A MAN who was lying in a poor and comfortless home, in great distress, had been a cab-man, and had spent his best years in sin. Laid down by a serious illness he had time to think over his past life, and the Spirit of God had convicted him of sin. Sometime, somewhere, he had heard a preacher preach the Gospel in the open air, and he sent for him to come and speak to him in his soul’s distress. Immediately the preacher crossed the threshold, the awakened man fixed his eyes upon him, and in the agony of his soul cried out,
“O tell me, sir, what I have to do in order to be saved?”
Bending down over the bed on which he lay, the preacher quietly and lovingly repeated, Jesus said,
“It is finished”, and added, “The work that saves is finished.”
He waited for a few moments to allow the great foundation Gospel truth to sink into the anxious man’s mind, a truth which has been used of God to bring thousands into light and liberty.
“I see it all,” said the awakened man, and after hearing more fully the way of salvation, how God can righteously save and justify the sinner because of the work of the cross, he was at peace with God.
Yes, “the work which saves is finished”, finished by Christ on the cross, finished to God’s eternal satisfaction, so that nothing can be added to it, or needs to be. By the perfect work of Christ alone is a sinner saved not by his own works. Nor by the work of Christ and his own combined.
Are you willing to be saved on these conditions? God will never consent to any other. You must accept God’s way, or perish.
ML 10/26/1924