“OH, wife, I have been at the wrang door!”
Such was the exclamation of an old man who lived about thirty years ago in a village a few miles from Edinburgh. He had heard of the work of God in saving souls which was going on all over the country at that time, and especially in a mission in a chapel close by, and he had become intensely anxious to know that his own soul was saved. After a few days of wretchedness, he resolved to go into the city, in the hope of there finding the blessing which he so much needed, and which he thought could only be found in some such place as a mission chapel. Having arrived at the meeting-place, he took care to get a seat between two persons, thinking that if the blessing came down on either side of him it could hardly miss him.
This poor old man, while expecting some mysterious thing to happen to him, so that blessing for his soul might come to him, had never dreamed it was to come simply through the word preached, and so he paid no attention to what was said, but kept looking about him for this mysterious something which he fancied would be the means of his conversion.
At length the first meeting was over, but nothing of the kind he expected had happened. He was quite disappointed. But when he heard of a second meeting he comforted himself with the thought, “I may be blessed yet!” Alas! he was doomed to disappointment as before, for while the praying and singing went on he kept looking all around for the “Spirit,” and so again “nothing happened.”
After the second meeting a young man went up to him, and asked him if he had got any blessing from what he had heard. “No, no,” said he, quite angry at the question. The preacher then came up with the same inquiry, at the same time opening his Bible with the intention of setting the truth before him, but he only exclaimed, “Oh, I ken a’ that already; if you’ve nothing to say to me but that I may ge awa’ hame, an’ I needna hae comed here ava.”
Soon after the preacher left him, an old man, who had been a great sinner, came up to him, and tried to comfort him thus: “Ye needna despair—onybody after me. Ye’ll maybe meet with the Lord on your way lame the nicht.”
This last observation rather frightened out friend, for he understood the old man literally, and left the place immediately, thinking he had been there long enough. He got home at a late hour, disappointed, and with the feeling that once more “nothing had happened.”
Now more wretched than before, the thought struck him, “I’ll tell my minister,” but along with it came this other thought, “I should have had this settled afore when I joined the kirk”― for he had been a member of his church for many years. He saw that to tell his minister was to give up all his past profession; but better that than go on at this rate.
At length, one night, he found himself within a few yards of the manse door. He said to himself, “I’ll lift the knocker as far up as I can get it, and if it fa’s I’ll gang in; and if no, I’ll just gang awa’ hame again.”
He lifted the knocker and ran back a bit. It fell, and so he had to stay. In a minute or two the door opened, and he had to go in.
In a very short time he told his story―all that “had happened” and that “had not happened.” The minister did his best to set the way of salvation before him, but to no purpose. The man had his own thoughts as to how the thing should be, and so could not listen to the simple gospel. He left the house sadder than ever.
The thought that he was not one of the elect, or that he might be a reprobate, now took hold of him. All this time his wife had been trying to comfort him on the ground that he was “weel enough already,” that “it was only bad folk that needed conversion.” But this did not help him. Rising from his work one morning, he left the house, muttering to himself, “There is no use of a damned man working.” This frightened his wife, and sent her to her knees and to her Bible.
After wandering by the banks of a river for several hours in a very desponding, dangerous frame of mind, he returned home. The Bible which his wife had been reading was lying on the table, open at John 10. The very sight of the book aroused in him bitter and angry feelings, and he would have dashed it to the floor, but ‘ere he did so his eye lighted on the words, “I am the Door: by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.”
He jumped up and turned round, and took his wife in his arms, crying, “Oh, wife, I’ve been at the wrang door.” He saw that instead of doing or feeling, or finding something happen in him or to him, Christ had done everything for the sinner, and all the sinner had to do was by faith to enter in by Christ and be saved. Joy filled his soul, and by grace our friend even this day can testify to God’s salvation.
Dear reader, do you find in this story a history of your own condition? Are you looking to your doings as a means of salvation? Are you resting on what you know? Or are you expecting a mysterious something to happen to you if you are to be saved, forgetting that Jesus says, “I am the Door: by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.”
Salvation is offered to you now, just as you are, if you reject Christ you go on to eternity a lost sinner!
Oh! have you discovered that you are lost? “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”; “the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” There is nothing to do.
“There is nothing to do; for the sinner that’s dead
Must needs have another to work in his stead,
And Jesus, in Calvary’s terrible hour,
Accomplished redemption in wondrous power.
Are you wretched and ruined? God offers to you
A free, full salvation, and nothing to do.”
J. S., of B―h.