“He who is the Lord above
Left those regions for a grave;
Out of pity, out of love,
That the guilty he might save.
Down to this sad world he flew,
For poor sinners like to you.”
Dear reader, it is a common saying among men that “experience makes fools wise;” and the writer’s experience as to the wonder-working power of God is that it can save the vilest, for it has saved him. The writer, like that poor lad, was lost, drifting down the stream of time into the ocean of eternity. Like the man among the tombs, often bound with fetters and chains, no man could tame him till he heard a voice as from heaven, saying, “Young man, where, oh where will you spend your eternity?” In a moment he awoke to a solemn sense of his condition before God, consciously on the brink of perdition, dead in trespasses and sins. But he was not left there; a strong arm, almighty still to save, was put forth, and plucking him as a brand from the burning, set him in eternal safety. Thank God for his delivering grace! “God is love!”
Dear reader, do you want stronger proof of the love of God than this? Look then to Calvary! See there the love of Jesus.
“Oh hear his all-important cry,
‘Eli, lama sabachthani!’
Draw near and see the Saviour die
On the cross.”
Was ever love like this? “God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” Think what it must have cost “the Holy One of God” to be “made sin for us,” to bear in our stead the wrath of Him whose “daily delight” he had been from all eternity.
“What love with this can vie?” and will you turn from it; “do despite to the Spirit of grace;” and treat the precious blood of Christ as if it were nothing? Oh do not so, for your own soul’s sake! “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” Rather confess the madness that has hitherto steeled your heart against such grace, such love, and see in a risen Christ the all-sufficient answer to all your sins; for the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin; and “if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou SHALT BE SAVED.”