RECENTLY a gentleman called upon me for some information from “Bradshaw’s Railway Guide,” and, when he had obtained it, introduced himself as a great “thought-reader” and “mind-revealer.” He told me he could, blindfolded, read anybody’s thoughts and reveal their mind, under certain circumstances, and had that day successfully read the thoughts of several ladies where he was staying.
“Can you tell me, sir, what I am thinking about just now?” I asked.
“No,” he replied, “I cannot do that straight off, but must have a medium, and you would have to think of some object quite unknown to me, which I should, when blindfolded, lead you exactly to.”
“Where,” I inquired, “do you get your power? Is it from Satan, who wants you to be miserable in hell forever? or is it from God, who wishes you to be happy in heaven throughout all eternity?”
“No,” he said, “not that; but I have absolutely to ignore myself, and to become as the person is whose thoughts I am reading at the time, and think precisely as that person thinks!”
“But, look here,” I remarked, “I know a Person who can read all the thoughts of everybody straight off, without the slightest difficulty, under every circumstance, at any time, and who, in doing so, has not to change Himself in the least!”
“Indeed,” said he, with astonishment, “is he alive?”
“Yes,” I added, “He is indeed alive, and is my best Friend!”
“Really,” observed the gentleman, “but that is very extraordinary!”
“Yes,” I further added, “He was once dead, but He is now alive again; and He has said, ‘I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore; and have the keys of hell and of death.’ Of Him it is also written, ‘Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him’” (Rev. 1:7, 18).
“Oh, I see,” he remarked, “and I think I know now whom you mean; but excuse me, I must be going, as my friends will be waiting for me.”
“Just wait a minute, please,” I requested. “Do you know that that blessed Person, who is now sitting on His Father’s throne in glory, is reading your thoughts and mine at this very moment, that He has all men’s hearts in His hand, and that He knows the thoughts and intents of the heart? Stop! do not go just for one moment, I beseech you, as I wish to tell you, sir, what I had on my mind just now when I asked you to reveal it. I had two scriptures, which are these, ― ‘All have sinned and come short of the glory of God;’ and, ‘The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.’ Do you believe these scriptures?”
“Well,” he answered, “I think I do; but I must now really go!”
“Well,” I finally added, as he was leaving, “that Person I speak of knows not only your thoughts and mine at this very moment, but He knows whether we are real, and mean what we say.”
The results of such an interview as this, my reader, we leave with God, who alone, in this day of His salvation, reads thoughts, reveals minds, searches hearts, and makes bare consciences for BLESSING; but who will, ere long, bring every thought into judgment, having said, “Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts” (1 Cor. 4:5).
One man professes to reveal the thoughts of another. Man himself will not always disclose his own thoughts, and I believe the devil never makes known his thoughts to any one, as he always works behind false colors to deceive. But what a marvel of marvels it is that God, who is light, as well as love, has been pleased so fully to make known His thoughts to poor fallen man, for His own glory and our souls’ eternal blessing! What so sadly hinders people from being saved, is that they are guided by THEIR OWN THOUGHTS about themselves, and about God, instead of by GOD’S THOUGHTS. They think God is not so good as He says He is, and that they are not so bad as God says they are. The last thing a person is willing to do, is to give up his preconceived thoughts and take God at His word, pure and simple. A most striking exemplification of this is to be seen in “Naaman the Syrian,” who was a leper. God’s thoughts toward Naaman, by his prophet Elisha, were, “Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean” (2 Kings 5:10). Could anything have been more simple? Impossible! But Naaman had his own opinion about the matter, and went away in a rage, and unblessed, as so very many now do from the truth of God. Naaman said, “Behold, I THOUGHT, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?” (vers. 11:12.)
Naaman’s thoughts led him away from blessing. He must be connected with Jordan, the figure of death, to get the blessing. And note, when he gave up his own hindering and obstructing thoughts, went DOWN, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God, his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean (vs. 14). If this captain of the host of the king of Syria, mighty man of valor, so great with his master, and honorable, had not given up his own thoughts, he must have died a leper. It is as true today, friend. Are not people saying? (and they think it first!) “Oh, I am as good as my neighbor; I am doing my best; I say my prayers, pay my way, feed the poor, have my name well up on the subscription list, go very regularly indeed to the means of grace, and hope to get to heaven at last, having as good a chance as anybody else.” But God says, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done” (Titus 3:5); “All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6); “By grace are ye saved through faith” (Eph. 2:8); “He that believeth on me hath everlasting life” (John 6:47).
For leprous souls―as all are by nature―there is no approach to a holy God apart from the atoning death of our Lord Jesus Christ, who died the just for the unjust to bring us unto God, ―i.e., those who, as leprous sinners, receive Him as their Saviour. Have you, reader, been thus brought nigh to God?
Just look at the case of Belshazzar for one moment. What caused that mighty king’s thoughts to trouble him, and make his knees smite one against another? It was that God’s thoughts were being revealed to him, which were these, “Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.” And what followed? “In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain” (Dan. 5:27, 30).
Were you, dear reader, now to be weighed up in God’s balances, what would the result be? Just this, ― if without Christ, you would sink into hell; but if you possessed that blessed Saviour, you would rise to where He is.
Take friendly warning, dear unsaved soul, I beseech you, for God may soon have to say to you, “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee” (Luke 12:20).
Before laying down this paper will you read one or two more things God says about “thoughts”? ― “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). “The thought of foolishness is sin” (Prov. 24:9). “The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity” (Psa. 94:11). “God is not in all his thoughts” (Psa. 10:4). “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man HIS THOUGHTS: and LET HIM RETURN UNTO THE LORD, AND HE WILL HAVE MERCY UPON HIM; AND TO OUR GOD, FOR HE WILL ABUNDANTLY PARDON. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:6-9).
Paul said of his unconverted days, “I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus Christ. Which things I also did” (Acts 26:9,10). How entirely opposite are God’s thoughts towards man: “I know the thoughts that I think towards you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an end and expectation” (Jer. 29:11).
What thoughts have you, friend? Your own, or God’s? Which? J. N.