IRRESPECTIVE of everything in you and of you, my dear reader, and of everything you have done, God has His own joy, His own peculiar joy, in bringing the sinner back to Himself in love and peace.
This precious theme is divinely illustrated for us in Luke 15 from the lips of the Saviour Himself, who there unfolds how the Son and the Spirit and the Father unite together in effecting the blessed work of the sinner's salvation.
I was one day asked to go and see a dying infidel, and I went. On entering the room I saw one who had been a fine young man, now in the last stage of consumption, and tossing upon his bed of death.
His sister had told me, on the way to his room, that a few moments before he was blaspheming God for laying him on that bed, and for all that he was suffering. There he was; no getting out of the grasp of the last enemy, death. All the treasures of the universe could not have saved him. It was a sight which I can never forget. The chamber of a dying infidel is an awful place to be in.
You, too, clear reader, must meet that same enemy. It is only a question of days, of months, ar (at most) of years. All the reasonings of the infidel are like cobwebs when he approaches the realities of eternity.
This man was an artisan. He had spent his weeks in work and his Sundays in pleasure. I sat down beside him, looking to God to give me something to say. Then, drawing my Bible from my pocket, I read Luke 15. LUK 15
After the reading, I said, “There is one thing I want you to learn from this chapter.”
Fixing his eyes on me, he earnestly asked,
“What is it?”
“It is this: God's joy in getting you back, and pardoning all your sins is infinitely greater than would be your joy in being brought back and forgiven.”
There was a pause, and he looked at me.
“That is good news for me," was the unexpected remark that came from his lips.
The effect of these words can be better imagined than expressed. They were the first gleam of hope.
But then came, in broken accents, words which he could scarcely get out (as if the devil were busily at work within him): “Will God save me, lying here and doing nothing”
I said: “And what have you been doing the thirty-two years you have lived in the world? If you were to live thirty-two years more, do you suppose you would make a much better use of them?”
I press this most precious truth, the very essence of the grace of God. Do not talk of your miserable doings. What had the sheep in Luke 15 clone? What was it likely to do? To wander still farther away. It was LOST. It is not a question of what you have done, though it is right enough you should be broken-hearted. What you have done and what you are, are altogether but "filthy rags" (Isa. 64:66But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. (Isaiah 64:6)). ISA 64:66But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. (Isaiah 64:6)
But what became of the infidel? His soul was blessedly saved, and in a few weeks afterward he passed home to glory.
I have yet another picture. His brother was close by, and he, too, was dying. Only he was not an infidel. It was quite a different case. He had been one that had preached the gospel, but one that had never really known "the peace of God" (Phil. 4:77And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:7)). PHI 4:77And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:7)I found him miserable. He had no peace, had never known true, solid peace. He was one of that large class of professing Christians who think it is right always to have doubts and fears.
I sat down beside him, and had another kind of work to do, namely, to show him that for the weakest believer in Christ there is no such thing recognized in the New Testament as doubts and fears in the believer.
I would assert this in the freest and fullest manner. People doubt because they do not know the heart of God and of Christ; they know not what it is to be in His presence.
Could I doubt if I felt myself carried above every difficulty and danger by Christ, on the very shoulders of Christ? What should I doubt? Myself? Of course you would be a fool to trust in yourself. The shoulders of Christ? Do you think that if He puts you there, and keeps you there, you can ever perish? It is no humility to doubt, it is presumption, when it is a question of the divine testimony of Scripture.
My poor friend (the brother of the infidel)
You who are still afar off I entreat to come to Jesus JUST AS YOU ARE, whatever your sins and wretchedness. There must be a work of repentance sooner or later; but when you have gone clown into the deepest depths of self judgment the question still remains, That is there in the heart of God for you? The proof of what is in His heart for you is the gift of His Son. “He... spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us” (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); JOH 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) Rom. 8:3232He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? (Romans 8:32) ROM 8:3232He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? (Romans 8:32)).
In proportion to the love, to the grace of God, will be the depth of the darkness and desolation of your soul, if from the very sound of the gospel you drop into the pit of hell. If there is a place of torment deeper than others, I believe it will be occupied by the rejecters of the gospel of the grace of God. Therefore I entreat you with all earnestness, trample not upon God's love; lay not your head on a Christless pillow to-night; or you may have to spend a Christless eternity in that awful place "where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:4848Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. (Mark 9:48)). MAR 9:4848Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. (Mark 9:48)
C. H. M.