WHEN walking along a lane in the country some time ago to visit some cottagers, I saw an old woman sitting on the bank making iron-holders. Though longing to speak to her about her soul, my courage failed me as I passed, and she did not speak as I had hoped she would, but after going a little way, I turned back and spoke to her about her work; she gave me a respectful answer, and I went on to ask if she were saved, “No,” she replied, but that was the very thing that was troubling her, and had been for a long time; she had asked many people, and one told her one thing and one another, but no one could tell her how she might be sure that she was saved. At a place she had passed just before, she had been to the minister, as she thought surely he would know all about such things, but he told her to pray, and to do the best she could, and so on, but this did not satisfy her, and she was more miserable than ever.
I said to her, “The best thing we can do is to see what God says about it,” and sitting down beside her, we opened our Testaments together, for she had a little one that she always carried in her tin can. We read in John 3, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world.; but that the world through him might be saved.”
We talked together of God’s love, and the way in which He had provided a Saviour, His own Son, who had gone to the Cross, and borne the wrath due to her sins, borne it all, and glorified God so perfectly about it, that God had raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand, up there in the glory, for poor sinners to look unto and be saved. Then we went on to read. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.”
She sat quietly drinking it in for some time, and then I shall never forget her look as she put her dear old hands together, and lifting her eyes to heaven, said slowly, “I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, I have everlasting life. I’ve got what I wanted, now I can go on my way rejoicing.”
We could then thank God together for His love to us, and long we sat talking about that precious Saviour; what He is now doing as the High Priest who is passed into the heavens, bearing our names ever before God on His breast, and sustaining us down here in the wilderness through all the weakness and sorrow of the way, and of the blessed hope before us of His coming to take us to Himself It was a happy time for us both under that hedge. When we parted, she wanted to give me some of her iron-holders. I gave her my address on an old envelope, and about six months after she called to see me on her way to her parish, a long way off. She said she wanted to see me once again, and to tell me she had never lost her peace since, but had been quite happy, and was looking forward to her rest with Him who had saved her.
Perhaps you, dear reader, like this old woman, are longing to know that you are saved? Well, then, like her, you must look and see what God says about it, and when God speaks, don’t doubt what He says. People find it much easier to believe what God says about other people, than what He says about themselves. Are you a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ?
Then, dear friend, God says, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life;” and He also says, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away.”
But it may be, the one who is reading this is careless about these things. Well, then, may God arouse you! For the word of God also says, “He that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.”
Ah! it is a very real thing to have God’s wrath abiding upon you. Perhaps you say, as I heard a gentleman in the train once say, “I don’t like all this talking about believing;” then I say to you, as it was said to him, “It is not a question of what you like, but of what God says.” And oh! that you may awake to the reality of these things, while Christ is waiting in grace, for by-and-by He will have risen up and shut to the door; and what an awakening it will be, then, to find it is too late! the Saviour become the Judge!
“Behold, now is the accepted time, behold, now is the day of salvation.”
M. A. D.