Returning from town by train the other evening I had to alight at a junction in order to change trains. While waiting I entered into conversation with a porter, who informed me that it had taken him a year to master the intricate time-table of his line.
"But these time-tables are useful things to understand, sir, and I have just shown a man with a quantity of luggage the way to go. I can direct you anywhere you want to go, but the great thing is to know where to junction.”
"Well," said I, "you are a great help to travelers, indeed, and as you can direct us everywhere, I should like to ask you if you could show a lost sinner the way to heaven.”
"Well," he said, "I think I could do that, sir. I don't, like a good many, neglect my Bible, given to us when we were married, and it lays on our best table. My wife, too, is very serious. I'm not as good as some, and not as bad as some.”
Thus the man began to justify himself instead of speaking of God's way of justifying a sinner. I told him that he was really on the wrong line, the downward road, and, though he could tell travelers, "where to junction", on earthly journeys, he was not able to tell me where to junction for Heaven.
Before my train left I had just time to tell him of God's way of salvation so simply and so plainly set out in His Word.
May I solemnly apply this little incident to the conscience of my unconverted reader, You are a traveler going out of this world, journeying it may be by pleasant ways, enjoying the scene, and making the most of it. Every comfort may be yours as you pass station after station on life's journey; or it may be the very reverse, you may be needy on life's journey; but the important question is, “What is your condition spiritually?” Without God, in the world, you are traveling the broad way that leads to destruction, of which Hell is the terminus.
You may say, that is not where you intend to go, but thither you are going as fast as the wheels of time can carry you, for if you have not come to "the junction" where the change for Heaven is made, you are still on the broad road. Satan has many lines on the broad way, but the terminus of each is at the same place—Hell. They all run to the same, disguise it as he may. O! Do not be ignorant of his devices!
Some of his travelers say they are doing the best they can; others, that they never did any particular harm, like my porter friend—others hope God will be merciful—but none of them speak of that which Christ has done, and they will all have to find out their mistake.
But, O! Dear reader, there is a junction at which you may change. The porter knew not where to junction for glory, but I can tell you—"Calvary, Calvary." Had my friend, the porter, readily and humbly read the Word of God, he would have found in it the plain direction for a sinner to reach glory. He would have found that "I am not as good as some, and not as bad as some," will never take a soul to heaven, but that,
"All have sinned and come short of the glory of God"—that all are "lost"—and that for the lost, who are out of the way, Jesus died.
All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, but Christ was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
May you leave the old train which is hurrying you down to death, and may you stop at the cross of Christ, and, believing on Him, you shall be saved for glory.