HAVE I got the “wherewith”?
When you wish to purchase something, that is the question you ask yourself. Your “wherewith” should exceed, or at any rate equal, your outlay. That is clear.
If you want to build a tower, you should first sit down and count the cost. If you want to make war, you must first sit down, and consider if you can, with ten thousand men, meet him who comes against you with double that number. These questions are not new, but they are very significant.
“What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” That, too, is a very old question, and has played its part in the conversion of multitudes (that of the writer included), for it brings before a man the greatest personal issue that can be conceived. He may be able to place a fairly correct commercial value on any of his material possessions, his house, his horse, his cow, his dog, his articles for sale, &c., but his soul (and, believe me, man has a soul, and one that must live forever in bliss or in woe), how can its value be computed? Who can appraise its worth, or state its preciousness?
The soul, the “ego,” the I, the person, the individual unit, the one human being—who exists in the separate consciousness of his own distinctness from all beside, the living, sentient, responsible man, the little but great “myself,” who has relations with others, and responsibilities as an intelligent mortal-has relations, too, with God “in whom we live, and move and have our being” (Acts 17:2828For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. (Acts 17:28)).
Is any exchange possible on my part, for such a charge?
None whatever!
It was, in view of such a question, that one of old said:—
“Wherewith shall I come before the Lord” [did he possess the possible means, the “wherewith,” to do so?] “and bow myself before the High God?” (Mic. 6:66Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? (Micah 6:6)). And tremendously important was the query!
“Shall I,” he cried, “come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old?” (vs. 7).
Well, these were ordained as offerings in a purely typical way, and “could never,” we read, “take away sins” (Heb. 10:1111And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: (Hebrews 10:11)); and therefore their utter insufficiency asserted itself in the conscience of this earnest seeker for peace with God.
He continues his inquiry: “Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams?” (vs. 7). No, not that! “Or with ten thousands of rivers of oil?” A price incalculable, but still insufficient. Something more is required by the exigencies of a sin-burdened conscience.
Well then, “Shall I give my first born for my transgression?” (vs. 7). That is the very highest bid: impossible to go further I that is the greatest “wherewith” that man possesses; at least so felt Abram on the day when he laid his Isaac on the sacrificial altar of Mount Moriah?
Yet such an offering could not avail, and therefore in despair our inquirer could only bewail the fact that “the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul” (vs. 9) was no true atonement, no propitiation before the throne of divine and immutable justice.
How suitable his query: “Wherewith?”
How can I be saved? How? Yes, how? Clearly I cannot save myself. It is a most blessed thing when a man has made that discovery. He is a sinner; he is guilty; he has no strength; nor hope in himself; a past as black as hell convicts him; a future, shrouded by despair, fills him with terror; whither can he flee? The grave of a suicide would be no true relief. What can he do?
“Wherewith,” he cries, “shall I come before the Lord?”
The thrice-blessed answer to this most appropriate cry of the poor guilty human heart is given by God Himself—the God whose throne of burning holiness has been offended by the sins of men; and a wonderful answer it is.
If man’s first begotten could not avail for his transgression, God’s “only begotten” has by His atoning death, under the stroke of judgment, proved all-availing.
“God so loved the world” [think of that] “that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)). Hallelujah! “With God all things are possible!” In this marvelous gift we meet God’s mighty “wherewith” —His infinite Resource—His own perfect Provision—to meet all His claims on the one hand, and all the cravings and difficulties of the poor helpless, hopeless, undone sinner on the other.
“The blood of the cross” has accomplished what “ten thousands of rivers of oil” could never do. The virtue of “the blood of the Lamb” is infinite.
The believer can sing:—
“Thus while His death my sin displays
In all its blackest hue,
Such is the mystery of grace
It seals my pardon too.”
J. W. S.