh, I was never changed at all! No one ever explained things to me, and I have gone on all this time, oh, so unhappy and miserable, and even yet I cannot feel saved.”
“But,” I said, “it is useless your trying to feel saved unless you are saved. The great question is, Is the blood sprinkled? You will remember before the Lord passed through the land of Egypt, He told the Israelites to kill a lamb and to strike the side-posts and lintel with its blood, and He said, ‘When I see the blood, I will pass over you.’ Now it would be of no avail for an Israelite to try to make himself believe that his first-born would escape if he had not sprinkled the blood, and it is equally useless for you to try to feel saved if you have not come to Christ as a poor lost sinner, and have not trusted in Him as your own personal Saviour.”
I also gave her an illustration which I had been reading. It was of a supposed visit to the houses of two Israelites in Egypt on the Passover night. The blood was sprinkled on the side-posts and lintels of both. In the first house all were in doubt and fear. The blood was sprinkled certainly, but the most they could do was to hope their first-born would escape. In the second louse all were in perfect peace, for had not God said, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you”?
In which of these two houses was the first-born the safer? “Oh, the one in the house where they were at peace,” many would say. But no, both were equally safe, because both were under the shelter of the blood. But in the case of a house where the blood was not sprinkled, however happy and secure they might feel, judgment would inevitably fall.
I often saw Mrs.― after this, and in about a week after my first visit I was struck on entering her room with the restful happy expression of her really beautiful face.
“I feel so happy!” she said, “I know I am saved now.”
I asked her if she had found peace through a verse of Scripture. “No; it was through a dream. I dreamed I was going along a weary, long road, till at last I came to a dark tunnel through which I was obliged to pass. As I stood trembling, fearing to enter it, I looked in and at the far end I saw a bright shining figure beckoning me on, and then I awoke.”
“But, Mrs.—, there is nothing in that to rest on for your soul’s salvation. It is Christ’s work alone which saves the soul.”
“I am trusting to Christ’s work,” she replied, “but that dream seemed to give me courage, and to tell me that Jesus died for me, and that God had accepted me.”
I left, feeling satisfied that she was born of God. But as she had taken the dream as her ground of assurance, instead of resting solely on God’s Word for it, it was not surprising that in a few days she should be harassed with doubts as to whether she was really saved or not.
I urged her to look away from herself to the never-changing Word of God, which declares that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:55Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned: (1 Timothy 1:5)), and which would be as a rock under her feet.
I told her of a young lady who was always wishing for something more than the Word of God to rest upon. “If I had only some little token,” she said, “just an inward whisper that Jesus died for me, I should be satisfied.” A friend replied, “Well, suppose that some day you had this inward whisper, you would be very happy because it had assured you that Jesus had died for you, but in a few days the thought might arise, I wonder if that was God’s whisper? it may have been Satan’s! Where then would be your peace and joy? Gone! because they were not based on the Word of God alone.”
“The Lord Jesus Christ,” wrote a well-known servant of God, “has shed His precious blood as a perfect atonement for sin, and God’s testimony assures the believing sinner that everything is settled on his behalf—settled not by his estimate of the blood, but by the blood itself which God values so highly, that because of it, without a single jot or tittle added thereto, He can righteously forgive all sin, and accept the sinner as perfectly righteous in Christ. Either Christ’s atoning sacrifice is sufficient or it is not. If it is sufficient, why those doubts and fears? The words of our lips profess that the work is finished; but the doubts and fears of the heart declare that it is not. Every one who doubts his full and everlasting forgiveness, denies, so far as he is concerned, the completeness of the sacrifice of Christ.”
But to return to Mrs.—, she had many visitors, who much hindered her by pointing her to other means of gaining the peace which could only be hers by simple trust in Christ and in His precious blood, and thus for several weeks her mind was distracted and self-occupied, but at last she looked away from all to that blessed One alone, and peace and rest then flowed into her soul.
It was now evident to all but herself that the end was very near; but, buoyed up with the feeling of hopefulness peculiar to the disease, and with the doctor’s constant assurance that he would raise her up again, she was even yet having articles of dress made to wear when she should get about once more. Her friends decided to, break the sad truth to her.
It was a very painful scene, but in that hour of her sore need God revealed to His poor child His own exceeding love and sustaining power. “Oh, auntie,” she said to a relative who was with her a few hours after, “when they told me I was dying it was terrible; but oh, I did cry to God to help me, and oh, auntie, He did help me, and now I am quite happy and quite ready to go.” And then, as another morning dawned, she passed away to be forever with the Saviour in whose love she had but so lately trusted.
Reader, you may know all about the simple truths of the gospel―that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and that His precious blood can cleanse the vilest and fit him for the brightest glory, but such knowledge is only the greater condemnation to you if you have not come to Christ, and have not appropriated for yourself this great salvation.
“Let one in his innocence glory,
Another in works he has done;
Thy blood is my claim and my title,
Beside it, O Lord, I have none.”
F. A.