ABOUT two years ago, when I was coming out of a preaching service, I saw an old man looking very unhappy. So I said, “My friend, you are not happy.”
“No,” he replied, “I am not.”
I added, “You are not saved.”
“No,” he said, “I have been praying for it for twenty years.”
“What!” I said; “praying for it for twenty years! Let me tell you a story, for you remind me of the circumstance:
“I saw a gentleman the other day who was paralyzed on one side, and was wheeled about in a Bath chair. As he was out one day he saw a poor man sitting by the roadside, afflicted in the same manner and calling out ‘Oh, for God’s sake, give me a ha’p’ny!’ The rich man told his servant to wheel him over to the poor man. He did so, and the gentleman held out half-a-crown to the beggar. But the man still kept crying, ‘Oh, for God’s sake, give me a ha’p’ny!’
“He was blind. The gentleman said, ‘Here my good fellow, is half-a-crown for you.’ But the man was deaf, and still he kept calling out for the halfpenny. The servant wheeled the gentleman nearer, and at last he made the poor man hear, and then he thankfully took the half-crown.
“Now, my dear friend, this is just what you are about. God is offering you salvation as a free gift through the blood of Jesus Christ; but instead of taking it, and thanking Him for it, and rejoicing in it, you keep on asking for it.”
“What!” said he, interrupting me, “can I have salvation without asking for it?”
“Of course you can,” I replied. “ ‘The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord’; and the thing to do with a gift is to take it, not to pray that you may have it. ‘He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.’”
“Oh, sir; I see it all now!” he exclaimed, and turned away comforted.